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B2B Lead Qualification- Your Lead Generation Campaign Effectiveness Monitoring Station

by: Neil

Your lead qualification process can be your first source of marketing and lead generation campaign effectiveness feedback if you have strong communication between those qualifying leads and those driving the sales lead generation campaigns. While it may not appear like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, believe it or not, your lead qualification team is in one of the best positions to view the effectiveness of the lead generation campaigns that have been executed.
We were doing a lead qualification campaign for a large, well known technology company who are constantly running a variety of business lead generation efforts by sponsoring events, participating in tradeshows and conferences. The leads collected by exchanging cards, registering for conferences, demos and so on go through a qualification process which helps identify the genuine leads which need to be expedited to sales, the cold leads which need to be weeded out and the leads which can be nurtured. A marketing or sales professional working on lead qualification is often the first person to connect with the leads after they are generated and in a position to get a feel of how the leads are reacting to the event which they attended and also get a feel of how they respond to a call from the company. This also puts them in the best position to gauge how effective the event or campaign was in generating awareness and also generating high quality responses. On this particular occasion we discovered the business leads were not very aware about the event, most were not very qualified at all and the response pointed out there was something amiss.
The feedback to marketing however revealed that this particular event didn’t work out quite as planned and the turn out / quality of leads wasn’t up to the mark either. The communication between lead qualification and marketing helped them come to a decision to not spend too much time on that set of leads and also to avoid using that event for future campaigns as it would simply be a waste. This communication between the two sides can really help bring valuable feedback to the table and help improve the lead generation process by detecting what works and what doesn’t at a much earlier stage. These kind of mistakes can be valuable in learning and fine tuning the lead generation machine as long as there is learning and something good comes out of it. Right?

How to Launch a Lead Generation Campaign

by: Athena Catedral

Before launching any lead generation campaign, make sure all involved teams are on board and on the same page. The goals should be clearly defined and applicable to the different parties. The strategies should be in place to effectively be geared toward this similar goal.

To start off, the campaign flow should be outlined carefully. Where does the process start and how will it end? How will you define its success or failure?

Correlate the promotional material, collateral to be used with the goals

If the goal is to increase leads online, then the promotional material will be correlated to this goal. Most if not all efforts will then be concentrated online. You can start with search engine optimization (to enhance sign ups via the website), email campaigns, online linking campaigns and even search engine marketing if you’ve got enough money to play with.

Identify different response mechanisms

How do you want people to respond to your business lead generation campaigns? Will there be a hotline number or do you want to course all campaign responses through your website or maybe a particular email address? These should be outlined carefully so your teams will be well-prepared to entertain in-coming prospects and follow through on possible sales. Having more response channels will be to your advantage, although tracking may become a challenge. Liaise with the different departments involved in making it work – those that will receive the clients by phone, email and website should align with the same spiel, the same offer.

Define the marketing message in line with the goal

Position the goal of your messages in the collateral in such a way that it will not be drowned by other content. Make this the focus of the entire piece. This should be the same for all pieces and for all sales lead generation campaigns if you’re doing multiple campaigns at the same time. Also ensure that everyone involved knows the marketing message – dissemination is key.

Ensure that the user makes the most of your campaign

For the lead generation services campaign to be effective, the user has to enjoy the experience. The campaign should be targeted enough to be appreciated by the right market. The flow of the campaign from ad to landing experience to response acceptance should be smooth and directed towards the goal. This will give your campaign a viral effect. People who appreciate how you’ve marketed your product will talk about it and spread the word. This is priceless marketing. And if you can get a reliable lead generation services provider who will take care of leads for you, you will really reap the rewards.

Once these steps are properly outlined, the campaign should be able to push through without a hitch. These are macro perspectives of any sales lead generation campaign and not designed to sweat the small stuff. But once these are in place, the details will fit perfectly like pieces in a puzzle.

Generating Leads through Per Inquiry Advertising

by Patricia Tunstall

Lead generation services use per inquiry media advertising to gain nationwide exposure for your product or service. Are you operating on a business budget that can’t pay for the exorbitant fees charged for spots on television stations? Lead generation services can get repeated airtime for your product on those very stations.

For a comparatively low cost, lead generation services can handle all your media needs for per inquiry advertising. If your ads lack pizazz, or you lack money, check out the benefits of direct response advertising using the per inquiry approach.

