2017 has gotten off to a solid start for most B2B companies, and the economy is continuing to gain momentum quarter after quarter. So, what company wouldn’t want to have more qualified sales opportunities every month? Even with the economy headed the right direction, almost every sales executive and sales rep we speak with can still handle more quality lead generation and sales appointments. In fact, when surveyed at the end of 2016, my Marketing Profs concluded that lead generation and setting appointments with qualified opportunities continues to be the number one focus of most small businesses trying to scale. It’s also become one of the most challenging parts of the sales process for similar reasons at most small businesses:
- Buyers have so many lead generation reps approaching them daily, it’s harder and harder for a sales person to break through and connect.
- Sales reps don’t have the time required for lead generation on a daily basis
- Prospects require sales reps to share quality content once they do connect
- More and more buyers are educating themselves online, trying to avoid talking to a sales rep until they are well educated – prospects are doing so much of the fact-finding on their own. They are looking for ideas, suggestions, and resources online, and not even involving a sales person at that stage of their journey.
What would happen to your revenue growth if you had a consistent flow of leads coming into your organization on a monthly and weekly and basis? And what if these leads were prioritized, so if your closers or Sales Development Reps had limited bandwidth, they could call the buyers most likely to be interested first.
This is now possible by integrating sales and marketing functions to run sales and marketing campaigns. It is not a magic bullet; it takes hard work, but the idea is simple. A B2B sales outsourcing can help you do the hard work. A B2B sales outsourcing and marketing company can help you take the information that used to be exclusively be shared by a sales rep and a sales engineer early in the sales process and create digital content that in effect clones that sales process. You then need to share the content with your buyers in multiple ways. In doing this, buyers can find your information online, or you can share it in email campaigns, or your sales development reps can share with the buyers early in the sales conversation.
Granted the concept is not a new one. You use marketing to attract buyers, but the way you now have to put all the pieces together is more important than ever. Here are six steps you need to take to generate more leads on your own or with a B2B sales outsourcing partner.
Lead Generation Success starts with
Map Your Sales Process and Your Buyers Journey – Document every step in your sales process. Document each step in your Buyer’s Journey. Create a content map of the questions and information you share at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Create Content to Share Your Expertise. Commit to creating digital content that replicates the information needed for the buyer journey. Use a combination of head shot videos, screencast videos, short webcasts, blogs and checklists. A B2B Sales outsourcing company like Gabriel Sales can run a content production workshop to help you create enough content for three to six months of your initial effort over a quick several day period. Long-term (after you get through your first wave of content), you will need to be prepared to continue to create two to four additional pieces of content per quarter.
Share the Content through a Marketing Automation Platform – Start sending content on a regular basis with a marketing automation platform.
Score the Leads – Use the marketing automation to score lead engagement with the content you send and any other content they find on their own on your website.
Share Content as Part of Your Calling Efforts – Have a piece of content to share when you cold call. Sharing is caring and you will generate more early stage leads this way.
Share it in social media – You can publish directly on LinkedIn, and push through Twitter, as well as host videos on your website and in your YouTube channel. And don’t forget about Google+.
When your prospects see you as an expert who can add real value, they will be happy to take your call and meet with you. And with scored leads, you can prioritize the buyers most likely to buy.
About Gabriel Sales B2B Sales Outsourcing
Gabriel Sales helps companies transform their sales and marketing with:
- Sales Consulting
- Outsourced Sales and Marketing
- Sales Automation Systems Implementation
To learn more about our philosophy and how we may be able to help we invite you to visit our About Us page. Or you can check out our outsourced sales and marketing services here
