How to Close More Deals With a B2B Referral Program

How You Can Close More Deals Faster With a B2B Referral Program

Marketing, Sales / By

In today’s digital world, your customers are skeptical. It is easy for anyone to say anything online. With all the information, your B2B customers will likely listen only to opinions from those whom they trust.

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The power of referrals is undeniable. Roughly 84% of B2B customers start their buying process with a referral. Additionally, companies with a B2B lead referral program have a 71% higher conversion rate.

Companies with referral programs sales stats

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What Is a B2B Referral Program?

A solid way to close more deals is through a B2B referral program. Referral marketing incentivizes satisfied customers to recommend your product or service to business decision-makers.

A referral program involves a process, often with a web page on which customers can enter business contacts. Occasionally, contacting representatives of referred businesses is not a B2B referral program. Instead, these recommendation programs track referrals and reward your customers when their recommendation produces a sale.

The Advantages of Having a B2B Referral Network

A network of customers who refer businesses to your brand can expand your B2B referral program and improve its effectiveness. Below are some advantages of a B2B referral network:

Increased Sales 

Word-of-mouth advertising is the basis of B2B referral marketing. When a prospective client is referred to you through someone they trust who loves your brand, they most likely will convert. Referrals can improve conversion rates by up to 71%.

A referral network builds relationships, improves customer experience and expands word-of-mouth advertising about your products and services. These three B2B referral program benefits increase sales. 

Lower Acquisition Costs

While getting new customers boosts sales, acquiring them can be expensive. It costs five times more to get new customers than keep current ones.

B2B referral programs lead to lower acquisition costs for new customers. Leads and signups recommended by a current customer are more likely to buy. This is because these new leads trust the opinion of the person who loves your product or service.  

Customer Retention Lower Acquisition Costs

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Lower Churn Rates 

You will have customers leave over time. Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop doing business with you. You must have new customers to balance the amount of existing ones.

Besides lowering acquisition costs, a B2B referral program can lower churn rate. In fact, referred customers have a retention rate 37% higher than non-referred ones.

B2B referral marketing programs are powerful lead-generation tools that attract high-quality leads. These leads will likely stay and do business with you over the long term, reducing churn.

Increase in Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) 

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is the total revenue a customer generates for your business. LTV increases the more someone spends and the longer they are a customer.

A B2B referral program improves customer LTV with enhanced engagement with your company. Referred customers loyal to your business have a 25% higher lifetime value when recommended by friends, family members or colleagues. Customers will invest in your brand when the social proof and reputation of someone they trust are on the line.

Promote Brand Awareness 

B2B referral programs are excellent ways to promote your brand through word-of-mouth advertising. The more people talk about your brand, the greater your exposure, resulting in more sales. 

Brand awareness offers the following additional benefits: 

  • Builds brand equity
  • Makes scaling up easier  
  • Allows you to collect data on your audience for future marketing endeavors

Why B2B Referral Marketing Is So Effective

B2B referral programs increase the likelihood of closing deals. Below are some ways referral marketing is effective at producing sales:

1. Customers trust referrals.

Customers trust referrals from people they know. Reviews and recommendations from others perform much better than conventional advertisements. Studies show people are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

2. Referred customers are more loyal.

When customers are referred to your company by someone they trust, they will stick around. Referral marketing helps potential customers start with a high opinion of your company.

3. Increase ROI

Referral marketing programs increase your return on investment (ROI) because it is more cost-effective than other forms of marketing. Getting customers through referrals can be up to five times less expensive than traditional advertising channels.

While there are costs with the rewards you offer, the benefits to your customers will be worth it. As mentioned, these referred customers are high-quality and will likely become loyal customers. 

Your B2B referral program can be even more cost-effective with the types of rewards you offer. Awarding points or credits to people who recommend your brand can be cheaper than giving an immediate gift or discount.

4. Increase your marketing reach

Word-of-mouth marketing is an effective way to spread awareness of your brand and build credibility. Customers trust you when they hear good things about your offerings from those they respect.

People who recommend your brand to others become your brand ambassadors, offering free advertising. Referral advertising is limitless since nobody can prevent people from talking about your business. You also expand your potential lead base as your ambassadors will have diverse circles of acquaintances. 

5. Easy setup

B2B referral programs are quick and easy to set up because many are automated. All you have to do is decide which rewards to offer and what people must do to earn the rewards. 

You can also create a referral marketing program by asking customers to share the name of whoever referred them. You then reward them according to what your program outlines.   

Referral marketing program example

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6. Collect valuable data

B2B referral programs allow you to gather information on prospective leads and market trends. When you know your referrals, you can give them an engaging and personalized experience by meeting their needs.

