ENTREPRENEURSHIP
3 Ways to improve the quality of your B2B leads
One of the most important components of your business is B2B leads; without them your business can suffer. Although it’s important to gather a quantity of leads, it’s equally important to have a high quality B2B database of leads. The goal of working towards quality leads is always a work in progress, but the good news is there are ways you can improve the quality of a B2B contact database of leads. Does your business have a quantity of leads, but struggles with the quality of leads? If so, here are 3 ways to improve the quality of your B2B leads.
Commitment to Lead Nurturing
Although some leads are hot enough to immediately turn into sales, in reality, there are many prospects in your B2B database that require “nurturing” before they are sales-ready. This means that in order to keep the majority of B2B data leads in the system, your marketing team needs to maintain a commitment to nurture these leads through continual and encouraging interactions. A successful lead nurturing program gathers all of the leads in your B2B contact database (those gathered in subscriptions, web forms, downloads, etc. ) and coaxes through the various buying stages, ultimately singling out those that are the most likely to be converted to a sale.
If your business isn’t already committed to lead nurturing, one of the easiest ways to begin is with an email or newsletter campaign. Both of these methods will allow you to maintain frequent contact with “not quite hot” leads, while you continue to offer them valuable information. Once your newsletter and/or email marketing campaign is integrated, you can then begin to test more advanced lead nurturing initiatives, such an automated campaign that is based on website visits or email clicks. The most important thing to keep in mind is that a commitment to lead nurturing is being committed to the process of building a relationship with more qualified prospects, regardless of when they buy, with a goal of earning their business when they are ready.
Implement a Lead Scoring System
A lead scoring system is a methodology that is used to categorize potential prospects based on their level of commitment. It is an integral part of lead management that allows you to track the behaviors of prospects through their online and web activity in order to determine their level of interest in specific products and services, so you can decide if they are worth pursuing. Using a lead scoring system to build your B2B contact database allows you to have a B2B database of leads that have an interest in the product or service you are providing. The system uses a point-based system to analyze a range of data points to help quantify commitment. The leads that have a “most committed” rating become the top priority in your B2B data.
Committing to a lead scoring system is the ideal way to quantify and scale the targeting requirements of your business. It may also save time and money that may otherwise be wasted on leads that do not currently have or will in the future have an interest in your product or service. Implementing a lead scoring system may initially cause a decrease in the volume of leads, but you will see a significant increase in the percentage of qualified leads; ultimately increasing the rate of lead induced revenue. It is important to keep in mind that lead profiles may become stale as the target audience changes, so the system should take into account scoring criteria that fits an ever-changing demographic and the elements of your customers wants and needs.
Create A Marketing-Sales Feedback Loop
A feedback loop in business basically means that a company reinvests their sales revenue to generate even more income, while in the customer experience it means the customer feedback loop is referring to a business strategy where the manufacturer uses their customer’s opinions to determine future actions. So, how is this beneficial for business? A marketing sales feedback loop would consist of having communication between the customer’s and your sales and marketing teams as a way to increase positive leads. For instance, communicating with customers allows you to have a better understanding of what they want in a product or service; therefore, allowing you to market the product to their specific wants and needs.
When utilizing a customer closed loop, marketing is able to send more information to the sales team, such as additional lead intel, which allows the sales to provide feedback and sales activity reports to marketing. B2B database for marketers with an included customer feedback loop means the marketing team will not have to wait until a sale is complete to assess the lead quality, which includes old data, so it’s no longer actively manageable in real time lead generation programs. This concept ultimately improves the B2B customer database by giving your customers a personalized experience, and with a better customer experience, the leads in the B2B data will increase; ultimately increasing the number of “hot” leads and sales.
These are only a few of the simple ways to improve the quality of your B2B data leads. By targeting quality leads, you will not only reduce the time and money you spend on getting leads that will not be beneficial for your business, but the quality leads you do gather will improve your overall revenue. It’s important to keep in mind that it is essential for marketers to set higher qualification standards in order to improve and increase the sales revenue brought in through the sales team. This means that in order to have both quality and quantity of leads, both the marketing team and the sales team must work together, but increasing the B2B contact database starts with understanding your customer’s needs and wants.