Now mature, lead generation and digital selling tools (websites, social networks, sales automation...) have proven their effectiveness, but have also begun to show their limits, as evidenced by the " Content Shock " debate that is stirring up the Web Marketing sphere.
Now that these sales methods have become the norm, only those who have mastered the art of using them stand a chance of succeeding.
And if that thought makes you - and many others - break out in a cold sweat, here are a few tips on how to come out of the online lead generation arena alive.
1. Review your weapons
As we've already mentioned, Marketing is now involved in most stages of thesales funnel (read our article on thesales organization of software publishers).
In other words, you'd better make sure you have a killer marketing strategy, if you want your prospects to choose YOUR SaaS software solution over your neighbor's (and on the web, ALL your competitors are your neighbors!).
The first step in your preparation as a " lead generation gladiator" is therefore to review the weapons you already possess, to get an idea of your chances of survival and to "upgrade" them:
- What tools and channels do you already use: website, social networks, email campaigns...?
- How are they used: how often? with what content?
- What volume of visitors or subscribers do they generate?
- With what impact, in terms of sales?
The more you know about your weaknesses, the more likely you are to correct them.
2. Refine your positioning and know your target
Once this initial diagnosis of your Web marketing tools has been carried out, it's essential to start with your competitors and your targets in order to use them as effectively as possible: to use your weapons wisely, there's nothing like knowing who you're dealing with...
- What are the characteristics of your online market, its opportunities and risks?
- Who are your main competitors, and what are their web marketing and sales strategies?
- Which customers do you want to attract and convince as a priority, via your lead generation tools?
This last point should be seen in relation to your "Gold, Silver and Bronze" targets, defined when building yoursales model. And because you're dealing with Marketing logic and approach here, you're going to convert these generic targets (type of company, sales volume...) into "Buyer Personae", endowed with human and personalized traits. 1
3. Develop a warrior strategy
Once you know which Buyer Personae you're addressing, everything becomes clearer: how you're going to talk to them, via which channels, and above all: to tell them what!
Address their concerns, show them what problems you're going to solve for them and what it's going to do for them - in short, let them know what they're going to gain from YOUR solution. In this way, you'll first create trust, then the desire to work with you.
Sound a little too simple? You're right.
There's no point in "talking into your prospects' ears" if they never leave you their number to call them back!
An effective Web marketing strategy is based on a very precise scenario, which enables you first toATTRACT visitors related to your target, then to CONVERT them into identified and qualified prospects - i.e. those whose contact details you have and whose interest in your services you have nurtured - and finally, to SELL them your solution!
For your scenarios to produce results, you must first have a clear vision of these points:
- Where will you direct the flow of your visitors (your site's "contact" page, "demo request" landing page, etc.)?
- How do your visitors move from one channel (web or not) to another?
- How do you identify their level of interest in your solution?
This is what will enable you to define the content strategy that meets your objectives: in other words, to plan the production and distribution of your " lead magnets " (attractive content encouraging visitors to leave their contact details) and the accompanying " call-to-actions ": download a data sheet or white paper, carry out an online diagnosis, request a demo...
4. Don't leave the outcome to chance
Deploying an Inbound Marketing strategy strategy requires working in agile mode (we'll come back to this shortly), but it can't be managed "by instinct" - quite the contrary!
To be effective, lead generation using Web marketing tools must be guided by precise objectives and based on careful monitoring of pre-defined indicators.
In line with your sales funnel, define quantified objectives and the corresponding KPIs.
For example (in simplified mode):
QUANTIFIED TARGET OF:
Generated traffic
Volume of visitors identified
Number of leads sent to sales reps
Sales generated
KPI:
Number of unique visitors to the site
Number of contacts generated via contact field
Number of qualified leads obtained
Cumulative sales from referred leads
It is essential to monitor these figures using dedicated management tools (SEO tools, dashboards...).
And to do this, to "score your leads": each time a stage is reached in the qualification of a contact (identification, obtaining a telephone number...), a new "score" is assigned to it, which brings it closer to the transmission of the lead to the sales team.
Scoring is also based on "rich information" relating to the profile and behavior of your visitors (function, centers of interest, degree of autonomy in the purchasing decision...) that you will have obtained via online interactions and recorded, in a CRM tool for example.
5. Learn from your defeats and savour your victories
There's no denying it: deploying a lead generation strategy from start to finish, from definition to implementation, is a long and sometimes tricky process. This is particularly true when it comes to automating processes and interfacing the various tools used (CRM, marketing automation solutions, SEO tools, etc.).
That's why you need to start small, allow yourself to implement actions progressively, and roll out your scenarios iteratively.
You can start by testing "short" loops with a limited amount of content: 1 lead magnet, 2 articles and 1 infographic (or video) to feed your first mail series, for example. This allows you to "get the hang of" content production and distribution tools, test processes in agile mode and generate your first identified leads.
The first victories fuel motivation and always bring their share of instructive mistakes.
Depending on your resources - and provided you haven't overlooked the need to evaluate your tools, define your personas and formalize your objectives - it may be more effective to start simply and build up gradually, rather than setting up a gas factory or starting immediately with expensive tools that will have to be amortized.
The Gladiator who wins the fight isn't always the one who had the best weapons at the start: more often than not, it's the one who knows his opponent well and uses his own weapons to best effect once in the arena!
1. In marketing, a persona is an imaginary character representing a target group or segment. It usually has a first name and social and psychological characteristics. For example: Sabrina, 40, 2 children, urban, senior executive, closely follows fashion, takes the metro, goes trail running...etc. Personae are used, among other things, to develop website content and optimize customer customer customerThey were also originally used to design the product and service offering itself.
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