Today’s business
environment works solely on brand recognizition, recall by customers and sales
number. Marketers in B2B selling markets
often deal with the difficulty in generating leads and closing sales. In order
to address this challenge, marketers need to understand the mechanism to
increase their lead flow and also ensure the sales closure.
1. Generate More Leads:
Marketing
has a lot of vehicles added to play around to reach the prospects. To mention a
few of these tools- direct references, cold calling, website, mailers,
newsletters and ads. Each source yields a different quality of lead and also
the quantity of lead that flows into the system. B2B Lead generation companies
like ClientCurve help their clients by getting qualified appointments in the
form of demos, conference calls, direct face-to-face meetings, etc. Here goes
some of the ways to ensure smooth lead flow.
a) Right buyer profile (target market): You first need to know - Who
can be a customer? Who is the right person to talk to? Who will be the influencers
or decision makers and other parties directing the sales? Having this correct
means your campaign will get a right direction to move forward.
b) What
is Market doing?
Understand direct competition; take inputs from internal and external sources
to understand their success. Meetings with your presales team, sales team will
help you understand the reality of the market.
c) Right
content: Creative marketing agencies deal with
handling the content in various forms- eBook publishes, white papers, trade
show/conference presentations, website contents and webinars. Appropriate content
in the social media community, blog, video, LinkedIn, Slide share, etc. Maintaining
them with meaningful contributions and talking to prospects through these media
does improve upon the presence and lead flow.
2. Nurture
and Qualifying More Leads:
Sales
team is often focused on leads which are closing today but do not bother to
understand at times the ones that might be interested in the next 6 months or a
year. Companies like ClientCurve help their clients to handle the old leads by
nurturing them and understanding their business scenario.
a) Nurturing a lead is an art in itself:
Lead nurturing is a delicate phase and needs sharing information that is
appropriate and holds onto their interest as well. ClientCurve takes in a very systematic approach by developing on-going
marketing communications process with emails, newsletters and direct
calls to ensure that the customer remains informed and interested.
b) Customize
your communications:
Creating compelling content to communicate
built around each sales cycle stage and buyer profile helps in avoiding confusion
and helps you to stand out in the pack Systematic email and regular
update on the offers being given by your company may help you to be in the
recall of the prospect. The communication here is very targeted and focused.
3. Converting
more qualified leads:
Lead development to a qualified lead, which is almost
sales-ready, is not only crucial but also important as we wait for this to
convert to a revenue flow. Any sales rep would agree as to how difficult it is
to be able to handle the long built relation with the prospect and the urgency
to close the sale come to the threshold. It becomes important to determine what
works best to convert prospects. We can do this by communicating with the
prospect through direct calls, encouraging direct visits, mailers to keep
yourself in the loop as to the progress. Here two
things happen, prospect remembers you and recognizes your effort, second he now
is knowledgeable about your product to make a quick decision when the time
comes. It is with great patience and empathy that a sales rep needs to go to
further develop the lead to a closure.
