Soft vs. Hard Lead Generation for B2B Sales

Soft vs. Hard Lead Generation for B2B Sales

by | Jan 16, 2013

B2B Lead-Capture Web Form

B2B Lead Generation, Sales & Content Basics

Many B2B companies try so hard to generate more leads that they do not come up with a clear strategy for how to do so most efficiently and effectively. What these companies do not understand is that a successful campaign requires clearly defined goals and a well-articulated strategy.

This blog is meant to educate those with less experience in B2B sales and marketing about the fundamentals of lead generation. Specifically, we will address the difference between soft vs. hard lead generation for B2B sales and when each is most appropriate to use.

(If you would like information with a little more depth, please visit our knowledge center focused on B2B Demand Generation.)

The first step in creating a strategy for B2B lead generation is to formulate your overall goals. You should ask the following questions:

• Who are you trying to target?
• What is the number of leads you want to generate?
• What do you want to achieve in terms of sales?
• Are you willing to pay for a lead? How much?
• Where do you want your leads to be in the sales cycle?

The answers to these questions become essential in determining which lead generation technique will be most effective for your business. Depending on what your goals are, you will usually choose either a soft or a hard lead generation strategy. Hard techniques usually generate a higher quality lead, while soft strategies tend to produce large numbers.

The soft offer:

Using an incentive with an apparently low risk factor, soft strategies will give you huge numbers of leads. For example, if you offer free tickets to the World Series, you are likely to get a massive number of responses. The downside of the soft lead, however, is that most of these respondents are more excited about baseball than learning about your business. So, while the soft lead may give you the numbers you want, most leads generated in this way do not progress any further in the sales cycle.

However, in our experience as an outsourced sales and marketing company, we have found that offering an iPad or a gift card can be quite effective, especially in terms of generating a quick opt-in database. We have also seen that the soft lead generation strategy is most effective for businesses trying to target leads early in their sales cycle. This method will take much more time because of having to sift through large numbers and so should be used primarily when attempting to generate activity or jump-start your sales.

The hard offer:

In a hard lead generation strategy, you offer something that is relatively higher risk than free tickets or an iPad. When you make this type of offer, which may require some type of commitment from your prospect, the leads you generate are usually going to be much further along in their sales cycle. Some things you can use as hard offer incentives are free consultations, preliminary audits, invites to webinars, etc.

When engaging with these types of leads, you should be aware they have a much greater chance of becoming closed deals. We have found that a hard lead generation method is most effective for businesses that have little time to weed through huge numbers of leads and are therefore looking to talk to leads much closer to making a purchase.

If you are still having trouble deciding between soft vs. hard lead generation for B2B sales, a good place to start is deciding who you are trying to target. If your goal is to reach marketing teams, a soft offer may be the most appropriate. On the other hand, if you are looking to speak to buying executives, you may want to go with the hard offer. Once you decide the kind of lead you desire and determine what will be of value to them, you will be able to come up with a successful strategy for generating leads.

Gabriel Sales has over 12 years of experience as an outsourced B2B lead generation company. For more sales basics, please feel free to visit our Blogs on Sales and Content Basics.

What’s the difference between a Sales Cycle and Buying Cycle?

What’s the difference between a Sales Cycle and Buying Cycle?

by | Nov 29, 2012

Understanding the difference between a Sales Cycle vs. Buying Cycle may be the most critical shift an organization needs to make to see significant and sustained revenue growth, especially for complex or highly competitive sales.

In a nutshell, the Sales Cycle is how your company looks at moving deals through their own sales pipe and sales process to close deals.  Typically the flow looks something like a lead, marketing qualified lead,  sales qualified leads,  needs analysis,  proposal,  negotiation,  verbal, and closed.    This is a company centered view.

A buying cycle is looking at your sales cycle from what the customer needs. Probably the best example we have seen of a buying cycle is from Robert Jolles book Customer Centered Selling.    Below is our brief explanation of how we look at this cycle, addressing some of the implications it has for us as an outsourced sales and marketing company with how we divide the sales and marketing functions.