7. Increase customer engagement

Consumers buy from brands that are engaging with them. Customers are more engaged in sharing your brand through a referral program. A B2B referral program will drive brand advocates back to your website, increasing the chance of a sale.

8. Boost your social media

B2B referral marketing allows people to refer friends to your business via social media. Incentivizing loyal customers to promote your brand on their social networks will expand your social media presence.

Referral Marketing Stats

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How to Build a B2B Referral Program for Your Business

You may be wondering how you start building a B2B referral program. The first place to start is to figure out the right rewards for your B2B referrals.

To offer the right perks, you must know your audience and provide rewards that your referrals will enjoy. Gift cards, discounts on goods and services and credits are popular B2B referral program rewards.

After deciding on your B2B referral marketing rewards, here are some things to consider when building your program:

  1. Establish a service agreement with a referral section built in. When onboarding new customers, let them know you appreciate and reward referrals.
  2. Request referrals either via phone or in-person from satisfied customers. If you get a glowing review from a customer, ask them to refer your business when thanking them.
  3. Send follow-up emails. After communicating your referral program to customers, follow up with an email campaign.
  4. Conduct customer satisfaction surveys and questionnaires. Ask your customers about the quality of their experiences with your brand and services. Follow up with the ones most likely to refer you.
Referral program steps

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Examples of Successful B2B Referral Programs

The benefits of having a B2B referral program have convinced you to create one of your own. You know what you need to get one off the ground, but what does a good referral marketing program look like? Here are some examples of companies with effective referral programs:

1. Bench Accounting

Bench Accounting is a fintech company that provides automated bookkeeping software. Bench Accounting’s B2B referral program offers a free month of accounting to friends of existing customers.

2. Airtable

AirTable offers an all-in-one solution for teams to collaborate and communicate. Their referral marketing program gives credits to those who recommend the company to others.

Those who refer others to Airtable receive 100 credits for new accounts and 25 credits should those customers upgrade. Credits go towards discounts and perks.

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a SaaS company that allows businesses to create and analyze the results of surveys. SurveyMonkey uses referral software to run its program automatically. Their referral marketing program gives members $500 for every organization registering a SurveyMonkey account.

4. DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean provides businesses with a workforce management tool to help them with their IT needs. DigitalOcean offers many perks based on the actions taken by the referrals.

With their B2B referral program, members receive a $25 credit when a referral spends $25. Members receive $100 and a 60-day credit when a referral adds a payment method.

DigitalOcean Referral Program

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5. Hotjar

Hotjar allows businesses to analyze and understand the behavior of people who visit their websites. Their referral program offers different rewards for different levels of referrals

The top referrer receives a free lifetime business account. The top-five runner-ups get a free hoodie. Those who make five referrals get a free T-shirt.

6. Jawfish Digital

Jawfish Digital is a content marketing and web design agency offering clients content creation, web design and e-book production services. Their B2B referral program awards $100 Amazon gift cards to anyone who recommends their content or web design services.

Businesses that want to attract quality leads and close more deals need a B2B referral program. These marketing programs offer many benefits and are easy to set up and customize.

Conclusion

Check out LeadBoxer today to learn how it can significantly help your company increase its lead generation through custom lead scoring combined with 20 of the most popular and requested app integrations.

Hyper Personalization Other Ways to Shorten the Sales Life Cycle

Hyper Personalization & Other Ways to Shorten the Sales Life Cycle

Marketing, Sales / By

As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are continuing to face a challenging economy. For those who weathered the uncertainty of 2020, current rising interest rates and inflation are pushing businesses to streamline spending as much as possible. Despite fears of a recession, there are ways to grow and increase revenue for B2B companies.

Strategically using marketing and other tactics to shorten the sales life cycle (SLC) can help your team capitalize on existing resources, while improving return on investment (ROI).

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What Is Hyper Personalization?

customer decision chart

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Superb customer experience (CX) should be the chief focus of your sales and marketing efforts. This includes reaching out to your target audience in a timely manner and ensuring your messaging contains helpful information. Customers most want to know how your product relates to their needs!

Incorporating automation and taking advantage of data-driven marketing techniques can help improve the individual CX throughout your sales cycle. Rather than trying to apply a one-size-fits-all approach, hyper personalization addresses the unique needs of each customer to help close a deal. This method relies heavily on data collection and proper data analysis, which gives your marketing team an informed understanding of their target audience.

Before jumping into using this strategy, it’s important to create and know your ideal customer profile. Effective lead segmentation is also key for success.

While you can’t personalize your outreach for each individual customer, content should be segmented based on audience groups in similar stages of the buying process. This helps funnel customers through the sales pipeline by providing relevant product information on a timeline that suits their needs.

