The role of leads in business is simple, as David Burrows, planner at TDA puts it, “Leads make sales, and sales make money. Leads are therefore the lifeblood of business, particularly in B2B.” However, the prospect-to-purchase process takes skill and patience.
Leads are accumulated in two ways. Either businesses publicise their message to the world via advertising or a website and then wait for people to get back to them, or they make a list of businesses likely to need their product/services and take the initiative of making contact. Most businesses do both, yet choosing the most successful method of generating leads relies as much on the character of the target business as it does on the product/service being sold.
As B2B marketers are well aware, persuading a business to buy is much more complex than persuading a consumer to buy. There are line managers who shortlist products with the right functional attributes; there are senior managers or directors who ensure that shortlisted products fit the wider company strategy; and there are budget holders to persuade and board-level people. Marketers may need to persuade many contacts at different levels within target businesses before they can involve the sales team.
The term ‘lead’ is used too imprecisely,î comments Jaakko Alanko, managing director of McCann Erikson Business Communications. ìIt’s a process by which prospects go through a lot of stages: at first they are unaware of the company/brand, then they hear of them, begin to be interested, start responding and become a possible customer that turns into a hot lead.î Recently the term ‘demand generation’ has begun to be used to describe the nurturing of leads over time ñ particularly in the business-to-business market.
Demand generation requires businesses to be flexible in the way they handle responses and enquiries. Drew Nicholson, joint managing director of DNX says: “Response is the reason for the activity, so once you get a response you should make sure that it’s handled well.” Exactly how the response is made depends on where the prospect is in the generation process, and what they ask for. As Burrows of TDA says: “A DM pack might prompt a website visit. The website visit might request an email. The email might be followed by a phone call. The phone call could lead to a meeting and so on.”
Prospects request different levels of information – broad enquiries, followed by increasingly searching questions – according to where they are in the buying cycle. The lead generation strategy therefore needs to be able to identify just how hot a lead is. Marketers need to be able to understand and record prospect information and keep enquirers ‘warm’ in the months when they aren’t ready to buy. Many companies have developed techniques, such as email newsletters, to keep in contact.
Different strokes for different…
Strategies for generating leads should vary, depending on the product or service they are applying it to. Businesses familiar with a company’s products/services are easier targets; prior knowledge provides a certain stature in the marketplace, which makes it easier to create leads. For large high-value contracts, companies might send an expensive and bespoke mailing package just to attract attention and set up a meeting, or they might invite prospects to an exclusive seminar with industry experts.
Direct mail is traditionally very successful in generating leads. Mark Organ, CEO at Eloqua, explains: “Using personalised URLs and digital printing, marketers can create completely tailored landing pages for each DM piece. This kind of personalisation can yield spectacular results; we’ve seen response and conversion rates increase by 200-300 per cent over average DM results.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests that generating leads solely by ‘cold calling’ telemarketing is not very successful, but that campaigns followed by telemarketing have much greater success than either alone. In the B2B arena, those contacted are business decision makers, so telemarketers must have commercial experience and be prepared to have unscripted conversations to answer the prospect’s questions and make enquiries about requirements. Niall Habba, managing director at The Telemarketing Company, comments: “Telemarketing shouldn’t be intrusive if used responsibly. We use highly-skilled staff and get 1:4 to 1:6 conversion rates, ie. 20-25 per cent of our calls request further information or a sales person’s visit.”
Meet and greet
Events continue to be a hugely successful method of lead generation, providing marketers choose with care which they attend. Events are important because they change the business relationship, from one based purely on facts, to one that includes a personal element. Confidence in the company and brand is created by the size and appearance of the stand and the professionalism of those manning it.
Interactive elements and samples introduce new products, while discussions are possible with more than one expert and appointments made for further debate as necessary. Alanko of McCann Erikson sums it up: “Events can be a fantastically economical way of generating leads. You can even create your own roadshows; it’s labour intensive but can pay off.”
The main problem with events is that, as Organ of Eloqua says: “few of the leads generated are properly qualified, distributed and followed up. Market research company, Sirius Decisions recently found that only six per cent of leads generated from events are actually pursued by sales.”
Digital lead generation is the newest tool available for lead generation and is being developed most quickly. It has several advantages – not least because it’s immediate and trackable. Organ adds, “Internet-enabled tools and processes allow businesses automatically to sense the interest level and needs of a prospect using the web and then instantly provide an appropriate response.”
Keeping sales in the loop
Many marketers still plan the campaign without the involvement of the sales personnel and only inform them once everything is underway. In these instances the attitude of the sales team is going to be much less positive than if they’d been involved ñ or at least informed ñ from the beginning. For the most efficient results, the entire campaign should be planned with the co-operation of sales so that everyone knows what elements have led to the leads, what steps have been taken to answer the customers’ enquiries and what they expect.
Leads should be checked before they’re handed to sales. Experian has launched the credit scoring service Commercial Delphi, which allows businesses to check the credit worthiness of prospect companies. There are also several automated lead scoring processes in digital marketing platforms. They evaluate prospect activity – such as website visits – and assign them an interest value or score; marketers can then concentrate on nurturing the highest scoring and therefore the most likely leads.
Offline, marketers should check budget, authority, need and timescale in their prospective leads. Sending poor quality leads to the sales team can result in the loss of marketing credibility, sales inefficiencies and missed revenue. Marketers should support the sales process; if leads that looked hot then turned cool, marketers should resume responsibility and nurture them until they are reactived again.
Businesses spend a lot of money and create multi-element campaigns to attract customers, but in the B2B arena, marketing is about building long-term relationships with customers. The two ways to increase sales are increased penetration and increased frequency.
Marketers are part of the cycle of converting prospects to customers but also of increasing what and how frequently customers buy. They must therefore be part of the relationship beyond the initial conversion. With the future of the business riding on their work, marketers should not leave anything to chance.
