London Research Director, Linus Gregoriadis, recently spoke about the key attributes for B2B online lead generation success. In this webinar, he touched on best practices for online lead generation, and how industry leaders are managing to drive high volumes of quality sales leads. Here is a brief overview of what he focused on in his talk, along with our own observations as a company specialising in Online B2B Sales Lead Generation.
1. A Good B2B Online Lead Generation Campaign Definitely Delivers Measurable Results
Online lead generation is an absolutely vital component of B2B digital marketing that allows companies to transform prospective customers into buyers or partners. This concept is currently massively thriving as it successfully leads to tangible results.
By 2020, 50% of marketers are expected to increase their budgets for online lead generation. Companies who do not directly invest in this strategy will be depriving their Sales Teams of much needed fresh sales leads and lose out to their competitors.
2. Measuring success and ROI is a key challenge – but is actually easy if everything is set up and implemented correctly.
Measuring success from online lead generation can be difficult if everything isn’t set up correctly to track and measure. More than 50% of companies say they are struggling to understand ROI based on sales data (ie closed sales from new customers).
This absolutely should not be the case, as it is easier now more than ever by utilising tracking tools on your website, website landing pages, click thru analytic tools from your Mobile Website and then setting up your Sales CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software to track the inbound individual sales leads from a Search on Google to your website; or a View through one of your Social Channels.
If you can clearly determine a lead generated online from other sales, then you will be able to measure your ROI and make decisions on where best to focus ongoing and future B2B Online Sales Lead Generation Activities. Once you can measure your success from online lead generation, you will then see the full fiscal value and can justify spending more time and resources towards the strategy in acquiring new customers.
3. What Digital Activities & Channels Should You Be Considering?
Google Ads?
SEO?
LinkedIn?
Facebook?
Instagram?
Twitter?
Email Marketing?
Re-Marketing?
Content Marketing?
Organic Social?
Paid Social?
Our approach in Evolution Digital is that before you decide on what channels and activities you should work with; and what budget you should be making available, and also what resources you will need within your own Company to get a measurable return, is that you should go through a process of evaluation on your previous activities, current situation analysis and future plans and aspirations for your Company. Check out how many sales leads did you get that converted in business in the past, what was the fiscal value of this business and what did the ROI look like in Money Terms? Remember this is about Sales Lead Generation and not necessarily a Marketing Activity around brand awareness!
Based on this evaluation, then devise a strategy paying heed to your budget and resources; then implement it, measure results and do this on and ongoing basis. If you feel you have the skills and knowledge inhouse to do this, you should utilise this inhouse expertise and if not you should consider asking an expert Digital Agency to carry out this specific piece of analysis work for your Company before implementing any campaign or spending any budget.
Measure twice and cut once!
5. The Importance of Having a Balance Between Content Quality and Value
While many marketers are comfortable with content creation, many do not identify as advanced in this area. In order to have a successful content marketing strategy, you must find a balance between quality and value. Creating high quality content is important, but it is also necessary that this content delivers value as high quality content without value won’t drive traffic or capture leads. When you develop a successful piece of content with high value and quality, you will want to continue to repurpose it for different customer segments or indeed different Digital Channels. One of the most well known sayings is “Quality over Quantity”; and when it comes to content marketing, this is especially true. High quality content that delivers value will generate significantly more online leads than just constantly putting out content for the sake of having content!!
6. Collaboration between the Sales and Marketing Teams across your Company will increase chances of success.
In order to truly benefit from online lead generation, strong collaboration between your company’s sales and marketing teams is important. The sales team relies on the marketing team to provide strong leads, while the marketing team expects the sales team to follow up on these leads. If both teams are working harmoniously, they will be able to come together to gather maximum value from online lead generation. Obvious but it’s amazing how many Sales and Marketing Teams don’t work as well as they could and then the Company itself build’s strength by winning new business.
Conclusion
It is clear that B2B companies can greatly benefit from B2B online sales lead generation, but in order to do so, a successful strategy must be implemented, managed correctly and there are pre-set measurable KPI’s. If your company is willing to directly invest in the right areas, create valuable content, and learn how to measure success from these leads, then you will be able to maximise the obvious benefits from B2B online lead generation.
If you are looking to grow leads for business, make sure to Contact Us at Evolution Digital to organise a free consultation.