Instead of selling your product to the masses, hyper personalization provides educational content to help cultivate and deepen customer relationships. This happens by using data to help uncover more information about prospective leads and current customers. This data includes browsing history, content engagement, purchasing behavior, and their activity timelines.

This type of marketing allows your team to capitalize on money that’s already been spent, rather than upping the budget. Your company may need to invest in lead generation software that tracks website engagement and stores data. Once in place, a quality lead information platform can prove pivotal in boosting your ROI.

Costs will begin to decrease as automation, audience segmentation, and a streamlined workflow helps reach your customers. Research conducted by Deloitte shows that in return for more personalized service, 22% of customers are willing to share personal data. In the same report, Deloitte asserts evidence suggests companies can see an 8x increase in ROI when hyper personalization is executed properly.

Maximizing revenue with this tactic can come from boosting online sales, improving CX and increasing customer retention. Start with focused content that showcases your product and brand making it stand out from your competitors. By creating this content, your marketing team can push educational resources to customers throughout the sales cycle to aid their product research.

How To Implement Hyper Personalization Into Your Marketing Strategy

Once you understand the concept, implementing this tactic takes a bit of advance work. Through techstacks, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics, your team can apply hyper personalization to shorten the sales life cycle (SLC).

  • Get to know your customers. While this seems self-explanatory, this strategy relies heavily on a deep understanding of your current clients and leads. Buyer personas and ideal client profiles are a great starting point for this.

Digging a little deeper into your current customers and their product usage can help you understand what motivates new leads to seek out your services. Take time to gather feedback from your current customers. This can be done through social media, sales conversations, and website forms.

Gather insight through analyzing website and content engagement. Understanding how prospects interact with your page can inform the content your team creates. This information can be gathered and stored through a lead generation tool like Leadboxer for easy access.

  • Create a strong techstack. Utilizing technology will help streamline your marketing process, remove siloes between sales and marketing teams and shorten the SLC. Collecting clean data is vital to this strategy, and technology is the best way to gather reliable information.

Invest in a lead generation and lead management platform that integrates with your CRM to update data in real-time. This technology will capture prospect information, segment and score new leads, and track content engagement.

  • Build your content strategy. Using the data your marketing team has gathered, begin crafting a strategy to push out content. This will be a collection of social media posts, educational content, and email marketing.

Rather than rolling out all of this content to every customer, your team should focus on audience segmentation for a hyper personalized experience. Consider trigger points for promotional deals or educational pieces. For example, if an interested lead fills out a web form, your site can offer an informational guide about your industry.

Segmentation will help make sure email marketing campaigns are being sent to customers at the right stage in the sales cycle.  By dividing groups based on being in similar phases of the customer journey, your content can help push customers to quicker sales conversions.

  • Take advantage of automation. Remove some of the burden from your marketing team, and replace repetitive tasks with automation. This will help eliminate room for human error from the marketing and sales cycle, while freeing up resources for other activities.

Using automation to send out content based on different trigger points can help you keep your  product top of mind with your customer base. Automated email marketing keeps prospects informed of changes and advancements in the service or product you provide. Automation also helps cleanse your data, as an automated process collects and stores information in real time.

Successfully Using Email Marketing For Targeted Outreach

What Businesses Think Of Personalized Emails

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Shortening the SLC requires good communication to help nurture customer relationships. While your salespeople may be making a good effort to connect with prospects over the phone, engaging leads with email marketing can help increase ROI.

Rather than spending money on prospecting, take advantage of the contacts your company has gathered over the years. These are leads who have already heard of your service or product, so capitalize on their brand awareness to re-engage them in the sales funnel. Continuing communication through triggered email newsletters or drip campaigns can ensure your team is reaching out at the right moment.

According to Hubspot, audience segmentation is used by at least 30% of marketers to help increase email engagement. Some brands have seen strong improvement through a combination of hyper personalization and email marketing.

For example, Naked Wine, an e-commerce wine company, successfully uses this tactic to personalize wine selections for their customers. Using customer reviews, they tailor their customer recommendations based on preferences shared by similar target audiences. With this strategy, Naked Wine saw an improvement in overall email engagement and a 40% increase in campaign conversion rate.

Using segmented email lists can help your sales team time align its outreach efforts with customer needs. Your team can track lead engagement to pinpoint when potential customers are gearing up to make a purchase.

Key Takeaways

Shortening the sales cycle is a great way to increase ROI during an economic downturn. With customers spending less time in the sales cycle, resources are freed to engage new leads and attract new prospects. Using hyper personalization can help your team strengthen customer relationships while simultaneously introducing new leads to your brand.

