Lead gen 101: Your must-have marketing checklist!
Ok, you’re ready to run your first lead generation campaign. You’ve got a targeted and accurate database, a compelling offer and a convincing script. And of course, it goes without saying that you have a professional lead gen team to make the calls, then nurture your pipeline.
But you feel like there’s something missing.
You’re right, there is. Check out our list.
The ‘must-have’ list
- Your website. The first place prospects check when they’re interested in your products/solutions is on the internet, therefore your website needs to support and reinforce the professional image of your business. So, in all honesty, how’s it looking? Is it free of spelling mistakes and poorly laid out graphics? Is your ‘offer’ eye-catching and easy to find on the homepage? Does it exactly reflect the campaign messaging, so your prospects immediately know where to go for more information? (And while we’re at it, what happens if they look up your company on LinkedIn?)
- A PDF leaflet. Your lead gen expert has had a great call, but the prospect needs that little bit more encouragement to make the decision to buy or meet. Or perhaps they need to share information with others before taking the next step. By emailing a PDF which officially reiterates ‘the offer’ and reinforces your company credentials the level of engagement steps up a notch, and your campaign conversion rate climbs dramatically. If your campaign is to existing customers, you should also consider sending the PDF version of the offer out first as a warm-up tactic.
- An AdWord campaign. If your prospect is really just too busy to take it in the offer at the time of the call, they may still mentally file away the information to check on later. And when they need that information again…we know what they do. They Google the keywords they remember from the offer (which will often not include your business name). For example – NZ free 3-stage health check on my accounting software. And you want to be there, on the search results page, when they do.
- A landing page. There’s an art to converting sales once your prospect is no longer on the phone. And it’s called a landing page. This page is about the offer and nothing but the offer, and it provides the capture mechanisms (i.e., an e-form) you need as a marketer or sales manager to allow the prospect to easily request more information or to take the next step (or for you to reach out to them!). Make sure your home page banner, LinkedIn or Facebook sponsored ad, PDF, and AdWords all point to your landing page. And embed tracking code, so you know how the prospect ended up there.
- Ready-to-go warm up, acknowledgement and thank you emails. Don’t overlook the common courtesies of business engagement. Prepare a branded email template (with room for personalisation) to thank prospects for their interest, confirm appointments or next actions. A great email sent out in advance of a campaign (as long as it’s only to existing contacts or customers, so it complies with the Electronic Messaging Act) can also pave the way to a more responsive reception to a call.
- Social media. Make sure you get your offer out via appropriate social media. If you are running a very select campaign, consider using the targeting tools in LinkedIn (and soon to be available through Facebook) to only share the offer with the people you want to engage with. The more awareness you can generate through ‘soft’ channels, the more impact, reach and response you’ll get to your lead gen campaign.
In a nutshell:
Human engagement is still considered to be a major factor in driving most B2B sales opportunities, but a truly integrated approach will lift the performance of your campaign.
