Top Lead Generation Strategies to Pack Your Pipeline

Nearly every marketing faces this problem.

You put in the effort and reach out to numerous leads, but you aren’t getting the results you were looking forward to. Without results, quotas aren’t met and neither are sales targets.

It’s not a good place for the team, the boss, or your bottom line. How do you fix this problem? 

You can use one of two solutions—enlist the help of a lead generation agency or employ lead gen tactics that have been proven to work. For this article, we’ll deal with the latter and number 1 just might surprise you.

What….

Dropping leads is counterintuitive, not to mention blasphemous in the sales and marketing industry.

But then, cold leads are actually worse than having no leads at all.

Alright, but they entered our pipeline for a reason. They were interested in our solutions at some point. Perhaps if we keep nurturing them, they will convert.

We’re not saying, “Dump your entire list.” We’re saying that there are leads that won’t convert no matter what you try. 

All they do is bloat your pipeline and keep your team “busy” when they could pursue better leads. Even your team dreads contacting them because it won’t amount to anything.

Characteristics of the leads you may need to drop include.

• They don’t have the budget. This is often the biggest obstacle to closing deals. Without sufficient funds or the ability to obtain funds in the foreseeable future, it doesn’t matter how great your solutions are, they won’t move forward.  
• Your product isn’t the right fit. Ultimately, your products won’t solve everyone’s problems. The prospect may have been interested in your solutions but later decided they weren’t a good fit. They make unreasonable demands and complain about everything.
• The person isn’t a decision-maker. They might love your solutions but do not influence their organization’s decision-making. While you may continue targeting the organization, find the actual real decision-makers.

It’s easy to focus all your marketing efforts on boosting sales that you forget about building brand trust. 

The sales we see are by-products of the trust customers place in our business. This means the more trusting prospective customers find us, the more likely they will buy from you.

A solid way to build trusting relationships with potential customers is through content marketing.

Here are some content marketing ideas that may help reinforce trust

• Showcase case studies. This content proves to potential customers that you have handled other customers’ problems successfully. Telling the story from the customer’s perspective and using direct quotes helps build relatability.
• Co-create content with trusted industry influencers. We’re wired to trust those we admire, meaning trusted industry influencers can sway their followers’ purchase decisions. Partnering with these influencers may give your brand a boost in buyers’ eyes.
• Craft content that serves customer needs rather than sells to them. People love learning as opposed to being sold to. Sharing educational content that explores their problems and shows how your brand can help, gets them to appreciate your brand and trust you.

Many salespeople know what it’s like to get a list of leads, a detailed script, and the instruction “Make the calls.”

We would rather do anything else but call. Yet cold calling is still here, still a preferred communication channel by senior executives, and brands use the strategy to connect with new customers.

Succeeding in cold calling takes more than an elaborate script and the ability to target the right people. The team making these calls needs to be empowered with soft skills that will help them connect with and build rapport with prospective customers.

These skills include

• Empathy. Businesses have genuine problems they want to be solved, but only by those who show a genuine understanding of these challenges. You’ll need to show the lead that you understand their frustrations and share their values.
• Charisma is king. Mix your statistics and selling points with stories and anecdotes that your audience can resonate with. They might not remember the stats but will keep the stories in mind and you’ll stand a far better chance of connecting with your lead.
• Tenacity. Cold calling is about dancing around the ‘nos’ to get the ‘yes’. It’s an abrasive field where you’ll probably call a prospect multiple times just to get them to listen.  Take the ‘nos’ in good grace and be persistent. It will pay off in the long run.

Now, unique value propositions are just that—they are the special factors that differentiate your organization from the competition.

They are the special factors that have past and current customers say, “Hey, we choose your brand because of ….”

The proposition must be relevant (detail your ability to improve situations) and provide quantified value.

It must 

• Be easy to understand
• Communicate the results the prospect can expect by using your business solutions
• Steer clear of hype phrases like “Never seen before,” “Miracle product” 

When creating a robust value proposition consider

• Identifying your ideal target customer. In addition to building target customer profiles, create personas of the decision-makers in those companies. Knowing what matters to the companies and decision-makers may help you create relatable value propositions.
• Listing your benefits and values. What value and benefits will users garner from your solutions and how do they differ from your competitors?
• Writing your proposition. Focus on clarity, avoid technical jargon, and use lingo your target will understand and connect with. The goal is to get your message to buyers easily and quickly.
• Testing and optimizing. Share your first draft with a group of trusted but unbiased customers and collect their first impressions. Does your proposition communicate benefits, value, and differences from competitors? Use their feedback to revise your proposition 

With brands testing all kinds of digital marketing tactics, adding direct mail to your strategy brings added advantage.

A study showed that consumers preferred direct mail over digital ads because they are a more tangible form of communication.

We’re putting out so many electronic messages that people automatically ignore them. The same study says that direct mail enjoys up to 42.2 percent open rate.

So, “Why aren’t you using direct mail?”

Perhaps you believe you should only use it once you have made meaningful contact with your leads, aka, they have expressed the desire to buy. It will maximize ROI, right?

Think about this… what’s the one thing B2B marketers compete for? An audience’s attention. Without your audience’s attention, any lead-generation tactic you employ will fall on deaf ears.

Direct mail cuts through the noise, reaches your audience and holds their attention. With their attention on you, other tactics may now work. As you see, this shouldn’t be a follow-up tactic, but rather one that sets the pace for all others.

Done right direct mail may help buyers to recognize your brand, build better reputations, and direct the recipients to your online resources for further engagement.

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