Why Does Networking Not Work With Lead Generation?

All right, when it comes to lead generation, part of the things that you have to do deals with creating business networks. The logic here is that, since you have connected with them, you can then go ahead and turn them into viable B2B leads. Unfortunately, that is not the way things usually go. In cases like these, it seems easy for you to look for ways to make it work. But really, while you may like to consider which of the myriad of networking solutions that are being offered, it is those that little problems in networking that you better know about. Avoid them, or address them, and you will be able to get better business results.

  

1.    These is not about the calling cards – a lot of marketers, whenever they go to networking events, or attend online forums, are there just to collect the calling cards of everyone who attended. That is a bad marketing move. The aim of such opportunities is to know more about people, not know more people. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time.

2.    Stop networking – more in the sense that you are there in that gathering because you want to answer a need of the other party, you want to connect with them, you are keen to learn more about their business, etc. This is not about your getting data for your telemarketing team to use later in their appointment setting campaign. This is about you wanting to learn more about them.

3.    Choose your events – here is the deal, not all business events are worth your time. If you want to create the right business network, make sure that you attend events that bring out your best. You want to meet fun and interesting people (not just to be customers, but real contacts), so you should save your efforts and attend occasions that fit well with you.

4.    Connect with a few – as the old saying goes, quality is better than quantity. Considering the amount of time, money, and effort that you have to spend in connecting to each contact you make, it does make sense that you connect with only those that can help you reach your goals. Besides, even if you have established a connection with only one person, you might get lucky and get connected with the rest of your new contact’s network.

5.    Follow up right – for a networking event to be truly effective in generating sales leads for your business, remember to follow-up with your new contacts a few days after the initial meeting. As a rule, if by two weeks, no discussion on business is made, then the window of opportunity closes.

Really, networking can be a really good tool for lead generation. The only problem here, so far, is how to make them work properly. As you can see, it is hard to do business with contacts that does not pan out, and the points raised above could be the real culprits. Try avoiding these pitfalls in networking. That will do your business good.

How To Make LinkedIn Help Your Lead Generation Efforts

One must say that LinkedIn, the social network that has connected so many professionals and business around the globe, can be powerful tool in helping your lead generation campaign become asuccess. Just imagine the millions of people that are registered. Tapping into that large base for B2B leads can be a really good way to improve your business. The question here is how you make that happen. You cannot just sign-up there, announce your business, and then arrange for your telemarketing team to give prospects a call. It is just not how it works. Which leads us to the following tips, it might help you.

  

1.    Be clear on purpose – LinkedIn is there to serve the particular needs of its user base. In your case, you need to understand why you are there in the first place, why you are interacting with the people there. Only then will you be able to come up with a good way to promote to them.

2.    Fix your profile – just like when you always go into a meeting with a shirt and tie, you should also make it a point that your LinkedIn profile is presentable. This will be a great factor on whether your business will get the respect of your prospects or not.

3.    Choose the right groups – for social media to work in your marketing campaign, you need to make sure that the connections you make are worth your time, and will contribute in improving your business profitability.

4.    Use your networks properly – this is especially true where referrals are concerned. As a marketer, you need to properly employ all the business assets that you have in order to maximize your profitability. The challenge here is how you use these assets so that you can continue building a relationship with your own networks.

5.    Deepen your connections – think of it as the sweetener that your appointment setting crew will need to produce results. Keep in mind that your business needs a lot of data to market properly. By talking and interacting with your connected prospects, you can have an easier time with them.

6.    Personalize, as always – really, personalization is everything, and business prospects usually get a kick out of receiving a gift, a letter, or even an invitation that is directly addressed to them. Do anything that stinks of being canned (no matter how faint) then your audience will walk away.

7.    Interact a lot – since you are creating a network for your lead generation and marketing efforts, make sure that you are interacting with them most of the time. In this way, you can put them at ease and make doing business with them easier.

There are other strategies that you can employ in making LinkedIn another effective marketing and networking tool for your business. Think of it as another investment for your lead generation campaign. If you have a social network of professionals like you, then would that not be a brilliant idea to invite them into your business. They might turn out to be excellent customers for you.

Five Myths Of B2B Lead Generation Campaigns

When promoting your business, you probably have tried out a variety of marketing tactics and strategies that you think will bring you the B2B leads that you need. Lucky for you if you succeed, but it would be a different story if it did not pan out. In any case, your aim here is to  ensure the overall success of your B2b lead generation campaign. And if you think that you know everything there is to proper marketing and appointment setting, well, you might want to think again. There is that high likelihood that you are basing your marketing efforts on myths. Honestly, that is the last thing you would want to experience in your business. So, what are these myths that you should know about?

