Developing a list of sales leads is the first phase in any sales process. Equipping yourself with the right data can help you to generate profitable sales leads for your business, whether they’re across town or further afield.
Strong leads will increase sales and boost response rates for your direct marketing efforts. In the past, the direct mail activity of many businesses may have been a leaflet door drop en masse to everyone in the vicinity of their business. As with any targeted marketing campaign, whether it is through direct mail, telemarketing or any other channel, it is the data that differentiates junk from effective direct marketing. Lists that target the best B2B prospects for your products or services are paramount.
Although lead generation itself is not a new function for marketers, the face of it has certainly changed significantly over the last 10 years.
Lead success for SMEs
SMEs have always had a strong presence in this area. The need to proactively and physically search out new leads has been a vital factor in the success of many smaller businesses. They rely on strong pre-sales activity to generate leads such as getting feet in doors, arranging face-to-face meetings and proactively spreading the word of their offerings.
While lead generation has now moved from small companies into the mid-market, and businesses of this size are focusing more of their efforts in this area, larger companies are also beginning to reap the benefits of a more targeted and strategic approach to sourcing new business.
New way of doing business
For too long many businesses have relied on word-of-mouth and reputation to precede them and generate business. Since the recession hit, UK businesses have had to change and adapt to unprecedented circumstances. As a result, there has been a shift in the way people do business and the whole approach has changed. Time is money, and time spared talking to sales people is certainly harder to come by in the current climate.
Many companies today are adopting strict ‘no-name’ policies, where receptionists and other front-of-house staff refuse to give name or contact details of decision makers. Today’s gatekeepers are more savvy and do not suffer amateur lead hunters gladly. For this reason, companies that are seeking to generate leads are, in turn, having to become more savvy in not only ensuring they are correct in who they are targeting, but also how they target them and what they are approaching them with.
This is why specialist lead generation agencies are being deployed more and more as the middle men in the information sourcing process and proving more popular than ever. Companies are realising that this is not a simple procedure and time, effort and experience needs to be invested before a sales person can even think about picking up the phone to a potential client.
Third party help versus DIY
There are now many third-party companies that specialise in keeping abreast of the information trail about who the current decision makers are within the businesses you are targeting. Other extras, such as telephone based support for the sales team to keep track of slow, stalled or longer term opportunities, are also available as outside help if it is deemed more cost effective than creating those departments in-house.
However, many companies would prefer to keep on top of their lead generation needs themselves and feedback from many businesses has been the importance of software that enables them to access unique data insight easily and to perform new business activity themselves. But again it is important to stress that from the initial list building – to more in-depth and detailed analytics on the needs and financial restraints of prospective leads – clean and accurate data is king.
The foundation for any successful direct mail or email marketing campaign has to be good quality data. Without this, what are the chances of effectively targeting the right people with the right message? Even the best top of the range software is only as good as the data it holds.
Carrying on the momentum
Market on the back of poor B2B data in good times and you risk not making the most of your marketing budgets and running into the odd bad debt. Get it wrong in bad times and the results can be catastrophic for your business.
It is imperative that once this hard work has been done, momentum carries on and the lead is nurtured. Before new business lead generation procedures even begin, the sales and support teams (whether in-house or externally) must be in place to cater for the clients if they are receptive to your offerings.
Sales efforts should continue for the duration of a relationship with a client. A lead continues to be a lead even if they become a client as their needs may change over time. Opportunities for more business may be created as a result. Never stop nurturing a lead as it is relationship building that is key to longevity and brand loyalty.
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