Why is lead generation such a hassle?

A research report by MarketingSherpa shed some light on the most pertinent issue in B2B marketing. Lead generation is and has been a weak point for marketing teams. Here is the research chart for your reference.

The marketers interviewed were given three parameters to choose from and they were as follows. 

• Strategic — Formal process, thorough guidelines, routine performance


• Transition — Informal process, few guidelines, sporadic performance


• Trial — No process or guidelines currently

Lead generation techniques had the highest amount of trial programs which goes to show that marketers did not have a solid understanding of the processes involved or they did not have the means to drill down a particular method and go with it. 

Leads tend to be seen as the pinnacle of marketing and sales excellence. but we all know it is not in fact as important as well, paying customers!Focus tends to lack when it comes to lead generation and sometimes overkill leads to high density of leads and none of any quality. 

Concentrating on high quality leads is the default method that leads to paying customers. Getting these high quality leads is exactly what Info Checkpoint does for you. Register with us or you can take up our free trial offer and get to know the database well. 

Give Leads a Reason to Become Customers

Who is a Lead?

A lead is a person who has expressed interest in your brand, business, services or products. Online leads typically indicate their interest by submitting a form. They provide their contact information in exchange for complimentary information such as exclusive white papers, product demos, webinars, eBooks and case studies.

So, what exactly is the lead generation process?

Consider this situation, a person visits your website and clicks on a call-to-action. This takes them to a landing page which describes your offer and requests them to fill in a form. Once they submit the form with their contact details, they receive the offer and the sales team obtains a new lead to contact. 

The Goal of the Click

In the B2B context, the goal of the click is to capture lead information. Unlike the goal of a click of B2C which is to make a sale. Therefore B2B brands need to focus not only number of clicks, on increasing conversion rates as well.

Landing Pages that Lead to Conversion

In order to improve conversion rates through landing pages, it is important to have consistent messaging, relevant links, takeaways as promised, streamlined forms, pre-conversion segmentation and appreciation for information provided.

In order to generate leads that have highest possibility of converting to customers, you first need to map your content value and requirements, understand your customers’ buying process, know your customer profile, devise an integrated marketing communication plan, and utilize a centralized marketing database.

Target relevant prospects

Give leads a reason to convert 

Find Your Perfect Target Market with Our Database

Boost Lead Generation ROI – Quality over Quantity, Revenues over Volume

The essence of lead generation is not only in ‘generating’ leads, it is in converting leads into sales. 

Generating revenue through leads is a far more successful tactic than increasing lead volume. Some of the ways organizations can improve lead generation ROI are through lead validation, scoring, segmentation, follow-up and elimination of poor performing leads.

• Assume your lead volume is 10,000 leads per month
• Reduce this goal to 5,000 leads per month (what!)
• Add an additional ‘Quality Lead’ goal of 500 per month (considering how difficult they are to capture)
• This will eventually translate to your regular lead to customer conversion rate of 1% and quality lead conversion rate of 10% 

In this way not only are your revenue targets achieved, you maintain marketing efficiency as well!

Five ways to improve lead generation is by lead validation, lead scoring, segmentation, elimination of poor performing leads and a quick follow-up. If this seems too vague, our whitepaper is the best resource to know more.

Generate quality leads to increase conversions

Maximize revenue generated from your marketing initiatives 

Access This Whitepaper on How to Improve Lead Generation ROI

How to increase sales close rates by 2% in 2 months…a secret we’d love to share!

Is your sales team focusing on generating leads?
Have they been busy sending emails, making calls, scheduling appointments, nurturing leads and acquiring leads?
What does your marketing team have to say for this?

We at Info CheckPoint had a similar situation with one of our clients. In order to rebuild the sales lead

pipeline and kick-start the lead generation process, we focused on:

• Market segmentation 
• Obtaining sales-qualified leads 
• Introducing a multi-touch, outbound lead generation process 
• Sales and marketing alignment

Here’s what we could achieve:

• Increase sales close rates by 2% in 2 months
• Boost lead generation (which accounted for 9% of the deals closed)
• Increase overall delivery rate of leads by 4.5%

Send Us Your Details to Know How

It’s our secret we’d love to share!

