Written by Benny Fluman and Yael Levi Lidor
One of the primary objectives of B2B sales and marketing teams is to generate high-quality leads that will convert into clients.
Quantity, however, is not as important as quality. Simply increasing the volume of leads will not have a positive impact. But, if you can increase your volume of leads by 20% without decreasing your quality, then your business makes 20% more income.
Unfortunately, lead generation is tricky. 85% of B2B marketers consider lead generation their #1 challenge.
Finding a high number of quality leads is critical to your sales and business success.
You don't want unqualified leads who aren't genuinely interested in your offer's services. By utilizing these six strategies, you'll find yourself in a great position to locate, qualify and convert B2B sales leads in almost real-time.
Chat
Sales Chat is a great tool to reduce your bounce rate and turn website visitors into warm leads interested in learning more about your products and services.
It ensures someone or something (in the case of a bot) is always on hand to chat or interact with visitors, whether they're browsing your site during the day or checking out what you have to offer at night.
If you're on the fence about whether or not sales chat can provide valuable input to you, you may want to review the results that are possible:
Outbound Calling
Mastering the art of outbound calls is crucial to your sales team. A high percentage of your overall sales happen over the phone - and a good outbound calling strategy will help improve your odds of using each interaction to its full advantage. Make sure your outbound calling strategy includes:
Clear goals, including both average handle times for calls and close rates
A strategy that will allow you to qualify the lead to better shape future contact
Follow-up plans for increasing the connection to the contact when the call is finished
Many marketing professionals are on the fence about whether or not to use scripts for outbound calls. If you opt to use a script for your demands, make sure that it is designed to help agents give prospects the support they need, rather than tying their hands. Scripts should be tools in the arsenal of your agents, rather than forcing them to adhere to rules that might not make sense for individual calls.
Social Selling
Social media offers several valuable opportunities for increasing your leads and boosting sales. LinkedIn, for example, has risen to become the most effective social platform for B2B lead generation.
No longer just for recruitment, it offers several ways to connect with qualified prospects and provide them with information about the solutions you can offer them, from in-mail to messages, company updates, to likes.
It has left many salespeople with a 51% higher chance of meeting their sales goals and even sees directors achieve promotions 1.6 times faster.
Social media offers an unprecedented opportunity to learn more about your leads before making contact with them. On LinkedIn, you can get a great idea of an individual's position within a company, their pain points, and how your business's solutions can make their everyday job easier. You can also qualify your leads before making contact, allowing you to determine how much purchasing power an individual has within their business.
Quality training
You can no doubt remember the countless bad sales calls and emails you've received. Some people are natural salespeople, but not everyone! With the proper training, however, anyone can be significant.
People still buy from people, and that means that you need to provide your sales team with the tools they need for success. Make sure your training includes:
Scripts that salespeople can fall back on when needed
Information on how to handle reluctant customers
Strategies for qualifying leads and improving the quality of an existing lead
Providing your sales team with the proper training is the most effective way to ensure that they're maximizing their sales efforts. It doesn't matter if you're selling to private customers or customers who are positioned within their company to make critical sales decisions; the better trained your sales team is, the greater the success you will have.
Sales and Marketing Alignment
If your sales and marketing teams are in constant conflict, chances are, you're going to find yourself struggling to meet your overall sales goals. On the other hand, you can see 32% greater year-on-year growth when sales and marketing align.
A few top tips to achieve alignment are:
Have a solid definition of what constitutes a Sales vs. a Marketing qualified lead. Arguing over lead quality is one of both teams' most significant pain points.
Agree that the exact point marketing passes leads to sales to avoid any confusion.
Utilize lead scoring to help firstly qualify and secondly prioritize the best leads.
Collaborate, share, and co-create campaigns, content, and ideas. Both teams have different and equally valuable insights into prospects.
Do Your Research
It's easy to skip over the research process, but it's completely vital for your company's success and cannot be stressed enough. You don't have time to waste reaching out to a company you eventually have no chance to succeed. Utilizing your resources to gather research can benefit you and your prospects significantly.
According to SalesLoft, "Having a holistic view of a prospect's industry is just as important as understanding their company. A 2016 report found that 85% of respondents preferred vendors with knowledge of their industry and the challenges they face."
Want to know how to impress your prospects? Research what they're interested in. Consistently peruse sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to find out the latest trend. Start watching and reading industry news. Listen to the newest podcast of someone your clients would be interested in.
More Great Tips to Increase Your B2B Sales Leads
Here is an inspirational list of tactics and tips you could look into to boost your sales leads.
1. Get in as many conversations as possible
2. Generate a targeted list of business contacts
3. Send cold emails
4. Make warm calls
5. Use Marketing Automation to nurture your leads
6. Set up a live chat on your website
7. Update your email signature with an embedded promotion
8. Join relevant social media groups
9. List your company on directories
10. Use online forums to generate more leads
11. Answer relevant questions on Q&A websites
12. Get more online reviews
13. Use lead generation ads on Facebook or Twitter
14. Use Google Adwords to increase website traffic
15. Use remarketing to re-engage visitors
16. Use SEO to increase website traffic
17. Optimize your website landing pages.
18. Use a blog or newsletter to generate more leads
19. Use webinars to generate more leads
20. Use e-Books to increase sales leads
21. Interview decision-makers and influencers for your blog
22. Use white papers to generate more leads
23. Use someone else's audience by guest posting
24. Use press releases to generate more leads
25. Always be building your network
26. Use current customers to generate referrals
27. Foster customer recommendations and referrals
28. Use LinkedIn to get introductions
29. Find out who is an unsatisfied customer of your competitors
30. Start an Advisory Board
31. Speak or attend industry events
32. Launch channels for partner sales
B2B Lead Generation Through an Omni-Channel Sales Strategy
Generating a high number of quality leads is crucial to your business. Utilizing the following six strategies will put you in a great place to achieve success:
Use sales chat on your website.
Master outbound calling
Adopt social selling
Train your team to succeed
Align your sales and marketing teams
Do Your Research
We can guarantee that if you have all or most of the above in place, you will be well on the road to reaching your sales goals.