Sales Cycle Vs. Buying Cycle

Phase 1 – Intention to Buy

  1. The buyer starts satisfied with their current solution
  2. The buyer acknowledges to themselves that they are not satisfied
  3. The buyer makes the decision to do something about it
  4. The buyer starts to think about “what are the criteria” to consider moving forward

As a lead generation and a demand generation company, we understand that intention is meaningless without action.   The world is full of people with great intentions that never actually take any action.   Your job as a sales person and marketer is to understand that your first task in generating demand for your solution is to help educate a buyer on the “criteria” they need to consider.  You need to appreciate that given a choice, most buyers will sit on the fence for as long as possible.  They want to move forward,  they know it’s good for them to move forward, so you need to help educate the buyer enough so they do in fact move forward.   Your first job as a sales and marketing professional is to inspire and catalyze the desire that gets your buyer to move from the passive buying process to the active buying process.   More and more, this is becoming the function of your content marketing and inside team.

Phase 2 – Active Buying

  1. The buyer needs to figure out how to measure the solution to: justify the purchase, understand the impact of doing nothing vs. changing,  see the impact on topline, recognize the implications for bottom line,  feel subjective relief of pain or risk
  2. The buyer investigates deeply, typically with short list of solutions and a deep dive into one or more solutions
  3. Selection is made; a front-runner is chosen
  4. The buyer reconsiders their decision

During the “Active” buying process, your sales team is typically on point.   It’s at this point that marketing should take a back seat – with one exception: marketing  needs to continue to support the sales team with the content they need to help deal with the reconsideration phase of the sales cycle.   Your marketers need to be prepared to help the buyer remember why they were no longer satisfied and embarked on their buying cycle in the first place.

B2B Lead Generation Fundamentals – Soft vs. Hard

B2B Lead Generation Fundamentals – Soft vs. Hard

by | Feb 17, 2012

Lead generation sales and basics

B2B sales companies have come up with a variety of ways to generate more leads, and building a successful campaign requires that companies carefully and strategically choose a method that addresses their specific goals.  As an outsourced sales, and outsourced marketing firm this is part of our series to educate customers not experienced in sales and marketing with some of the B2B Lead Generation Fundamentals to help them make an informed decision about outsourcing to generate leads.  This blog discusses the differences between hard and soft generation methods, as well as when each is appropriate for use.

If you would like meatier content on Lead Generation we invite you to visit our knowledge center devoted to B2B Demand Generation.

The first thing to do when coming up with a generation strategy is to clearly articulate you goals.  These should be both quantitative and qualitative.  How many leads are you trying to get?  What kind of sales to you need to generate?  Who is the audience you are trying to focus on?  How early or late in the sales cycle do you want your leads to be? What are you willing to pay for a lead?

These questions are important to ask because how you choose to generate leads will affect the number and quality of your leads.  Soft strategies tend to generate large numbers, while harder strategies tend to generate a higher quality.

The Soft Offer

Soft offers pull in high numbers with an incentive that has very little perceived risk.  If you use a sweepstakes type strategy, and offer free tickets to the Super Bowl, you are likely to get an unprecedented number of respondents.  However, most of these leads are likely to care more about football than your product or service, and few will convert to qualified leads.  One example of a soft offer that we have seen work is gift cards or a free iPad.  As an outsourced lead generation company we have found that this is sometimes a great way to generate a quick opt in database..

This method should be used when companies are looking to get leads earlier in the sales cycle.  It also requires more time to weed through the large numbers to find qualified leads.  This approach is best when trying to jump-start your sales or create a lot of activity.

The Hard Offer

Hard offers produce fewer respondents, but the leads that are generated are much more likely to be qualified.  By offering something that has a slightly higher risk, or involves some type of commitment, you are likely talking to someone much further along in his or her sales cycle.  Hard offers can include invitations to webinars, an audit, a consultation, etc.

Use hard offers when you want to target prospects further into the buying cycle, or do not have the time to weed through large numbers looking to qualify.  The leads you generate with hard offers are much more likely to convert to closed deals, so take this into consideration when engaging with them.

When it comes deciding which method will be most effective for your company, knowing who you are talking to is key — A hard offer is appropriate if trying to target buying executives, while you might want to try a soft offer if you want to talk to marketing teams.  Figure out the type of lead you want and determine what is valuable to this type of person. If you can make your offer appealing to your desired leads’ interests, your campaign is likely to be successful.

Gabriel Sales has over 12 years of experience as an outsourced generation company.   For more B2B lead generation fundamentals please feel free to visit our Blogs on Sales and Content Basics.