By segmenting audiences and ensuring relevant information is reaching clients during their customer journey, your sales team can pitch your product in a timely manner. Hyper personalization relies on up-to-date data and automation to run smoothly. Incorporating this strategy with a techstack that includes a lead generation tool can help boost your success rate.

Take time to understand your current customers. Evaluate the ways in which your products are meeting their needs. This information will help attract similar leads, while providing valuable insight into the ways clients interact with your brand.

Plan content accordingly, and utilize trigger points to get relevant information into the hands of the most eager customers. By having content ready for all stages of the sales cycle, communication can help prospects make informed purchases.

Automate processes to free up time and other resources for sales and marketing teams. By allowing technology to play a key role in this strategy, your team can avoid human errors and plan content with the most accurate data points.

Increase brand loyalty by promoting new services or product lines to satisfied customers through email marketing. Utilizing email for continued communication, even after the sale has been made, can help retain clients and encourage repeat purchases. Targeted outreach helps demonstrate your willingness to meet customers’ needs.

Get started with a free Leadboxer trial today to experience what quality lead generation, lead management, and easy integration with the popular tools you already use can do to improve your bottom line!

The 30 Best Email Lookup Tools for 2023

The 30 Best Email Lookup Tools for 2023

Email, lead hacking, Marketing, Sales / By

Finding someone’s email is a crucial part of cold email outreach. Here are some email lookup tools that can help. Without an email address, you’re left to call or message prospects via Twitter or LinkedIn. Options which are likely to lead to low reply/answer rates. With someone’s email address and the right email tracking app, you can reach out to them directly, know that the email has arrived in their inbox, and find out whether or not they’ve opened your email.

While some prospects list their email publicly on social media and their website, others require a little more work. The good news is you don’t need to be a professional detective to find a person’s email address.

We’ve scoured the internet for the most popular email lookup tools on the net, to help you source and approach your candidates with ease. Take a look!

1. LeadBoxer

LeadBoxer is actually not an email lookup tool, but the ultimate tool for tracking and managing the leads that are generated by email lead generation. This GDPR compliant marketing tool comes with everything you need to safely capture and convert prospects for your business. LeadBoxer offers multiple ways to identify potential customers, filter your email lists, and qualify your leads through dynamic scoring. This is one of the best Lead Generation tools there are.

With the app, you can also receive notifications and updates when specific customers engage in conversion activities on your site or read your emails. Additionally, you can identify the contact information of your website’s visitors. This reduces the need for spending time finding leads to reach out to.

Looking to qualify your email leads?

We offer Lead Identification and Lead intelligence through website & email tracking.

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2. RocketReach

RocketReach

RocketReach uses its large database of 700 million contacts across 35 million companies to help your organization reach the right person. Their browser extension makes finding information on LinkedIn and other sites super easy.

Their plans start at $39/month, which offers access to basic email lookup and can be upgraded to fit your business needs.

3. ZoomInfo

ZoonInfo

With over 100 million companies, ZoomInfo allows your team to find the contact information for millions of employees. Their browser extension works with LinkedIn and other sites. Specialized search features help narrow down the pool to help your outreach.

While their pricing varies per team, starting a free trial is the best way to explore the tool. From there, a sales rep will reach out to help determine the best plan for your needs.

4. LeadGibbon

LeadGibbon 1

LeadGibbon cares about quality. With their program, your team doesn’t pay for email addresses unless they are accurate. This lead generation software checks deliverability on the domain before sharing the information.

Track verified email addresses with a single click using LeadGibbon. Starting at $49/month, your company can get 250 email credits and 25 phone credits to discover across LeadGibbon’s 26 million contact records.

5. Vocus.io

Vocus.io

An email lookup tool designed for Google Chrome users, Vocus.io is a comprehensive email solution that expands your Gmail capability. Just one of the features included in the system is email prospecting. The tool also includes email tracking, scheduling, and snooze functionality.

To use email lookup tools, type the name and company domain of the person you want to connect with into the search bar. Vocus.io will create a list of possible email addresses, which it runs through a “verification” service. There’s no bulk search available on Vocus. Pricing starts at $5/month.

6. Voila Norbert

Voila Norbert

Voila Norbert makes it easy to find any email address. Create an account and you’ll instantly receive 50 free searches. To find someone’s email, type the company domain and person’s name into the tool’s search bar, and Norbert will generate a result. You are only charged for emails that the tool is able to find.

The starter plan is available at $49/month for 1,000 leads (emails found).

For companies who prefer one-off usage, Viola Norbert provides pay-as-you-go email verification and email enrichment. For as little as $.003 per email address, this software can verify the contact information. Email enrichment starts at $.04 per email, which can help your team gain access to more leads through quality data.