First, some marketers believe that the customers care about your business. Renowned advertising executive and blogger Bob Hoffman has long disproven that. Customers do not care about you at all, they care about themselves. That is why they are your customers in the first place. If you think that all those sales leads nurturing that you are doing will get you the sale, you should reconsider that thinking. Chances are, you have lost the deal.

Second, you use the same message in different mediums. That is one mistake that you should never make. Yes, your message may be clear and concise, but how sure are you that it would be relayed right with different mediums? In the same manner that you do not use transfer a B2B telemarketing script to television, you should also craft your message according to the medium that you will be using. You have to be careful in that regard.

Third, you send the same message to all business prospects. This is one of the biggest no-no’s in the marketing field. Any sensible marketer will tell you that each prospect is different, and that requires a different manner to communicate with them. Some like it informal, while there are those who wish for a more formal approach. Others enjoy the conversation, while some might prefer going straight to the point. The trick here is in PERSONALIZATION. That will get you better results.

Fourth, you sound just too smart in your promotions. Yes, you want to say your entire piece to your sales leads prospects, but you would want to put your efforts on a leash if you notice that your prospect is losing interest in you. Match your wording and approach according to the person you are talking with. In this way, you not only personalize your marketing (which satisfies point number three), you also make your prospects think more on how you can help them (which point number one has mentioned).

Lastly, you think that B2B lead generation is easy. To be honest, it never was. Success can only be had through hard work and constancy of your efforts. This is the secret to generating customers for your business.

If you can correct your way of thinking, especially with regards to the above myths, then your B2B lead generation efforts will not go to waste.

Possible reasons why your Lead Generation numbers are not going up

There will always be times when your marketing efforts don’t produce the numbers you've expected. And in those times, it might be hard to shift focus away from failure and instead look at the reasons why it happened. Emotions can get in the way, and that prevents us from seeing things logically. B2B lead generation is one those fields where an element of “chance” is always a part of the game. Sometimes, campaigns fail because of things that are beyond your control, and there’s really nothing you could do about it.

What you can do, though, is to evaluate certainaspects of your efforts and see if they “contribute” to the occurrence of failure.

Below is a checklist that you might want to try for yourself:

Your content may not be generating enough traffic. It might be because of lack of quality or poor search optimization, but whatever it is, it’s the very first thing you need to check. To be able to generate leads, you need a large bulk of traffic, and without that, you can’t expect numbers to go up.

Your calls-to-action are in the wrong places. CTAs are like the pearly gates that lead to conversion heaven. They must be scattered everywhere within the prospect’s decision-making phase, and it should clearly define what’s in it for them. If they couldn't see your CTAs, you wouldn't see them either.

Your social media use may be misguided. A lot of marketers are disillusioned about the number of likes or followers they generate on social media. What you really should be looking at is lead potential, and your social media posts should go hand-in-hand with your other efforts, not as an independent campaign.

Your landing page forms are either too long or too short. Studies show that the optimal number of form fields that lead to conversion is from 5 to 10. If yours doesn't fall within that average, then perhaps you need a re-evaluation.

Your leads are not of high-quality. Again, the battle of quantity versus quality. While campaigns may survive by getting tons of mediocre leads, the ultimate success can only be determined by high-quality leads – meaning, those that rake in large sums of revenue and are more likely to stick.

Your promos are outdated, unoriginal or boring. Prospects may lose interest in offers that keep getting recycled over and over. This lessens the likelihood of sharing and loyalty, thus also affecting conversion rates. Come up with something fresh, although risky, to see if it can put back life into your dying efforts.

The 7 Deadly Sins of B2B Lead Generation

There are only two kinds of things that can bring any business endeavor to its demise: unfortunate circumstances and human errors. Obviously, the former is something that’s out of anyone’s control. It could be anything from a paralyzing economic recession to physical disasters like fires or earthquakes. The latter, however, are the flaws and lapses that key people have in making decisions and performing actions. These things are controllable.

When a business engages in B2B lead generation, it embarks on an elaborate campaign to seek and attract potential clients. The task requires careful planning, patience and cooperation between and among marketers and other functions of the business. The things that could destroy that effort – the ones that are controllable – must not be tolerated. As marketers, it is important to understand why these things can be roadblocks to success. 

These are 7 of the worst things that could happen to your campaign:

1. Lack of strategy – Even the simplest marketing activities require a strategy. It’s the framework that guides marketers to their goals and puts and everything in order for them. Without it, management of time, budget and other resources would be topsy-turvy.

2. Lack of commitment – Lead generation is not the sole obligation of marketing, and that’s true. However, if a marketing team engages in lead generation only to perform it half-heartedly, then goals would be difficult to achieve.

