At the heart of every successful and growing business is a lead generation strategy that’s proactive and forward thinking. If you feel like your lead generation strategy has dried up or become obsolete, it’s time to reimagine what it could be.
4 Tips to Put Into Action
Lead generation – i.e. the process of engaging prospective customers, gathering their information, and exposing them to your brand – is a costly and time-consuming process that’s half art, half science. It requires a certain amount of technical knowledge, as well as a feel for what works.
While lead generation strategies are sometimes used in B2C businesses with high-end products and services, they’re predominantly implemented in B2B situations.
According to research from Corporate Executive Board, 57 percent of an average purchase decision is made before a prospect ever talks to a supplier. If you want your business to be as competitive as possible, an optimized lead strategy is the way to go.
Here are some expert suggestions and proven tidbits that can take your lead generation efforts to the next echelon:
- Choose the Right Lead Gen Software
The intricacies of modern lead generation are such that it’s nearly impossible for a business to manually address the finer aspects without a streamlined solution to save time and promote accuracy. Enter lead generation software.
Lead generation software is designed to automate some of the mundane processes that trip up businesses and stunt sales performance and execution. Platforms like Jumplead give businesses the ability to combine marketing and lead generation efforts – essentially putting things on autopilot so that sales reps can spend their time where it’s needed most: interacting with qualified prospects.
Spend time researching your options and find a lead generation software solution that fits your specific needs and sensitivities. There are lots of options, but only a few that live up to their promises.
- Perfect Your Content Strategy
Everyone wants to talk about turning prospects into customers with a strong closing sales pitch, but too much emphasis on the culmination of the process will prevent you from focusing on the meat and potatoes. Before you can close, you have to educate. And proper education happens through strategic content creation and distribution.
“The most effective way for marketing to drive stellar leads for sales is to deliver the right content to the right prospect at the right time,” B2B marketing insider Michael Brenner writes. “Mapping content to the buyer journey and then delivering it to the right prospects is the best way to drive effective sales-ready leads without wasting your sales’ teams time and you company’s money.”
Before doing anything else, be sure your content strategy is properly aligned with your lead generation efforts and underlying sales strategy. Any disconnect will result in wasted resources.
- Capture as Much Information as Possible
While you want to be sure you’re gathering qualified leads, it’s important that you’re capturing as much information as you possibly can on prospects. There are hundreds of ways to collect information, but try to focus on the ones you have some control over.
Your website, for example, has the potential for powerful data. You can use forms to capture lead information, utilize interactive content to encourage people to provide information, and even study website analytics to gather big picture details on your visitors.
- Track Your Results
Don’t let your team spin their wheels. It’s important to have a system in place for tracking your lead generation efforts and analyzing the results. This will help you understand whether you’re just collecting mounds of information, or if you’re actually engaging with qualified leads who are moving down a path towards conversion.
Give Your Lead Generation Efforts a Jolt
Lead generation is nothing to take lightly. While you may feel like your current strategy is doing an adequate job of driving business – adequate isn’t a word you should be comfortable with. Your lead generation efforts need to be characterized by words like remarkable or exceptional. And until you’re comfortable using descriptors like these, there’s still work to be done. Spend some time figuring out which changes you can make moving forward. The answers may surprise you.