Never heard of per inquiry advertising? Simply put, it is prepaid airtime for commercials that are guaranteed a certain number of inquiries, or leads, from viewers or listeners–or you get a pro-rated refund of the marketing company’s commission! Rather than buying airtime for those out-of-sight charges for spots on TV and radio, you can look into the affordable world of business lead generation services.

Here’s how it works. A marketing company gets you airtime for your commercial; the media guarantee you a specified number of calls from interested parties. You determine what qualifies as an “inquiry.” Perhaps you want these potential customers to leave their names, addresses, and phone numbers. The parties are referred to your website or business after they call a toll-free number.

Marketing companies that handle per inquiry offer all-around support functions with lead generation services. If you know your business, but not much about advertising, these companies can handle every aspect of your campaign and your association with the media. These are professionals with experience in the development and production of commercials and in the logistics of conducting successful advertising operations.

Their highly-organized call centers deal with the details of setting up your toll-free number and answering the inquiries–leads–that come in. Fulfillment houses can take care of packaging and shipping your product or promotional materials. No matter how small or large your monthly shipping volume, and regardless of whether you receive orders via the Internet or phone, these fulfillment houses handle it all.

Buying airtime and advertising spots in the media is an expensive, hit-or-miss proposition because you’re never sure if your ad will be a hit or a clunker. For one thing, you are paying the high production costs of the TV station or network for their program. If you already have a prepared commercial, or if you prefer to have the marketing company produce one, you are cutting costs dramatically.

With sales lead generation services, you only pay for the actual leads, or inquiries, that come into the call center as a result of your ad. This is the no-risk part of this approach to product promotions. With reduced production costs, and per inquiry-only payment, you aren’t gambling–you’re making a smart move! Sound promising.

The Secrets To Sales Lead Generation Online

Generating a sales lead is a fundamental part of sales lead generation. A sales lead is not yet a sale. It is purely an indication that a potential customer has expressed an interest in your product. You now need to set about convincing them that you are the right business for them to buy from and that you will solve their problems.Most companies that buy in sales leads typically tend to approach a potential customer by selling to them. This is will not work in 99.9% of the time. The golden rule is to ensure you give value first then offer the lead an opportunity to think things over, then re approach them and offer them something of value to buy from you.

Remember that price is not everything. If you offer services, reviews, help and advice that your competitor doesn’t then you need to make this clear to your customer. A great way to do this is to offer your sales lead a special report. This report will contain all the vital information about buying from you and also give them plenty of practical and helpful advice about what to look for, what to choose, and how to get the best out of the product.

The simple way to write a special report is to write down five things that are unique about your product or service. You can then expand on this by adding some general observations about what your competitors are not doing and you are. Once you have this complete you will need to decide on a title. I would recommend naming the report “Five Secrets To….” This type of title gets the interest of the visitor and is likely that they will take action and sign up for your report.  Simple. You now just have developed your own sales lead!

This method warms the sales lead up from just a lead to a probable sale. With technology today it is simple to put this entire business lead generation process on autopilot using an auto responder. The auto responder will send out messages or reports in the order you select without you lifting a finger 24/7 365 days a year.

You want to look professional in the eyes of your potential sales lead so need should invest in one of the many auto responder services there are on the market. There are those that are cheap and deliver messages promptly and professionally. They also allow you to add custom fields to collect more data about you sales lead on the name capture page that you need to create for your website.

How does your website currently generate sales leads? Chances are you have a simple contact us or request for more information form that you get visitors to use. If you are using this you need to change the way you capture data to ensure your website generates the right type of sales leads you need.

It is vital that you place your lead generation services form on the main page of entry; this is usually your index or home page. By doing this you are filtering the visitors to see their level of interest. We want to find the visitors who are interested in learning more about us, our product and how we can help them. If we do not capture their attention then we know that they will visit another site, as we have not satisfied their needs.

Business lead generation is a cost effective way to improve your website and turn your business into a 24 hour marketing machine for your business. Use auto responders to capture full sets of visitor data to ensure your online sales lead generation is high profitable and successful.

The best thing about this method is that whilst it might take some time to set up the auto responder, write the report and convert it to a pdf, it will work for you forever developing sales leads into sales using this simple yet powerful tactic for your lead generation campaigns.