In today’s world people are using the Internet to research and get smart even before they are willing to see a sales rep.
It is therefore of the utmost importance that a B2B marketer is using all tools at his/her disposal to educate the market in the early stages of the buying cycle. Doing so, should enable you to influence your target market based on your strengths. The prospect should seek your leadership by the time they’re willing to see a sales rep.
Being top of mind and perceived as being ‘different’ requires lead nurturing in which the Internet plays an important role.
Your website needs to combine the following:
- of course the traditional features and benefits but also deliver pain-based an educational content
- explain the impact of your solution and the capabilities it will enable for the customer
- explain the problem and capabilities looked from the different impacted roles in a organization. Have a look at the Protime (HR solution) website to see an example of role-based information
- the ‘about us’ should include the value proposition to your specific targeted market
- use compelling personalized landing pages in combination with email marketing in order to attract traffic to your website.
People will stay longer on your website, visit more pages and support your queeste to be perceived as a thought leader.
2 final notes:
- Use search engine optimization in order for prospects to find your content via search engines
- Make sure you balance the goal of capturing contact information and the risk of capturing up to 75% less registrations. So ask only the ‘really’ necessary information. You should also give the basic information without registration in order to allow search engines to find your content.
The lack of communication and Sales-Marketing alignment sounds like kicking in an open door. Yet, once more, I tumbled on the same problem when investigating lead generation issues with a customer.
2 immediate problems jumped out:
- Different metrics: Marketing had a lead gen KPI and Sales a conversion KPI. Both in itself good metrics’s but meaningless if measured in a separate way.
- Sales and Marketing were using a different definition for ‘a lead’
Here are some tips to improve the lead conversion rates:
- Write a common definition (universal lead definition) for ‘a lead’ and make sure it’s known by all concerned.
- define a process describing ‘who does what’ and ‘what needs to be reported’ to one another.
- Make sure Marketing talks to Regional and Country Sales about their lead generation programs prior to decisions. This allows the creation of an integrated approach and making sure Sales will be ready with an adapted approach to be part of the process.
- Define a common dashboard to track the results and attack funnel frictions from a corporate point of view instead of departmental.
- Implement a process and reporting mechanism based on the readiness to buy, such as the buying clock™, instead of a process based on steps already taken.
- Make sure that sales is using the same buying cycle mechanism for their forecast and plan of actions. It will allow them to
- Be focused on the customer and adapt their next step accordingly, instead of following a pre-defined series of steps;
- Adapt their next step in function of buying readiness of each individual person involved in the decision making process;
- Get all their contacts synchronized avoiding them to be the reason for complications (i.e. a DMU member you didn’t meet yet who becomes a non-supporter because of some wording or content in a proposal that was send too early in the overall buying cycle);
- Avoid doing the right type of action at the wrong time and maybe the wrong contact.
The Buying-Clock is based on the mental phases a buyer is going through from happy user over admitting pain all they to buying, implementing and using a new solution. The 24 hour of a clock represents a full cycle .
Stay tuned over the next coming weeks for more sales efficiency and demand generation tips.
A lot of books and blog posts have been written on the importance of implementing a universal lead definition. Yet, it’s not evident to find a ‘how to’ build one.
Discuss and take the decision with the involvement of people from sales, marketing and management to come up with your specific universal lead definition. A good universal lead definition should consist of 5 levels. Example:
Level 1:
A response from an individual to a marketing campaign or someone who has taken proactive steps to demonstrate interest in your message or solution.
Level 2:
A meaningful interaction (phone or e-mail) with an individual meeting the requirements of a fully qualified company. Thus the company belonging to one of your market segments.
Level 3:
Level 2 + the individual demonstrates a specific need for, and interest in, your offering.
Level 4:
Level 3 + the individual is in the process of defining requirements for a solution such as you can offer.
Level 5:
Level 4 + the individual is a key-contact in the decision making process. Add Buying-Clock™ time past 6 o’clock for those people already using the Buying-Clock.
I deliberately did not mention a defined timeline for the purchase and budget availability in level 5 as these are part of long debates in companies when going thru the process of building a universal lead definition. There is no need for those 2 elements, in my point of view, as long as the key-contact admits a pain (problem) on KPI level. (i.e. VP marketing: too low ROI on marketing investments) This is the definition of 6 o’clock on the Buying-Clock. The mental buying phase should be the key driver in deciding next steps. Elements such a strategic account or not, size of the company and type of solution will determine whether or not it is time to have a meeting with a sales rep. This type of lead allows you to have a pro-active approach and influence the requirements before the market research phase is started. This is the moment when the key-contact has a budget available and will start contacting multiple vendors for comparison.
Good luck in your process of defining and implementing a universal lead definition. Remember to make sure that the lead definition is well communicated to all concerned.
