Studies have shown that businesses that are great at nurturing leads get 50% more qualified leads at 33% less cost, how much are you saving on?
Is struggling to convert the B2B leads into paying customers a struggle for you? Many people are also in such situations. There’s an increasing need to improve your lead generation and nurturing efforts more than ever before in today’s competitive market.
Vereigen Media has helped innumerable B2B companies increase their sales by implementing tested lead optimization techniques. I’m going to show you how to maximize your leads and drive up revenue using some of them.
1. Segment Your Leads
One-size-fits-all marketing does not work in the B2B world; this is because different leads have diverse pain points, budgets, and timelines. Segmenting your leads helps you serve more personalized and relevant content which connects with each group.
Here’s how you should segment your leads
Industry
Company size
Job title
Pain points
Buying stage
Winbacks
Awake Sleeping Beauty
For example, your product is marketing automation software, so you mave have a different nurturing track for small businesses versus enterprises or for marketing managers versus CMOs. The main idea here is to customize the kind of message or offer depending on what unique needs and interests a given segment has.
2. Personalize Your Outreach
In the present day crowded B2B landscape personalization is the key to cutting through the noise. More often than not leads will engage with content and offers that address their unique challenges and goals directly.
There are several easy ways to personalize your outreach, some of them include this:
Using the name of a lead in emails or social media messages.
Referring to his or her company, industry or pain points
Sending them content recommendations based on their interests and behavior
Providing them with a free consultation/demo designed for their specific needs
For example, you can send a case study about how your product helped streamline operations at a similar organization to a lead from a healthcare company. Alternatively, you may choose to provide CMO with a free consultation for optimizing their marketing funnel.
“Gartner research shows that if you personalize your approach according to the buyers need then chances of you getting a B2B buyer is 2.8 times higher.”
The more personal your outreach is, relevant it will be leading leads down the funnel where they can engage with such information at later stages.
3. Foster Your Leads
Lead nurturing is a process of gradually building relationships with potential customers. You can do this just by keeping consistency in creating value around useful content and creating some exciting offers thereby bringing them closer to buying.
Some effective lead nurturing techniques are:
Boosting educational email series
Keeping them intact with new blog, webinars and case studies
Engaging with leads on social media
Offering free trials or demos
To give an example, what you can do is to offer them some tips which can be helpful in their buying process. Alternatively, they may be invited to join an exclusive LinkedIn group where they can meet others in their field and ask for help from professionals there.
“Forrester found that companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.”
The most important aspect is adding value at every stage of the buyer’s journey i.e., right from awareness to decision-making. And so doing, you will be able to close deals quickly and increase closed deals ratios.
4. Social Proof Leverage
Trust is everything in the B2B world. If leads can see others who have been successful with your product or service, they are much more likely to convert and that is social proof.
Variations of social proof:
Customers Testimonials and case studies
Badges from clients and partner logos
Social media reactions and mentions
Awards and industry recognition
For example, testimonial from a client on your homepage can be a great add on for you to leave a good impression. You could also publish a case study on LinkedIn illustrating how you helped a specific client overcome a certain problem.
Your marketing as well as sales funnel will therefore help build trust between the parties concerned, counter objections from customers and make it more possible for new opportunities to result in buying decisions.
5. Get Better with Lead Scoring
In lead scoring what you do is, you give values to leads according to a well segmented filter of their needs which also falls in place with your ideal customer profile. If you focus on the warmest leads of your, then they can turn into a bundle of profit yield.
Critical factors in lead scoring include:
Website engagement and content
Customer Profile Suitability
Buying Step and Timeline
Budgets and Authority for Decision Making
For instance, a lead that has downloaded more than one eBook and attended webinars could have higher scores compared with one who just visited a home page. Alternatively, it can give a higher score to a lead from an organization that meets its ideal customer profile by size, sector or pain points.
“A recent study by Forrester shows that companies that have excelled in lead scoring have experienced 192% increase in pipeline velocity as well as 77% rise in marketing-influenced revenue.”
Through regular reviews and optimization of your model for lead scoring, you may ensure that your sales team focuses only on those leads with the highest possibilities for conversion.
6. Measure and Optimize
Additionally, make sure you regularly monitor your lead optimization efforts to adjust them as needed. Conversion rates, ratio of leads to customers, and customer lifetime values are important metrics that can help you evaluate the performance of your strategies.
Some key metrics to track include:
Lead generation rate
Lead to opportunity conversion rate
Opportunity to customer conversion rate
Customer lifetime value
Marketing Return on Investment (MROI)
For instance, if it’s found out that the ratio of opportunities from leads is low then concentration should be shifted towards nurturing the leads. Or else one might have gone wrong with ideal customer profiling or targeting if your customer lifetime value falls below expectations.
Hence, recurring measurement and optimization activities towards lead optimization guarantee better outcomes and improved ROI.