Your Search For B2B Leads Ends Here

When Hubspot released the ‘2013 State of Inbound Marketing Research Report’ recently, they provided interesting insights on, ‘where marketers get customers’. To take it further they also gave us interesting stats on where marketers get leads. Take a look…

So Where Do You Get Your Leads?

Find a Reliable Source Here

Thank You Hubspot!

Tracking Your Customers’ ‘Digital Body Language’?

Do you drive your lead generation program to create demand?

Or

Do you drive demand generation to create interested leads in your product?

You cannot combine demand generation and lead generation; you can however enable the two systems to work simultaneously. Demand generation is:

• The alignment of marketing and sales teams around customers with focus on building an integrated lead management system.   
• About identifying sales-ready leads, lead nurturing, marketing automation and content marketing.

Demand generation is quite literally about generating demand! Aren't customers the source of demand? How much do you really know your customers and their personas? Understand your customers’ interests, buying behavior and process in order to materialize marketing efforts effectively.  First things first:

• Know your customers’ story, 
• Track their ‘digital body language’ 
• Identify their stage in the buying cycle. 

You will then be ready to launch a customized program specific to your customers’ persona, interests and stage in the sales cycle. One way to know the success of your efforts is through measurement. Evaluate performance of your Demand Generation campaigns through the Demand Generation - ‘4V’ Approach:

• Volume - Number of clicks, impressions, registrations, deals, SQLs, MQLs
• Velocity - Rate of conversion of each unit to the next level
• Value - Value of revenue and pipeline 
• Viscosity - Measurement of obstacles that prevent lead conversion from one stage to another

Generate sales-ready leads.

Let sales teams focus on closing deals.

Drive demand through conversations not campaigns.

Boost your demand generation programs with segmented databases

Higher Quality, Sales Ready Leads = More $$$ Deals!

• Do you know the goal of the ‘click’?
• Is the call to action bold and brave?
• Do your landing pages lead to conversions?

According to Marketo, you can improve your conversion rates by 200% with optimized landing pages.

The goal of a click in B2B is not to make a sale; it is to capture a lead. It’s not only about the number of clicks; it is on getting conversion of leads as well. Make your call to action catchy, landing page structured and offer attractive. Optimize your post-click experience, boost lead generation ROI.

Give Leads a Reason to Convert!

Give Leads A Reason To Convert from InfoCheckPoint

When a prospect submits information on a webpage, it is only the beginning. Sync your leads database with your customer relationship management (CRM) software through automation.

Why You Need the Info CheckPoint App
• To target high value opportunities via Salesforce chatter
• To prioritize and organize prospects
• To improve CRM data quality
• To reduce research time

Try Out the Info CheckPoint App on Salesforce

Reduce Cost per Lead by 61% with Inbound Marketing

In the previous post, we spoke about lead generation tactics by creating CTAs, landing pages, offers and online forms. Marketers need to understand that lead generation is no longer about forwarding raw leads; it is about providing sales-ready leads. To understand the changing landscape of lead generation, these hard stats say it all.

Nurturing leads is definitely one way of generating high value, low cost leads. Another way of generating quality leads is by using CRM integrated marketing automation platforms. The new Info CheckPoint App on Salesforce is just the tool you can use to access high-value leads, prioritize and organize prospects, improve CRM data quality and reduce research time. Get to know more.

Gain Access to Sales-Ready Leads Today

Download this Free App!

Become “Click Worthy’, Increase Conversion Rates by 200%

• What’s the Goal of Your ‘Click’?
• Why do you want people to click on that CTA?
• And what do you have to offer once they click?

If you’re a B2C company, maybe it is to make a sale. But if you’re a B2B company, it should be beyond making a sale; it should be about gaining leads and collecting information about prospective customers.

The question really should be, “How are you targeting your ‘post-click traffic’”?  Here are some lead generation and capture tactics, when creating CTAs, landing pages, offers and online forms.

When creating call to action (CTAs)….

Remember, that if a person needs to search for a call to action, their interest may fade away. Based on the ‘heat map analysis’, CTA s ‘below the fold’ (where people have to scroll down to find it) is generally viewed by only 50% of the visitors, as compared to CTAs placed ‘above the fold’. In addition, make sure you link the CTA to the landing and offer, or else the purpose is defeated.