7. Hunter.io

Hunter.io

Previously known as “Email Hunter,” Hunter.io. is a popular email lookup tool that allows you to search for emails by domain. To use the tool, you simply enter a company’s URL and Hunter.io will return a list of emails that belong to that company.

There is a free plan available for 100 “requests” (email searches). Paid plans start at $39/month for 1,000 requests.

A free plan provides 25 monthly searches and 50 monthly verifications, whereas paid plans start at $49/month.

8. HireEZ

HireEZ

Geared toward recruiters, HireEZ helps push candidate information to your ATS or CRM. While their goal is to help find qualified candidates, B2B companies can benefit from their AI-generated search that pulls contact information for accurate outreach. Their email sequencing campaign feature allows your team to schedule touchpoints in advance.

Using artificial intelligence, the service collects information from around the web to build a full profile on the person you’re looking for. The service integrates with Gmail and Outlook. HireEZ pricing can be found by speaking with a sales rep.

9. Lusha

Lusha

This email search tool isn’t just fast and efficient; it’s also personal. Companies can customize the Lusha experience by adding the service to Salesforce, LinkedIn, or Twitter. There’s also a “Contact API” available for developers to plug into their existing technology stack.

Lusha has options for all business needs, starting with a free trail that allows 5 annual credits. The Pro plan is $29/month, Premium goes up to $51/month, and they’re happy to discuss pricing if your company needs a larger credit allowance.

10. FindThatLead

FindThatLead

Intended for account-based sales, FindThatLead is quick and easy to use. Type a company URL into the search bar and click “Find Leads” to generate a list of email addresses within that company.

Billed monthly, FindThatLead’s plans start at $49/month for 5,000 monthly credits and can go up from there.

11. Skrapp

Skrapp

Skrapp is an email search tool that verifies information from LinkedIn. It syncs with your CRM to easily store leads. Pricing starts at $49/month for 1,000 emails. 

12. AnyMail Finder

AnyMail Finder

With Anymail Finder, you can look up email addresses by entering a person’s full name and company URL or name.

For smaller needs, Anymail Finder has a plan for $14/month that gives 50 verified emails. Premium plans are available at $49 per month for 1,000 verified emails, and pricing goes up for there.  You only pay for emails that Anymail Finder knows won’t bounce.

13. Nymeria

Nymeria

If you’re hoping to gather prospects from your LinkedIn network, then Nymeria is the perfect tool for you. Offering users the chance to find emails with a single click, the browser extension scans through LinkedIn profiles to find verified email addresses. Once found, you can export emails to a spreadsheet.

Nymeria offers monthly or annual billing, depending on which best fits your company’s needs. Their Nano plan is $33/month for 100 credits.

14. Clearbit

Clearbit

Clearbit is an advanced email search tool that integrates with your CRM system. It currently supports Segment, Zapier, Marketo, and Salesforce. It also comes with a “Connect” feature which works with Gmail and Outlook.

The “Prospector” system scans through 20 million companies to create lists of targeted accounts that fit specific criteria for your business needs, like the number of employees within a company, or preferred technology stack.

Once you find the contacts you need, you can import them directly into your CRM system. Clearbit is a customizable platform based on volume, and their pricing varies. Schedule a demo today to begin chatting with a team member to see what best suits your company.

15. FindEmails

FindEmails

FindEmails.com is a cheap alternative for businesses who want the ability to look up bulk emails. While they don’t provide an accuracy guarantee like some of their competitors, plans start at $29/month and go up based on the amount of credits your team needs.

16. LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lite

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lite

Another powerful email tool that integrates with Gmail, LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lite is an extension for Chrome owned by LinkedIn. Once you install the extension, you can compose new emails in Gmail by typing a potential address into the “To” field. The system will draw data from LinkedIn to help find email details.

Pricing varies based on your business needs, and you can contact a sales rep to get started with the conversation.

17. SellHack

SellHack

Sellhack is a simple and effective browser extension. The service uses an “industry leading” 12-step email verification engine to identify accurate email addresses. You can even use one-click integration to send personalized cold emails directly from your email account to the prospects you find.

Prices start at $3/month for their ‘Lite’ version that comes with 100 email credits. Their ‘Pro’ plan is $60/month with 2,500 email credits and access to other features.

18. UpLead

UpLead

UpLead focuses on bringing accurate data to the prospecting game. Rather than simply scraping the internet, UpLead spends time gathering clean and up-to-date data to make B2B outreach easier and more accurate.

Plans start at $74/month, and can go up based on your needs. 