3.  Lack of quality content – If lead generation is a restaurant business, then content is the menu list. It’s what draws people into engagement. If the type of content is not compelling enough to spark interest, lead generation would be stagnated into a dead campaign.

4. Lack of collaboration with sales – Marketing should not work independently from sales, especially in walking prospects through the entire sales process. Both departments should have a shared vision as to how a prospect’s experience would be enhanced.

5.  Lack of nurturing – The responsibility of marketers do not end when prospects are turned into leads. There must be a thorough follow-up system to maximize the potential of doing business and establishing a long-term relationship.

6.   Lack of fun – B2B doesn’t have to be a boring enterprise. Even within an industry composed of professionals and executives, the element of fun and camaraderie could still be encouraged. No one wants their business to come out as a square to the public eye.

7. Lack of risk-taking – Eventually, the things that the B2B industry practices now would become obsolete in the future. That may still be a long time from now, but for a business that doesn’t have the guts to take risks even today, tomorrow would be a quandary.

Leadership Traits That Inspire Loyalty In Your B2B Telemarketing Team

Loyalty – the one quality that many business owners and managers want to develop in their employees. This is also the quality that compels marketers to stick to their bosses through difficult times, convincing them to look for viable answer to many B2B telemarketing concerns. Well, you have to admit that generating qualified sales leads through this medium could be a pain. And not many people will stay working for you, what with all the pressure and challenges that they will have to face here. It is your job, as the leader, to inspire loyalty in your people. Mind you, doing that is no walk in the park, but if you know what to do exactly, then you will be on your way to a productive appointment setting campaign.

Let as look at the following, for starters:

1. Be honest – nothing can be more inspiring than being honest with your people. I know, this may sound cliché, but you have to admit that leaders who can remove ambiguities and promote accuracy and openness in the office are the ones who are most likely to succeed in fostering respect and loyalty from their employees. So try to keep that in mind as well

2. Stick to the job description – when you hired someone, you hired them specifically for the job you have in mind. Making them do things that go beyond their job description not only results in poor results (if that employee lacks the proper skill for the new job) but also resentment from your employees. Think of what would happen if you put your researchers in a big-time telemarketing job. They would not like that.

3. Get real – basically, you remove the barriers that keep people from interacting and working together. You know you have something good if people collaborate and contribute towards a better lead generation process. I mean, you can only get that if all the inputs from other members of your company share their thoughts to the one making the marketing plans. Some might even get the courage to go straight to you and share their marketing ideas.

4. Show fairness and openness to everyone – simply put, you want to be transparent, whether it is about that needed to be done or the problems that your company is experiencing. You have to show them that you are someone who appreciates good work and is not reserved with the praise, or critical analysis and advice in case things go wrong.

5. Do not tell them, show them – action speaks louder than words, so to speak. That is how you teach employees how things are done in the office, and in the way you prefer. Sure, you can let them do things their way, but you have to make sure that everyone is heading to the direction you desire.

Having loyal employees is very important in your B2B telemarketing campaign. Try following these tips and you will be able to keep your employees working for you. This is a good investment.

Who Is Better At B2B Lead Generation? An Expert Or A Consultant?

You know that marketing is no easy job. Customer trends and tastes change all the time. And it is up to you to make sure that your B2B lead generation campaign becomes successful. Now, as a marketer, approaching potential sales leads requires that you know how to deal with them best. Basically, you have to assume one of the two common roles that appointment setters make: an expert or a consultant? But here is an interesting part, which of these two roles will fit you? Understanding whether you are an expert or a consultant can affect your marketing style. So, which is which?

  

1.    An expert will tell you what to do, while a consultant asks what you might do – Some business prospects do not like being told straight to their faces of what they should or should not do. Consultants, on the other hand, may not be able to get much, especially if the B2B leads prospects they are talking to are not exactly sure of what they should be doing in the first place.

2.    An expert starts a trend, a consultant follows it – honestly, there is nothing wrong about being a trend-setter. What makes it a problem is when it backfires on you, especially if the trend you want to create actually messed up your lead generation campaign. You might as well observe the trends and deal with what you see.

3.    Experts explain the facts, consultants learn facts – business prospects find it harder and harder to analyze the facts and get things straight, so most of them would love to have someone who could make things easier for them. Experts can do that. But consultants are pretty good as well. They just spend more time studying the market and getting the facts straight. Now that would take a lot of time, but it is worth it.

