Lead Generation

Lead Generation is the discipline of proactively creating, nurturing, and discovering interest among prospective buyers in solutions that are offered, so that a sales team can engage with those prospective buyers in a sales conversation. The discipline of lead generation has changed significantly from one mainly based around the telephone to one that incorporates a variety of web and social media channels in a holistic approach to cultivating buying interest.

Introduction to Lead Generation

The discipline of generating leads for sales is in the process of undergoing fundamental change. Historically, marketing departments would focus much of their resources on awareness and branding activities, while a telephone-based group would work from calling lists to attempt to connect with buyers and discover those ready for a conversation with sales. As buyers now have access to all the information they require in a buying process, this process has changed significantly.

Today’s marketing departments realize that their role has shifted to one of facilitating a buying process with the use of marketing automation rather than attempting to push a sales process. With that, the way in which leads are cultivated, nurtured, and flagged as being ready for sales has shifted fundamentally.

The lead generation process begins much earlier in the buying process than it did historically. Through social media, educational webinars, and search, marketers seek to be found wherever their prospective buyers may find relevant information that relates to business challenges that the marketer’s solutions can solve. As the prospective buyer engages with the marketer’s organization, the education process progresses into one of lead nurturing. Over time, by providing valuable content, the marketer will be able to remain top of mind with the prospective buyer, and slowly educate him or her on the key considerations in a purchase decisions.

At a certain point, the buyer’s online behavior – their Digital Body Language – indicates that they are ready to engage with sales in a later stage discussion around purchasing. This is identified through lead scoring which matches the individual’s behavior to known activities that indicate buying intent. The conversation that this leads to, with sales, involves contracts, pricing, and service levels, and it is one that rests on a foundation of buyer education that has been built in the earlier stages of the lead generation process.

Whereas the concept of lead generation has shifted from its historical centering around the use of the phone to identify and qualify leads, the phone is not an obsolete concept in lead generation. As part of both the engagement and qualification of prospective buyers, inside, or outsourced teams may be used to call prospects showing some level of interest, and communicate with them. This can be used both to highlight a value proposition or an event, as part of the lead nurturing and engagement process, or it can be used to ask questions and determine interest as part of the qualification process.

Lead generation has changed dramatically from its historical roots. Today, lead generation software focuses on managing the entire lead lifecycle, from initial engagement, through lead nurturing, to lead scoring and sales hand-off. Phone-based teams may remain part of the process in many instances, but they are far from the only aspect of the process in today’s environment.

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Articles:

BtoB Magazine: Nurturing leads in a tough economy

The effort today is not so much at the top of the funnel, bringing in raw leads, but rather in nurturing and relationship management with current prospects," said Brian Kardon, CMO at demand generation and lead management company Eloqua. "A lot of marketers pride themselves on how many leads they generate each quarter, but they already have a ton of prospects in the pipeline. The focus now is on closing the business.

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ClickZ: TriNet Uses Digital Body Language to Arm Sales Reps

Giving stuff away in order to secure sales meetings can be a costly endeavor. Brown and his colleagues knew there would be plenty of people who had no real interest in TriNet but would agree to a meeting just to get the gifts. To minimize that, TriNet sought help from Vienna, VA-based lead generation company Eloqua....Brown said the Eloqua-based process has worked well, resulting in many more sit-downs and a 20 percent increase in conversions.

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The Globe & Mail: Social networking: The next business marketing tool

In many ways, social networking is tailor-made for the B2B sale, with its longer sales cycles, considered purchase and multiple stakeholders. The old cliché, "It's not what you know, but who you know" is truer than ever. Time-starved business leaders are subject to a constant bombardment of marketing messages, making the personal referral the gold standard in lead generation.

eBooks:

Brian J. Carroll: 8 Critical Factors for Lead Generation

Brian J. Carroll is the founder and CEO of InTouch Inc., an expert on lead generation solutions and author of a new book "Lead Generation for the Complex Sale". In this free eBook, Carroll shares key factors on how to tailor and adopt lead generation programs that will increase the odds of creating better sales leads, ultimately.

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Jill Konrath: What Sales Really Needs from Marketing

Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, is a recognized expert on selling to large corporations. Her e-newsletter is read by subscribers from more than 85 countries around the world. Most recently she's been featured in Selling Power, Entrepreneur, The Business Journal, Sales & Marketing Management, WSJ's Start-Up Journal, Sales & Marketing Excellence, Journal of Marketing, Business Advisor and countless online publications. In this eBook, Jill Konrath, renowned author, blogger and sales strategist, shares 7 key ways for marketers to become more relevant to their sales team and top line revenues.

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Hugh Macfarlane: Give Marketing a Sales Quota

Hugh Macfarlane, along with MarketProfs.com, surveyed industry pros around the world to find out how the best companies align B-to-B Sales and Marketing teams for maximum success. One result of those efforts is the eBook: Give Marketing a sales quota. The findings in this engaging eBook may surprise you, but ignore them at your own risk. After all, these "unorthodox" organizations are doing much better in the real-world than their "conventional" competitors.

Podcasts

Tom Meyer on Lead Generation on the Web
Tom is founder of Triple Dog Dare Media and author of the O'Reilly book Lead Generation on the Web and speaks often about creating offers that encourage prospects and customers to engage with your organization more deeply.
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A Brave New World: Responding to Shifts in the Selling/Buying Model

Learn from some of the best at this free one-hour webinar - an exclusive panel discussion with industry thought leaders on how to DRIVE REVENUE in this Brave New World of Sales and Marketing. At no time in history has Sales and Marketing seen as radical a shift in buying behaviors as in the last five years. With tools like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, information is now quite literally at our buyer’s fingertips. Organizations are having trouble adapting to this change. The concept of the new “Sales 2.0” world has created more questions than answers as to how Sales and Marketing can leverage new technologies to drive messaging and sales effectiveness. Today, buyer “self education” renders Sales and Marketing blind to buyers interests, propensities, and levels of engagement in our typical Sales and Marketing plans. Buyers are less likely to engage with sales teams or to read our messaging. Instead, buyers leverage Webinars, Online Meetings, and interactive web sites and control the sales process themselves.

Blog Entry

Marketing Master: Barbara Ware
2009-09-14 Heather Foeh

Today’s Marketing Master is Barbara Ware, Director of Marketing at BravePoint.

How did you get where you are today?
Never stop trying; never stop learning. Sounds simplistic but sometimes it’s not easy.

What’s interesting in marketing for your space right now?
We’re doing a lot of live video– virtual conferences, virtual product launches. Very well received in our market to save productivity/travel time.
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This Lead Will Self-Destruct In – 10, 9, 8…
2009-09-01 David Rudolph

Picture this: you walk into a store in a mall - just browsing at first. You spot an interesting promotion on a sign that you’d like to learn more about. You read the info, but have some questions. Unfortunately, no one is available to answer your questions, so you wait a bit.

Question: How long will you wait before leaving?
Answer: Not very long.
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CSO Insights: Optimizing Lead Generation

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The Business Case for Integrated Demand Generation

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