5 Ways to Improve Your Lead Generation Marketing
Marketing to generate interest in your product or service can take on countless forms: online content, contests, surveys, social media interaction, emails and more. According to DM News, the three most commonly used B2B lead generation strategies are email marketing (78%), event marketing (73%) and content marketing (67%).
When done properly with the right sales enablement tools, lead generation marketing can also help the marketing and sales teams work together seamlessly, saving time and money.
Both outbound and inbound lead generation marketing are important, though inbound lead generation marketing tends to hold more advantages. First, inbound leads cost less. According to Hubspot, outbound leads cost 39% more, on average. But there are some types of inbound lead generation marketing that are even more cost-effective compared to outbound marketing.
Content marketing, for example, generates three times as many prospects as outbound marketing but costs 62% less, according to Strategic. That’s not to say that outbound lead generation marketing doesn’t have its place. In fact, Hubspot’s 2018 “State of Inbound” report found that 16% of marketers still cite outbound practices as providing the highest quality leads for sales. But that does make you wonder: are they doing inbound marketing correctly?
To find out how to improve your own lead generation marketing — both inbound and outbound — check out these four tips.
1. Identify what a good lead is for your sales reps
Before you start beefing up your lead generation marketing efforts and investing in sales enablement tools, you’ll need to define what a qualified lead is so both your marketing and sales teams are in agreement. After all, a qualified lead might be different depending on a person’s role and perspective.
Consider a social media manager who thinks his marketing efforts are generating hot leads while the sales reps find them to be duds. Without feedback on what is a good lead, how can the marketing team know to adjust its lead generation techniques?
Make sure there’s open and regular communication between marketing and sales to ensure everyone understand what constitutes a good lead. Your CRM may also provide some insight into what makes a good lead. DM News reports that 84% of companies believe a CRM system is beneficial in determining the quality of leads.
2. Audit your current processes
How is your marketing team currently generating leads? Which methods are most effective? Which have the best ROI? Measuring your lead generation marketing results and evaluating processes and current sales enablement tools is the only way to know what’s working and what’s a waste of time.
Although every business and industry is different, you can take a cue from other successful companies’ lead generation efforts. Here are a few of the most effective techniques:
• Blogging: Hubspot reports that businesses that blog have 126% higher lead growth than those who don’t.
• Social media: Social Media Manager found that by spending just six hours per week on social media marketing, 66% of marketers saw lead generation benefits.
• Videos: Vidyard cites videos as being more effective than other content for converting users to qualified leads by 70% of B2B marketers.
• Strategic landing pages: Marketo reports that 68% of B2B businesses use these customized pages to acquire leads.
• Events and trade shows: CMO Council & Exhibit & Event Marketers Association found that 64% of event marketers say trade shows and events are most often used as sources of new prospects and business opportunities.
Not sure your marketing team has the know-how, time or resources to pull-off the lead generation quality and quantity you need? There’s always outsourcing. Customer Think reported that lead generation outsourcing is 43% more efficient than generating leads in-house due to their level of expertise.
3. Consider tools to help
Lead generation shouldn’t be relegated to sales reps surfing LinkedIn for hours. By using better, more targeted sales enablement tools, you can drum up leads faster, for less money and with integration into your current CRM and other platforms.
There are so many sales enablement tools that can help with lead generation that it can feel overwhelming to try to choose which ones are worth looking at and investing in. Once you evaluate your current procedures and determine where you have holes in lead generation efficiency and effectiveness, you can begin to determine which sales enablement tools can pick up the slack to increase your lead generation. Here are some to consider:
• Lead Forensics: This tool uses the IP address of a website visitor to tell you which companies are visiting your site.
• Qualaroo: Offer website visitors these mini surveys to find out what they’d like to do next (e.g., start a free trial, schedule a live demo, read more about the product, call the company).
• Leadformly: If you haven’t optimized your lead generation forms to be high converting, this tool can help.
• Unbounce: This platform lets you use simple drag-and-drop builder (or pre-built templates) to create custom landing pages. Unbounce also offers A/B testing and opt-in pop-ups.
• SharpSpring: Functioning as a one-stop shop, this platform offers email marketing and automation, lead scoring and lead management.
• Vyper: Create contests that go viral by giving entrants more chances to win by filling out a form, referring a friend or following your brand on social media.
4. Use video to convert leads
Part of your lead generating process should involve rich media like images and videos, which help draw the attention of potential customers. A digital advertising campaign is essential for any marketing strategy, and these days this often means a visually enticing and interactive experience.
To help engage your audience, you can integrate an html5 video player into your website and applications. All major browsers support the html5 <video> tag, so it is definitely a useful tool.
5. Implement new plans slowly
As tempting as it may be to implement multiple sales enablement tools and new lead generation marketing as you discover solutions, too many changes at once can backfire.
Your best bet is to ensure everyone is on board with the improvements and properly trained, and that any changes are made slowly and correctly. A rushed transition can jeopardize procedures and data, putting you in a worse position than you were before your discoveries.
Improve your lead generation marketing by reviewing your current processes, getting your marketing and sales teams in agreement on what’s a good lead and implementing sales enablement tools for lead generation that can make your team more effective and efficient in a way that’s not disruptive to your team or your business.
Wrap Up
With the growth of consumption and online traffic, there are many opportunities for retailers, eCommerce stores and other businesses, including both for B2B and B2C marketing. However, with the number of businesses competing for their share of the market, it is essential to stay ahead of the game with a properly formed strategy for generating leads.
To help push your marketing efforts forward, you can take a number of measures such as ensuring your marketing and sales teams are in sync regarding what qualifies as a good lead; auditing your marketing activities; soliciting the help of sales enablement tools; incorporating multimedia into your website and applications; and planning a slow and steady implementation of your overall strategy.