4.    Experts bring a lot of things in, consultants do not bring much – since experts are pretty much knowledgeable of how the market works, it is only natural that you would be telling them everything they should know about. In the case of consultants, they would want to know more about your business first before they can give a concrete answer. There are a lot of problems and issues that may not be seen by experts that consultants might be able to point out. But still, it may work the other way, depending on the business you have.

5.    Experts talk, consultants ask – knowledge is power, so to speak, and in a B2B telemarketing campaign, you need to know how your prospects prefer to be talked into business with. Do they want to hear what you have in mind, or do they prefer someone who listens to their concerns?

Think about it. This might affect your decision on what exactly is the kind of b2b lead generation specialist you are going to be. You can bet that your approach to sales leads prospects will be influenced by the way you deal with them.

How To Prioritize B2B Lead Generation Tasks

As a business owner or manager, it is understandable if you want to generate the most number of IT sales leads for your company. The IT industry, while profitable, is also the most competitive. A lot of IT companies rise and fall every day, and only the strength of their products and the skills of their B2B lead generation team is what keeps the ones who survive afloat. And with all the things that you have to deal with, you cannot just cover everything in a single day. You need to learn how to prioritize. Otherwise, you would be stretching yourself so thin you have to chance to recharge or recheck your bearings. Now that would be more damaging to your IT business. So, how would you prioritize your tasks?

1.    List down your tasks – the main reason why you end up so overwhelmed with your work is because you do not know how many tasks you have to fulfill. Take stock of your work load. Only then will you know which one would be the most important in B2B leads generation.

2.    Identify the most draining tasks – to be honest, the one activity that would really drain you would be appointment setting. I mean, this is a process that requires constant monitoring and follow-up. You have to do that one right, before you deal with the rest.

3.    Forget about the perfect time – honestly, there will never be a perfect time to decide on things. You just have to deal with the challenges that get thrown your way. If you need to deal with your IT telemarketing campaign fast, then you really have to deal with it. Delays by waiting for the perfect time will not get you anything.

4.    Try not getting stuck on the big picture – sometimes, looking at the big picture makes you lose focus on the small details. And to tell you the truth, it is the small details that matter in your everyday operations. As a marketer, you should ensure that the small details are properly attended to. The big picture would take care of itself.

5.   Move on – there are so many tasks that you need to do in a single day that you just cannot afford to linger on one that you have just taken care of. If you think of each of these tasks as a sort of stages, one that will get you to your intended goals once the day ends.

6.    Rinse and repeat – basically, you do the cycle all over again the next day. The thing about marketing, and its accompanying tasks, is that the process never ends. You know that there will be more tasks coming up on your plate, and it is up to managers and entrepreneurs like you to put some system or process in place to help you go about your work, every day.

That is how you prioritize your tasks in B2B lead generation campaigns. Your IT business would be in a better spot with this.

Problem-Solving Strategies In Effective Lead Generation

Customer complaints will always be part of your business campaign, and it is up to marketers like you to deal with them and keep them from getting out of hand. Otherwise, you might have some difficulties in your future B2B lead generation campaigns. This is one thing that you have to do right, since social media can be a real downer to your B2B leadscampaign if your prospects check and see that your customers are saying negative things about you. Now that would be a realwrecker for your marketers. This is an issue that you need to take care of. At least there are only three things you need to consider before you go out solving a customer’s problem.

First of all, you need to know just how big the return on your investments will be. 

You see, it is all right to solve a customer’s problem. Indeed, you have to solve it, how else will you be able stay in business, then? The problem here is that some customers are just so hard to please. Dealing with such people not only steals a lot of your time, it also keeps you from your appointment setting tasks at hand. In cases like these, it is best to just solve it to the best of your abilities – and leave it at that. It will not help you to fret over it too much. If it is broken, fix it right. If it is still broken, and fixing it will not get you anything good in return, then you might as well leave it.

Second, are your people properly informed of the customer’s problem? 

With multi-tasking being the norm in a lot of businesses, where a single employee might act both as telemarketing representative and secretary, then you need to make sure that they are aware of what your customers expect from them and how you will address that need. People need to know why they are being made to do things. Setting expectations about their work will help them work better and provide meaning in what they are doing. But you do have to inform them about it. This calls for all your skills in communication to get your message across them.

Lastly, you have to make sure that you are ready for the consequence.

This is especially true if you fail to solve the problem of your customers. If that failure is what prospective sales leads ask you about, then you should have a reply at the ready. Sometimes, explaining things can be a real pain, especially if that failure is a sour point in your business operations, but brushing it aside will not get you anywhere near your goals. Be ready to defend your business, andyour products, in case that happens. It is a necessary part of your overall marketing process.

Trouble with customers and B2B leads is normal. It is how you deal with that that makes all the difference in your lead generation campaign.