Nice to see you, to see you… NICE! Most people grew up with this catchphrase and Bruce Forsyth’s endearing personality. Watching teams struggle with seemingly nonsense tasks was the key to a great night in. But, the days of pottery challenges and the conveyor belt are long gone. Or are they? There may not be cuddly toys involved, but there’s still a generation game taking place – the B2B lead generation game.

Some are better than others at this game, but ultimately it’s all about watching the experts and copying them as closely as possible. So, to help you practice the lead generation game, here’s a few challenges…

Challenge 1 – B2B marketing strategy

Start by working out your UKPIs (Unique Key Performance Indicators). These are typically your cost per lead and cost per sale targets. If your campaign’s results cannot work to these numbers then it needs to be re-thought and amended. Next, access all historical marketing data. Find out what worked and what didn’t… and why. What generated the best results and what failed to hit the mark? Going forward, you’ll now have a good idea what to plan in and what to avoid. The next step is to review the database and ensure the details are of a high quality. Duplicated contacts and incorrect information can dramatically reduce a campaign’s potential for success. Finally, analyse all previous communication channels used, and more specifically, the results they generated. Did email generate a good ROI? What about social media?

Having gathered all this priceless information, it’s time to create a comprehensive B2B marketing lead generation strategy. Look to duplicate previous successes by repeating the steps that worked. If LinkedIn failed to generate leads before, simply leave it out. Invest the marketing budget only in channels which are known to generate leads. This way, costs will be kept to a minimum, but returns will be maximised. 

Challenge 2 – Generating quality leads 

A key challenge for marketers is generating quality leads. Not just leads, but quality leads – there’s a key difference. A lead may be someone who has shown an interest in your company or product/service. However, a quality lead is someone with the need, the buying authority and the budget to actually convert to a sale. It doesn’t seem like a big problem – surely you simply ask all leads some qualifying questions, before passing them to sales. And yes, this would be right… but also time consuming. Generating quality leads doesn’t happen in the qualification stage, it happens way before that in the data segmentation and targeted messaging stage.

Ensuring that the database is segmented by decision-maker and by industry, it’s possible to create highly targeted and hugely personalised marketing messages for the campaign. This allows the marketers to get the right message, to the right people, at the right time. The outcome then is that instead of marketing to a wide target audience and trying to qualify every lead that shows interest, marketers can target their marketing almost directly to the people/businesses they want to work with. Now, when leads are generated, they are sure to be of a high quality and worth nurturing. 

Challenge 3 – Quantity of leads

This is a classic challenge and almost as well known as the Generation Game’s conveyor belt round. If generating quality leads isn’t the issue, then it’s like the quantity of leads that’s causing the problem. There always seems to be a toss-up between these two and usually one has to lose out – but not anymore. Challenges 1 and 2 have shown how to create a B2B marketing strategy and also how to generate quality leads, so the answer to challenge 3 is simply to keep doing 1 and 2. Historically, marketing agencies would create standalone campaigns that generated leads, but these would eventually dry up and run out. The secret to generating leads is to keep marketing consistent. Obviously budgets and resources are a determining factor in this continuous process, but that’s where a comprehensive strategy comes into play. Careful planning and effective implementation means more marketing can take place at a reduced cost. Targeting and segmenting the campaign also helps to ensure all activities are capable of returning solid ROI, and therefore no marketing budget is being wasted.

Didn’t they do well! 

 

To find out more about effective B2B marketing strategies and how to plan and implement them…