Turn Lead into Gold with Lead Generation

Lead generation is part art, part science. Every good marketer or salesperson develops a certain instinct for how to get leads from cold to hot. But no matter how good you are at your job, if you want to reel in the best catch, it always helps to have a pool of potentials at the ready.

What is lead generation?

Leads are people or organizations that have shown interest in your product. Lead generation is the process of making that awareness and interest happen through channels such as websites and social media. Messaging on these channels ideally drives potential customers to reach out, or prepares the ground for a salesperson to reach out to them.

There are many types of business lead generation, depending on the channel used to connect with the target audience:

• Marketing lead generation attracts people through a marketing asset (website, content, etc.) combined with a capture method such as a lead generation form that encourages them to leave their contact details.
• Sales lead generation involves somebody contacting the sales department as a way to discover more about a product and maybe listen to a sales pitch. A sales-qualified lead shows a stronger intent signal than a marketing-qualified lead, so they each require different approaches for nurturing.
• Product lead generation is relevant only for product types that are offered in a trial, as is common with B2B SaaS. Leads from this source are companies that have taken advantage of a trial version (free or with limited features) and are now interested in a paid version.
• Service lead generation is similar to product lead generation in that the lead is a user of your product. For service leads, the sale involves a feature upgrade for a company that already uses a paid version.

What is the role of lead generation?

Many buyers pass through the typical flow: cold, warm, and hot. They start off knowing a bit about your product and with the right treatment, end up purchasing it. The goal of lead generation is to gather as many quality leads as possible at each of these stages and move them up a notch.

For example:

• A cold lead might become warm through an effective social media campaign that teaches them more about the value of your product.
• A warm lead could become hot through an immediate response to their inquiry in the form of a Speed to Lead effort by the sales team.
• A hot lead may become a buyer with an effective approach to a “sales bake-off” that shows your product’s competitive value.

Why is lead generation so hard?

To understand the tough reality of lead generation, just look at cold calling as an example. When a salesperson gets a cold lead, the chance of conversion is about 2%. With stats like that in their minds, it’s no wonder that fear of rejection contributes to this already challenging initiative.

Fortunately, there are things one can do to optimize this process and improve your odds:

Training and leadership

There are many tips and tricks that boost the success rates of sales teams and how they use leads. Salespeople should become experts in these techniques, and managers should work with the team to refine their approach.

Coordination between marketing and sales

Marketing plays an important role in lead generation, from handing off good lead lists to developing attractive content. When the two departments aren’t on the same page, problems are born. Like when the sales team can’t deliver on marketing material that overpromises about what the product and company can do.

Proper tools and processes

A common cause for a lost lead is a problem with qualification. Obviously, when a salesperson gets a lead that is not suitable, there is next to no chance of a conversion. It is expected that most leads will not end up in a sale, but a particularly low success rate shows that there is something amiss with the entire lead generation process.

How to generate leads

A good lead generation method will minimize those go-nowhere sales efforts and arm your teams with lists of high-potential targets. It’s an extensive process. But hopefully, your organization has already done a lot of the legwork in their Go-to-Market Strategy, which has significant overlap with essential parts of lead gen. Here’s how it works:

1. Strategy, goals, and content

Planning a good strategy means taking a long, hard look at what should be considered a lead. You’ll come to the answer by thoroughly understanding your target market, i.e. the ideal customer for your product and related customer personas.

Customer persona details will indicate where actual customers get their messaging and how they go about product research. That’s where you want to be, equipped with attractive content like an informative website, blogs, webinars, videos, and numerous types of marketing collateral. It’s important to create all content to drive some form of engagement and conversion, but be subtle – “CALL US NOW!” will probably turn off some potential buyers. Instead, use landing pages, opt-in forms, content downloads, and contact forms to encourage visitors to leave their details.

For each aspect of your strategy, you should also implement a system of goal setting and measurement. For instance, if you use social media, what’s the engagement rate? And what is the related win-loss rate? You might get plenty of likes for your Tik Tok “heartbeat challenge” video, but if that doesn’t result in sales, then it’s time to focus on other ideas.

2. Marketing-sales alignment

As we mentioned, alignment between sales and marketing is vital. Here are some of the ways these departments need to be consistent:

Content. Those responsible for marketing content creation must know what the product does, and doesn’t do. They also need to understand sales strategy so that they can emphasize the same product value propositions that the salespeople are highlighting during their calls (and on the flip side, sales needs to be aware of the value propositions and messaging that marketing uses).

Feedback. Sales is the ultimate destination for the lead generation process. After reviewing sales metrics, it’s critical for the sales manager to update the marketing department on the success rates of the various lead gen initiatives.

Handoff. Every company should make a set of rules for when a lead is handled by marketing or when it is escalated to sales. It’s part of intent classification and includes information gathered by a lead scoring process. A shared CRM system can really help with this.

3. Lead Generation Tools

There are countless lead generation tools out there (many of them even free) that can make a huge difference in the lead generation process. Here are a few examples:

• Lead enrichment tools can fill in the gaps for contact information. A platform like Lusha hunts for valuable contact details that help you personalize a sales pitch. Lead enrichment tools also make for a better user experience (for instance, Lusha can automatically fill in the phone numbers for email addresses that you find on LinkedIn).
• Live chat and messaging helps with a Speed to Lead mindset. These tools engage with the customer immediately and handle queries to a certain extent, and then pass on more complex issues to a person.
• Lead scoring tools and CRM systems automate labor-intensive processes while making information accessible to all teams.

Key Takeaways

• Lead generation is a process that identifies potential buyers who have shown some level of interest in your product.
• The goal of lead generation is to apply either marketing or sales techniques to move the lead towards becoming a customer.
• The lead generation process involves deciding on strategies and goals; setting up engaging content according to an ideal customer profile; aligning the sales and marketing departments; and using the right tools.