When creating landing pages….

It is good to maintain continuity in conversation by creating information scent. Make the headline of your landing page similar to that of your CTA, to provide the necessary connection to the visitor. The role of landing pages is to engage visitors who are inquisitive and lead them to become customers or subscribers. According to Marketo, “Optimized landing pages improve conversion rates as high as 200%.” 

When creating offers…

Keep the offer simple, crisp and scan-able. “Download this Free Whitepaper” or “Click Here to Gain a Free Trial” is definitely much better than, “Get to Know If You Are Click Worthy?”

When creating online forms…

Consider your prospect’s perspective;  clicking on a link will cost nothing, filling a form on a landing page however, is not only time consuming it has an added risk of sharing information. More often than not, people tend to ask for as much as information as possible. Sometimes the more you ask, the less likely you are going to get a visitor to submit a form. Be clear on what information you want. Ask only for what you need!

Make your message jump off the landing page.

Make an offer that will pop,

Give prospects a reason to convert!

Find Out How You Can Get Connected with High Value Customers

Connect with High Value Customers! from InfoCheckPoint

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How Do You Do It? Generate Leads Or Demand First?

Is your content marketing plan developed to drive both demand and generate leads?

B2B Marketers more often than not cannot see the difference between Demand Generation and Lead Generation. Let us define them to understand why their focus is different:

• Lead Generation is to focus on content being offered and drive visitors to a registration page in order to access that content.

• Demand Generation focuses on products, services and solutions that cater to a particular demand of the market. The content for demand generation programs is developed to educate and promote what is being offered.

The best approach is to utilize lead generation and demand generation in sequence. Let’s try out the combinations:

Using Lead Generation first	You can develop a marketing database or leads and then generate demand through segmentation and targeted marketing.	Drip marketing using email nurturing programs is one the cost-effective ways of implementing a lead generation program.
Using Demand Generation first	You can generate interest in your offering and then capture leads to fulfill expressed interest.	For demand that was already created, form pages are alternatives to content offers where information on prospects can be obtained.

We are curious to know, how does it work in your organization? Does Demand Generation precede Lead Generation? Or vice versa. Keep us in the loop.

Moreover, whether you use Demand or Lead Generation or Content Marketing, try out our power-packed database!

Accelerate Revenues by 781% and Conversion Rates up to 355%!

B2B Database Segmentation…‘Have You’ done it as yet? 

The stats speak for themselves. Based on a study done by Jupiter Research, a segmented list can increase revenues by 781% and conversion rates up to 355%.  

The advantages of segmenting your database include lower costs, opt out risk and increase in targeted communication. Get to communicate with your clients like they wish to connect with you.

So what’s stopping you from segmenting? Don’t know where to begin?

Here’s a quick 6 point checklist. Know what you have done and what you need to do.

‘Have You’ Checklist
	Yes	No
1. Customer Profile
a.     Have you defined you ideal customer profile?	□	□
b.    Have you documented your customers’ primary needs and issues?	□	□
2. Value Map – to determine content requirements
a.     Have you recorded how you provide value to customers that address a unique need or issue?	□	□
b.    Have you tested messages that address a unique need or issue?	□	□
3. Customer Buying Process – to determine priorities for targeting specific  content
a.     Have you documented your customer’s buying process?	□	□
b.    Have you noted information required at each stage?	□	□
c.     Have you identified their preferred medium of information delivery?	□	□
4. Integrated Marketing Communication Plan
a.     Have devised, deployed and implemented a content plan utilizing channels effectively?	□	□
b.    Have you included triggered based messaging based on action or inaction of customer towards communication?	□	□
c.     Have you developed an editorial calendar or process to review, approve, produce and publish content?	□	□
d.    Have you established and implemented a SEO strategy with well defined list of keywords?	□	□
5. Marketing Database
Have you created a centralized location such as a database to capture, monitor and measure key data and performance metrics?	□	□
6. Program Management
Have you developed a program management plan and assigned the responsibility of execution and monitoring of the process?	□	□

Connect with your most potential clients, target your ideal customer profile and predict outcomes of your marketing campaigns. But first organize your database or obtain a segmented database. Ask us how!