Last updated on May 15th, 2020 at 11:34 am
The biggest headache for a B2B marketer is lead generation and it should be, as it is not a cakewalk to generate leads. Lead generation is, of course, the biggest challenge and it could be really hard for businesses to find out from where all leads can come from.
By looking at the chart below from HubSpot, notice the mysterious spike called “other”. This is a blue bar on the far right, the highest bar on the whole graph. But, what the heck is “other”? Even the smartest mind won’t be able to decode this. Yet, you must remember that leads generate in a better fashion through consistent marketing efforts, grooming industry relationships, and the organic amalgamation of different kinds of interactions, efforts, activities, and behaviors.
Don’t only focus on a single silver lead bullet. B2B lead generation is a combination of unquantifiable activities and behaviors that may work in favor of your business.
Why You Need to Read on?
Among the innumerable lead generation tips you may be practicing to grow your sales, this blog helps you generate internet leads through effective customer communication.
Let’s begin….
Tip # 1 Run Webinars for More Audience Engagement
As a SaaS company, you can drive business growth by running webinars that impress your target audience and engage them more. They prove to be really effective and act like a great constructive lead generation tactic.
- Invite more and more of your prospects to participate in the webinar.
- Decorate your pre-webinar campaign with exciting content and put up “dramatic” questions before your prospects.
- Host weekly or monthly sessions, answer questions of your business customers, educate them, let them share their experience with your product.
- Be ready to recycle your content and time it in a way that you effectively communicate with your customers.
- Demonstrate your product in these webinars and show them how it is trending in a particular industry.
- Urge them to sign up for a free trial of your product, while you are educating them on the same.
Tip # 2 Use LinkedIn to Your Business Advantage
LinkedIn makes for 94 percent of the B2B content marketing social media platform usage. You can generate as many as 200 leads daily on LinkedIn. About half of all users are likely to buy from a company that they engage with on LinkedIn. As you meet a varied group of people on this social media platform, you can connect with them, learn how they promote their products and services, and develop your own lead generation strategies.
- Prep up for the digital version of your 30-second commercial and mention that text in your LinkedIn profile.
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile for connecting.
- Add connections and build on your lead list.
- Follow your current clients and prospects.
- Put lead generation on auto pilot with content marketing.
Tip # 3 Let Review Websites Rate Your Products/Services
What can be better for your product/service than being reviewed by the well-known review platforms? Your B2B leads use popular and credible business ratings websites to learn more about your products and services.
According to 2015 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report, industry analysts/experts (21% votes), colleagues (20% votes), and web search (17% votes) were the top three resources for information about solutions according to the survey respondents.
A positive review has the power to increase the trustworthiness of any product/service. They need to have honest reviews in place to support their decisions. Your product/service should have an online review to boost the lead generation process. Ensure your prospects find favorable reviews.
Online businesses should set up a profile on as many review websites as possible. Not only should your B2B customers be able to post reviews directly on your website, but also review business on platforms, such as LinkedIn, Angie’s List, Google, etc.
A practical way to get your customers’ review your product/service is once they have completed the transaction. How reviews help your business grow online is that they manage and strengthen your brand reputation in a better way.
Tip # 4 Act on Customer Feedback
Your business cannot grow and generate more leads until you take customer feedback seriously. Acting on customer feedback is one of the best lead generation tips. When it comes to B2B clients, getting the feedback isn’t as easy as it is for B2C clients, so it requires extra effort to strategize the questions so as to get the right answers.
- You need to learn from your customers how they want your product/service.
- Be more selective in choosing which positive and negative feedback to act on.
- Your customers can even enlighten you on how they want brand communication to happen.
- Reach out to your B2B clients by any suitable means possible – polls, surveys, F2F interaction and more.
- Look for the cues and your integrated marketing communication efforts can do wonders.
Besides, companies largely use customer support tools to gather and act on customer feedback. Isn’t it great to access customer service experience data simply by employing a tool that helps to deliver excellent customer support?
Of course, you need data to learn how your operators have been performing over time and which of the customer support areas need improvement. A help desk ticketing system comes with “reports” feature and lends you valuable insights into various customer support metrics and how your customers are experiencing your service deliverables.
Tip # 5 Encourage Bi-Directional Conversation with Your Customers
Communicating with your customers one-way doesn’t help as much as having a real conversation with your prospects. Don’t only stick to your website, videos, blogs, and other ways of sharing content.
Your website content may be the most complete and relevant with answers to all the possible questions, but there are a few visitors who can’t find what they have been looking for. 42% of customers prefer a live chat tool for customer support related questions. Live chat tools even help to collect email addresses to build up your lead list.
Remember if your user asks about a feature in chat, not just offer a link to a knowledge base. You may, instead, call the user to walk them through the product/service. This will definitely increase your chances to sell the product in question. Get as close as you can with your leads whenever you interact with them; offer a video call when emailing with your lead and plan to meet if in a video call.
Tip # 6 Respond to Customer Questions Faster
Delivering efficient customer service is the best way to generate leads. You may have the most amazing product/service in the world but, if you are not fast at resolving your customer questions, you are gone. Your competitors won’t even take another breath to shave your brand off the face of the Earth. Not only do your customers need a friendly interaction, but they also want fast responses when stuck in problems.
33% of customers would recommend a brand that provides for a quick but ineffective response. While only 17% of them would recommend a brand that offers a slow but effective solution. Have a look at these numbers. Realize that solving a customer’s problem doesn’t imply they are sure to recommend you to other people if you took longer to resolve the issue. Rather, customers will recommend your brand, if you respond to them with speed even when the solution is inadequate.