19. Email Permutator

Email Permutator

Email Permutator is a free tool that allows you to enter in a person’s full name and their company URL in order to generate a list of potential email addresses. There is no type of verification service with this tool. Using it will require a trial-and-error approach to correctly identify a person’s email.

20. Findymail

Findymail

Findymail is another email finder… but not only! You can use their Chrome extension to export Sales Navigator search results with verified email addresses, but it also works on Apollo and any Linkedin profile.

They take great pride in the accuracy of their email data, which means contrary to other email finders, you won’t need to use an email verification tool on the provided data. Pricing is $49-$249 per month, with unlimited users

21. BuzzStream

BuzzStream

BuzzStream works by turning search result pages and website lists into a browsable list of prospects. When you search for blogs or influencers on Google, the tool shows up in the right-hand side of your browser to suggest possible prospects and email addresses pulled from those websites.

You can also use keywords like a person’s name to search for specific contacts and find their email address and social profiles. Once you find an email, Buzzstream adds it to a spreadsheet for you, alongside other information like the website the email is associated with, that site’s domain authority, and the prospect’s Twitter name. Their most popular plan is $124/month, which gives access to 25,000 contacts, bulk emailing, and link monitoring.

22. Ninja Outreach

Ninja Outreach

Ninja Outreach helps with finding business leads and influencers by browsing through social profiles and websites online. Simply type keywords like “technology company” into the system, and it will list possible contacts from its internal database. You can also use the system to track your email campaigns and conversions with a built-in CRM system.

Their prices range from $155/month to $459/month, and all come with a free trial. All of the options allow for full search of their 120 Million influencers.

23. LeadFuze

LeadFuze

LeadFuze is an email lookup tool and contact list generation extension for Google Chrome. With LeadFuze, you can create relevant prospect lists without all the hard work and time. The system checks through social media profiles, email addresses, and prospect information on your behalf.

For scaling teams, LeadFuze starts at $147/month which provides access to 500 lead credits. However, they offer an unlimited plan for $397/month if more credits are needed.

24. Getemail.io

Getemail.io

A simple yet effective email lookup tool from a startup in France, Getemail.io comes with 10 free credits to get you started. Each credit equals one email search. Although you won’t receive as many free searches with Getemail.io as some of the other tools on this list, the service comes with access to machine learning algorithms and big data for more accurate searches.

The “Basic” plan costs $49/month for 300 searches and email support. The “Standard” plan costs $99/month for 1,000 searches and instant chat support.

If you upgrade to the “Premium” plan at $149/month, phone support is also available, and you’ll receive 2,000 searches. They even offer an ‘Ultra’ plan for those who need 10,000 credits.

25. Snov.io

Snov.io

With Snov.io, you can find all the emails associated with a single person and verify them instantly. A green dot next to a prospect’s name means that the email is valid. On the other hand, a yellow dot suggests that the email may or may not be correct.

The Snov.io free account comes with a generous 100 domain searches a month, 100 verified LinkedIn searches, and the opportunity to upload and verify 200 of your own emails.

Their paid plans start at $30/month which provides the ability to use 1,000 credits and email 5,000 recipients. For custom plans, the starting rate is $999/month and features are determined to best suit your needs.

26. Email Magpie

Email Magpie

Email Magpie is an email tool that searches through available public information on the internet and its own database. It finds influencer, company, and customer leads according to your chosen categories online.

For instance, you can look for tech companies, software brands, marketing companies, or any B2B clientele you choose. You can also search for lists according to geographical location or industry vertical. Paid plans $300 per month for 2,750 targeted emails.

27. AeroLeads

AeroLeads

With AeroLeads, you can find phone numbers, email addresses, and social media profile information for businesses and their decision makers. AeroLeads is a Google Chrome plugin, so you’ll need to download and activate it before you start searching. With this tool, you can find emails through LinkedIn, Google, and various other blogs.

When you add a prospect name or domain to AeroLeads, the service automatically checks for verified email addresses and phone numbers. Pricing starts at $49/month for up to 2,000 searches.

28. Name2Email

Name2Email

Name2Email is a Gmail extension. To use the tool, compose an email and add a full name and domain to the address bar. The tool automatically generates a list of common corporate email addresses for the person you want to reach.

To improve your chances of finding a valid email with email lookup tools, you can hover your cursor over the generated addresses. If a popup shows the person’s name, then you’ve chosen the right address.

While using this tool will be more time consuming than using some of the other options on this list, the extension is completely free. All you need to do is add it to Chrome.

29. Discoverly

Discoverly

Discoverly works in the background as you search through websites and social media pages. It’s a Chrome extension that integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and AngelList, among other services, to automatically pull email addresses and profile information from pages.

The extension is completely free to use. You simply add it to your Chrome browser to get started.

