Toheed Shaikh

A good lead generation process has several moving parts, all of which are required to attract the best, nurture, and convert leads into customers. As a B2B marketer, you will need to be open-minded about the assumptions on how best to execute your lead generation process and be willing to try new approaches and ideas. As the marketplace changes, so do your customers and leads. B2B marketers need to evolve their content and strategy continually. Lead generation is all about building trust with your audience and educating them about your industry and offerings along the way. Stage 1. Planning and Analysis 1) Potential Clients Analysis While an ideal customer profile is a map for discovering leads, targeting those leads with a buyer persona is an instruction. It comprises comprehensive psychological traits, buyer behavior, social habits, and the potential customer’s professional experience. 2) Define a Timeline Marketers should figure out the deadlines for their lead generation campaign. A launch date should be set along with how long the campaign will be carried out. While on the topic of timing, marketers can also decide on the cadence and frequency of their e-mail campaigns. 3) Choose the tools The most important aspect of the lead generation process is CRM. Also, marketers should define which lead generation tool or software they’ll use, apart from a CRM. It can be a call, e-mail, or a social-media oriented one. 4) Plan Meticulously Defining the goals of the lead generation process is very important. What will the SDRs be responsible for? Qualified leads, appointments, or both? Next, weekly or monthly quotas for the sales reps should be decided. These benchmarks help motivate, regulate, and, most importantly, be real to achieve the targets set. Stage 2. Message Messages that go in the lead generation process are used in multiple channels. A good copy should answer these questions for the person that sees the company name for the very first time: Why me, why this product/service, and why now? The copy must be in compliance with the buyer persona, short, simple, and most importantly, human. Personalization is essential to make messages feel personally crafted. It increases the response rate. It takes about 5-15 minutes for an experienced sales development representative to look for a specific piece of information about a lead and five to thirty minutes to write a personalized message based on it. Ending with a strong Call to Action (CTA) embedded with a landing page link. This landing page comprises everything a lead has to know, with one more CTA waiting for him. Stage 3. Landing Pages During the lead generation process, landing pages can be utilized at least two times: to create the e-mail copy & to create pre-targeting ads A landing page with a definite objective is crucial to enable the desired action. For instance, set a discovery call or collect contact information. So why should marketers use landing pages instead of links to their website? The website comprises a lot of information and various CTAs. The landing page emphasizes one action and removes all the other distracting factors. Similarly, it allows marketers to segment the buyers into micro-groups and send a highly targeted message. To create a useful landing page, marketers have to make sure these are included: Clear headline Custom CTA Responsive and relevant design Stage 4. Phone Calling and E-mail Sequences These 2 stages of the lead generation process are integrated because, most often, they happen simultaneously. Marketers should start the calls straight after the first wave of e-mails. 1) Check, Research, Upload The leads are usually handpicked by the company’s researchers and handed over to the sales development representatives. If the lead flow is significant, one or two unfit leads may slip through, so marketers should check again. Then, sales development representatives look for information on leads that can be used as a personalization point. Later, when everything looks OK, the leads are ready to be uploaded to the CRM. 2) Send, handle, follow-up Before pressing send, sales development representatives segregate and group contacts by the time zones. This way, marketers’ first sales pitch arrives at the most appropriate time possible. A CRM comes in handy here. For instance, in Hubspot, marketers can set the time and day of delivery for any group of leads. 3) Prioritize, call, qualify Cold calling is a highly effective lead generation technique, particularly when combined with cold e-mailing. After the first e-mail is sent, a CRM shows if the e-mail was opened, the number of times it was viewed, and if the links inside were clicked. This information gives sales development representatives an idea about who to call first. A lead that shows more activity must be in the call priority list compared to the one that hasn’t shown any action and hasn’t opened up the e-mail at all. Stage 5. Reporting Marketers must have noticed that reporting is present at almost every stage of a lead generation process. It’s good to fill in the stats along the way to have a detailed report at this stage. The general report includes: Researched leads Time used upon research and average