Tech-savvy Digital Strategies For B2B Lead Generation And Sales
From real-time survey tools to AI-powered programming and automated emailing, technology is quickly emerging as a much-needed backbone for modern-day marketing campaigns.
These savvy innovations allow marketing teams to reach wider audiences in a highly personalized manner to improve engagement.
They also help them understand the features that stand out for their customers, how people interact with their brand, and how the competition is fairing.
With overflowing to-do lists and leads to generate and nurture, many marketing teams are stretched thin and can’t imagine adding an extra task to their schedules.
Thanks to marketing automation, many existing and extra tasks can be handled by technology. Marketing automation allows you to maintain contact with prospects and customers alike through automated messages triggered by their activities.
By streamlining marketing roles (follow-up workflows, educational workflows, email campaigns, etc) your team’s efficiency improves and they stay productive. Not bad for reducing that to-do list, right?
How do you get high-impact results?
For lead nurturing. When leads sign up, you follow them up with targeted content, guiding them through the acquisition cycle. Other than tracking the lead’s journey, lead nurturing helps inform the best messages for positive results.
In lead scoring. Here, you have a system in place to score the lead’s engagement level to ensure only high-quality leads are sent to the sales team.
To maximize multichannel campaigns. You’re probably engaging multiple channels to reach audiences and build awareness. This strategy allows you to trigger relevant automated responses across these channels.
For segmentation purposes. You can create workflows that automatically place contacts in specific lists depending on the web pages they visited or email engagement. This ensures the messages you push out relate to their interests.
Lead Generation Software
Is lead generation software worth it?
Lead generation is a key success metric for many businesses, which means leveraging technology to gather qualified leads’ information and grow the pipeline is crucial. The software collects contact info about new prospects and routes it to the team for nurturing and conversion.
Well, the other option is manually (and tediously not to mention inaccurately) prospecting contacts.
Before investing in particular software, consider the following:
Is the platform user-friendly?
Does the platform integrate with existing tools?
Does it include the features you need to organize and enhance your campaigns?
Will it help you attain your KPIs?
Is there a customer support feature for when things go wrong?
The campaigns you intend to run should help inform the lead generation platform you choose. Here are some options:
Form optimization tools. The software instantly qualifies leads through your website web forms and routes them to the team. Just ensure the forms are easy to complete and process.
Form, quiz, and pop-ups. This software encourages site visitors to act, so as to acquire their contact info.
Landing page optimization tools. This optimizes your landing page’s design, conducts A/B testing, and provides reporting to improve lead conversion.
Social media software. From posting to engaging audiences and reporting, the software optimizes your strategy to boost brand awareness.
Cold Calling
A great script, polished knowledge, and a positive attitude are great for cold calling. But how about throwing in cold calling software to empower the team even further?
Not only will it improve efficiency, but also improves your chances of closing more deals.
How do you choose the right software?
Go for ease of use. People shun software that’s challenging to work with, meaning it will be a waste of resources. Take advantage of free trials or walkthrough demos to understand how intuitive the software is.
Ability to track metrics. Here’s one sales manager will like. Built-in metrics help you keep an eye on cold calling performance at a granular level. You can then initiate action to help the team meet its goals.
Check for the call recording feature. Call recording acts like a qualitative lens that allows you to assess techniques that work. You can convert effective calls into training materials for SDRs and the not-so-effective ones into coaching opportunities.
Scalability. Since we all anticipate growth, migrating software whenever your business sees sizable growth can be a headache. Check that your preferred software allows you to add more users and if so, at what cost.
Chatbot Marketing
Think about this: People spend time on WhatsApp or Slack chatting with teammates, customers, and other people. This very trend has transcended into the B2B scene, allowing businesses to communicate with one another as well.
Deploying this technology on your website facilitates well-oiled real-time online interactions with bots or human support teams.
Top ways for optimizing this strategy include:
Facilitate real-time engagement. Engaging site visitors, while they are most receptive, may help build connections with them and guide them forward. Based on the conversation bots can bring in human support agents for further customization.
Respond with speed. Responding to visitors’ queries speedily ensures their needs are met with minimal or no friction. This may help keep them on your page rather than jumping to a competitor.
Leverage engagement history. If the visitor has been to your page before, use that history to understand the path they are on. Similarly, if the visitor shows signs of bouncing, you can initiate a chat to address the problem they are looking to solve.
Train your team. From managing bot interactions to providing extensive knowledge of your solutions, get your team up to speed on tips and practices to engage and convert leads.
Voice Search Marketing
As a trend that has transcended from B2C, voice search is about providing instant gratification. Businesses can stand out by leveraging voice searches to provide answers the moment people ask.
But here’s the thing-the answers served are pegged on the information available. This means you’ll need a robust search-engine optimized content strategy if this tactic is to deliver results.
Best practices include:
Write for long-tail queries. Think about how people speak naturally and keep your writing tone along these lines. Answer questions about your solutions without throwing in boilerplate sales jargon.
Featured snippets are a goldmine. Voice searches typically read these featured snippets out loud when responding to voice queries. The answer box displays a link back to the page where the spinet of text was extracted and users can click on it for further information.
Use geography to your advantage. If you serve a local market, identify geographically relevant keywords that may help boost your visibility. While you’re at it, secure and optimize the My Business page on Google to help with search engine rankings.