30. ContactOut

ContactOut

A tool frequently used by recruitment teams, ContactOut helps recruiters find valid candidate email addresses. The tool installs as a Chrome extension that’s specifically designed to search through LinkedIn profiles.

ContactOut claims a 97% accuracy rate when finding email addresses. The extension is completely free to add to your Chrome browser.

Choosing from the Best Email Lookup Tools

There you have it, a selection of some of the best email lookup tools online today. Finding someone’s email is a crucial part of cold email outreach.

The perfect tool for you will depend on a range of factors including pricing, whether or not you need to find contacts from LinkedIn profiles, using an email tracking pixel, and if you want to find email addresses at scale.

While most of the tools on this list will help you find email addresses for a list of leads you’ve already identified, what about the ones you haven’t? What about the people who have already visited your website but haven’t contacted your company?

This is where LeadBoxer comes in. With LeadBoxer, you can identify your website’s visitors and their contact information without them reaching out to you first. This way, you’ll never miss out on connecting with a potential lead. To get started, schedule a free demo here.

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Upcoming Trends in Lead Generation Management for 2023

Upcoming Trends in Lead Generation & Management for 2023

Lead Generation / By

B2B lead generation services are an essential element of any successful marketing and sales strategy for 2023. Lead generation is the first step in creating a full sales pipeline. Along with lead qualification, lead management is an important tactic to use as customers begin their sales journey.

Understanding the upcoming trends across the B2B industry can help your team plan for future success. Lead generation is a proven methodology that has doubled in popularity since 2017.

To get started with your lead generation strategy, keep reading, or use the links below to “jump ahead”:

What Is a Lead Generation Strategy?

lead generation for b2b marketers statistics

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Simply put, lead generation is the process of finding prospects who may be interested in your product and adding them to your sales pipeline. These potential clients should be qualified and scored based on their readiness to make a purchase. Then, they will be handed over to either marketing or sales to continue their customer journey.

Creating a lead generation strategy will help your marketing and sales team plan out where their energy should be used. This strategy will help uncover new leads as well as re-engage those who may have fallen out of the pipeline.

More than half of all marketers are spending at least 50% of their budget on generating leads, yet only 80% of marketers rate their efforts as somewhat effective. Capitalizing and improving lead generation tactics can make a huge difference in return on investment (ROI) for marketing departments.

There are four main components of a lead generation strategy: lead capture, lead magnets, conversion techniques and lead scoring. Understanding all of these elements will help your company create a well-rounded strategy and take advantage of upcoming trends.

Lead Capture

Many buyers do their own research when looking for solutions for their businesses. There’s a good chance most start with a Google search and click through the web pages that pop up.

It takes at least three months for 63% of generated leads to convert.This means identifying, capturing and engaging website traffic is extremely important for filling your sales funnel with prospects ready to start their customer journey.

Capturing leads can be accomplished in a few ways, including contact information forms and the use of lead generation software. Software like LeadBoxer helps your team identify and score prospects based on their activity on your website. Using these tools can help your team gather contact information and interact with interested customers.

Lead Magnets

This component can help your team avoid losing touch with one-time visitors to your website. If your attempts to gather contact information are stalling, lead magnets are a great way to interact with the customer and begin establishing a relationship. 

A lead magnet is a type of content that provides value information to online visitors in exchange for their contact information. Lead magnets can be as simple as a free trial or webinar. White papers or eBooks are also great lead magnet options.

Educational blogs see 52% more organic web traffic than blogs focused on company information. Search engine optimization (SEO) still matters, and prospects are interested in the value your content can provide. This type of marketing material may persuade website visitors to join your mailing list or schedule a sales call.

When a prospect goes to register or download your gated content, they will need to put in their contact information, which allows your team to easily add them to the sales pipeline.

Conversion Techniques

Using a lead generation landing page is another way to gather contact information from prospects. Utilizing this practice can help your team stay on top of the newest trends for 2023. Currently, just 68% of B2B companies use landing pages for lead generation.

These types of pages serve two purposes:

  1. Adding customers to your pipeline while educating them about the services you can provide.
  2. Combining landing pages with ads is a great way to direct web traffic to your site.

Lead Scoring

Before pushing your generated leads to the pipeline, it’s important to rank prospects based on how likely they are to convert. This will help manage your leads and make sure customers are receiving communication that fits their current stage in the buying journey.

According to Hubspot, 79% of B2B companies lack an established lead scoring system. Adopting this tactic can put your team ahead of the curve, ready and able to take advantage of current trends.

As the B2B industry continues its emergence out of the COVID-19 pandemic, some lasting effects can still be felt. In 2023, lead generation strategy will continue to remain fully digital.