time per one prospect E-mail templates Sent e-mails E-mails that are bounced Auto-replies E-mails opened + open rate Rate of opened e-mails per sequence E-mails that have never been opened + rate “Unsubscribe me” requests Positive responses + rate Negative responses other than “unsubscribe” + rate Follow-ups + time necessary to write them Calls + average time Stage 6. Planning and Analysis Stage 6 is a repetition of the first, and from there, the cycle starts once again. This process might seem like a circle, but in reality, it’s a spiral. Marketers should go through their marketing and sales KPIs, needs in additional recruitment, and strategies that worked or didn’t work. Analyze, plan, and improvise. That’s the lead gen process continuously moving forward. And just like a spiral, it can become wider or narrower. It’s up to marketers if it grows or shrinks and in the

All that hard work to gather warm leads that aren’t just random potential buyers. It takes strategy and diligence to grab their attention, provide value, and prove that your brand will solve their pain points. Generating high-quality leads is the mainstay of a good B2B marketing plan. So, establishing a robust pipeline is imperative to ensure your business maintains a steady growth rate. Businesses are always looking for exciting and innovative ways to generate quality leads. In order to generate qualified leads, you need to offer up quality content. Give those top-of-funnel leads something that’ll educate, entertain, inform, or inspire, and soon you’ll be overwhelmed with too many leads. And now let’s take a deep dive into the top 4 lead generation marketing trends of 2021: 1. Hyper-personalized outreach with buyer intent data B2B marketing is equipped to identify and attract qualified leads. Sales procure specific insights needed to tailor messaging to different decision-makers with different priorities. For instance, you might consider creating a personalized sales video that mentions how your business can help grow, or you might host a demo addressing specific challenges the prospects face.   2. Conquer with Automation Automation streamlines your lead generation process and takes your efforts to altogether new heights. Automating the steps and workflows in the lead generation process allows you to connect with targeted prospects. It saves a significant amount of time that can be leveraged to find and interact with potential prospects. Sales teams need to leverage automation for tasks that can be easily automated. They spend more time on high-value tasks: listening intently to their prospects, identifying their pain points, and working together to resolve their business challenges. Machine learning and AI have made automation more human and effective. 3. Optimize your website to promote lead magnets To generate more high-quality leads, make sure your website visitors can easily find your lead magnets. Develop and design on-site funnels that segment your audience and drive them towards the lead magnets most likely to resonate with your prospect’s pain points and interests. You can do this by promoting your lead magnets around the website. By highlighting it as the primary homepage call to action (CTA) By promoting relevant lead magnets at the end of blogs and other pages By using a lead generation pop-up By creating a resource library filled with gated content 4.  Target top-of-the Funnel Keywords In order to attract targeted prospects and drive them towards your lead magnets, create a plan to target the terms they’re more likely to look for. Keyword research helps discover words and phrases your ideal prospects search for at the top of the purchase funnel. Then, target those keywords in the following way: Create content that can be optimized for the target terminology Develop a blog strategy around the target keywords and phrases Target terms in pay-per-click marketing for better online visibility Follow best practices for SEO to further your chances of ranking up on page one. The more visible you’re in search, the more interest and traffic you’ll generate from potential leads. 5. Target with Account-based Marketing ABM concentrates on a set of target accounts- this strategy for growth strategy focuses on classifying best-fit leads and customizing personalized campaigns for specific accounts. The bottom line is ABM delivers results. It focuses sales and marketing resources on a set of target accounts and high-value customers. Research has shown correlations with a great return on investment. Personalized content translates into increased engagements resulting in high ROI. Wrapping Up So are you ready to take the big lead? There are different ways to generate leads, including more tried and trusted methods. You can always host a webinar, offer a free ebook download, or buy ads on social media. However, converting leads into customers and creating effective and valuable content are central peaks that every marketer has to climb. One thing’s for sure, generating high-quality leads takes the cake. Lead generation marketing trends come and go. Your ability to go with the flow, innovate, update and continually work to optimize experiences thoughtfully is what will keep you in the lead!