B2B Lead Generation Requires Content and Reps to Educate Your Buyers and Sales Reps to Engage Your Buyers
In Part 1 of this specific series on B2B lead generation we discussed how you can align your content marketing to educate buyers and your telesales reps to generate qualified leads and create demand for your product. In this blog we will discuss how as part of that process that is supporting your buyer’s needs you can also support your internal sales organization needs by engaging them in your sales process. In this blog we will discuss the questions your inside reps should be asking at specific stages of your B2B lead generation process to support your sales efforts.
In a book way back from 2004 Think Like Your Customer, Bill Stinnett pointed out that “…your customers don’t buy solutions. They buy results.” Ultimately it’s your sales teams’ job to sell your buyer these results. While content marketing and your telesales team are building trust with your buyer your inside reps also need to be getting ready to “sell” results. Or more importantly setting up your closer to sell results. While your inside sales and/or telemarketing reps are helping your buyer become educated they should also be answering the following questions at the following stages:
Stage A of B2B Lead Generation- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Typically your first touch you should be discovering:
- What is buyer’s urgency for getting educated right now?
- Is there an impending event?
Stage B of B2B Lead Generation – Telesales Accepted Lead
Typically your second live touch discovering:
- Who will be involved in the decision?
- How are decisions made?
- Who ultimately approves budget?
- What’s the real business motive for buying? Replace something? Cut costs? Increase topline?
- Who/what else are you considering?
- What are the consequences of doing nothing?
Moving From Stage B to Stage C of B2B Lead Generation
Typically buyer has stated they are not ready to talk to a senior rep yet. Your inside reps job is to start drilling down on how engagement will occur:
- Is there budget available? Does a case need to be made for budget?
- What is the impact, ROI or payback required?
- What is the risk associated with making a decision?
Content and marketing automation is great for education. It’s great for helping you to score where leads are in the buying cycle. The tactics are great for saving your reps time nurturing your pipe. But don’t confuse content consumption for engagement. Your investment in content marketing and thought leadership is a must but so are sales reps that are skilled in the science and art of making it easy for your buyers to both consume and engage. If you are not using telesales reps to ask these questions to help your buyers engage more deeply in your B2B lead generation process you are missing the boat. And if your buyer has digested 6- 8 pieces of content and they are not willing to engage and answer at least some of these questions then they are still educating and its more than fair for you to flat out ask what they “think the risk is in making the decision” and then feed them some content to help assuage that risk.
For more tips on how to align your sales and content marketing efforts around B2B lead generation feel free to check out our previous blog – B2B Demand Generation Requires Your Lead Gen Team to Pick Up the Phone, or Digital Content to Automate your Sale – A crash course in integrating sales and marketing efforts.
And feel free to contact us for a free benchmark review.