According to McKinsey, the majority of decision makers for B2B companies prefer the digital landscape. Relying on automation can help companies stay competitive in the B2B industry.

Webinars and video content will continue to grow as key components of marketing for the B2B buyer in 2023. Insider Intelligence found that webinars about the product are attended by 55% of prospects before they accept a sales meeting,

Implementing a chat bot may be a way to get ahead of competitors. While it seems like a lot of websites have chat bots available, only 33% are used to create conversions with marketers.

Taking advantage of this opportunity can help funnel more interested prospects into your pipeline. Research predicts the use of chat bots will help facilitate $142 billion USD of consumer spending by 2024.

What Is Lead Management? 

Lead Management Cycle

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Lead management is the strategy your marketing team uses to capture, qualify and track leads before passing them along to your salespeople. It is crucial to organize this data. If your company isn’t focused on executing a strong lead management system, resources and efforts will go to waste, which can contribute to an overall lower ROI from marketing costs.

Inbound leads can lower costs per lead by 61%; outbound leads tend to cost 39% more. This means using lead generation strategies and creating a successful management plan can help lower overall costs for your organization.

A main component of successful lead management is automation. Investing in the right software can help your team reduce manual labor, maintain clean data and analyze leads in real time. 80% of marketers believe incorporating automation into their marketing efforts helps generate more leads, as well as conversions.

Using LeadBoxer as your lead generation and management platform can help you identify, qualify, score and manage leads in one place. It also includes integrations that work seamlessly with other software in your tech stack. This helps streamline communication between sales and marketing departments.

Leadboxer successfully helps with data cleansing by using profile enrichment to update customer information. The platform also provides marketing insights, which helps give automatic data analytics for your team to use.

LeadBoxer’s Custom Lead Scoring Tool works to make sure your sales team is concentrating on customers who are most likely to convert. This cutting edge software automatically calculates a lead score using a variety of factors to determine how each prospect should be ranked.

By integrating with your tech stack, Leadboxer works with Google, HubSpot, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, Marketo, Outlook, WordPress and others to ensure your data is clean and leads are properly qualified.

Using lead management and qualification can help your company stay ahead of the curve. For companies working without automation, verifying leads and deciding their value can be a difficult challenge. 

Just 56% of B2B marketers verify a business and its information before sending the lead to sales. With Leadboxer’s platform, lead scoring is handled automatically, so marketing doesn’t have to worry about passing along bad leads.

The B2B Lead Generation Services Market

The B2B lead generation services market is trending upwards for 2023 and beyond. This data can help predict what to watch for in the coming years.

Experts predict the market will continue to benefit from technological innovation. With new advancements, products will continue to improve, which will increase usage across the industry.

The market is expected to expand to multi-millions by 2027. Reports show the 2021 market held a value of 1900.34 million USD, which is predicted to grow to 3733.52 million over the next four years.

Business Research Insights revealed challenges the industry may face in 2023 include a lack of awareness around its services. Smaller businesses need to discover the market so they can boost participation.

Get a jumpstart on your lead generation strategy for the new year, and see how LeadBoxer’s lead scoring feature can help your company with a free trial!

Why a SaaS Business Model Can Help Your Startup Budget Evolve and Grow

Why a SaaS Business Model Can Help Your Startup Budget, Evolve, and Grow!

Lead Generation, Other / By

Running a software as a service (SaaS) business is exciting but challenging. By offering a digital product or service, a traditional business model won’t help your company scale. A B2B SaaS lead generation model is needed. 

Read on for the full article or “jump ahead” to the following topics:

SaaS Lead Generation Model

The traditional software business model is losing popularity compared to the SaaS model. With the former, lead generation is based on acquisition. With the latter, it’s based on customer retention. This is because it costs 5-25 times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing ones. 

The SaaS lead generation model shows how incremental improvements are highly profitable. Bettering customer retention by a small amount can greatly scale a SaaS company as customers support the brand. In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention can boost revenue by up to 95%.

Of course, you’ll need to have a scalable SaaS company in order to take full advantage of the SaaS lead generation model. Successful SaaS businesses have the following elements: 

  • Find an unmet need and offer a solution to it.
  • Have a minimum viable product.
  • Have a deep understanding of your market and customers.
  • Add product features based on customer feedback.

Once you launch a SaaS company, you are ready to implement your SaaS lead generation strategy. A big part of this strategy is subscription payments. 

How Subscription Payments Help Your Budget and Financial Forecasting

Subscriptions are the backbone of a SaaS business. Your budget and profitability likely depend on these predictable transactions.

The B2B SaaS lead generation model “rents” access to software users instead of charging a one-time cost. This subscription payment method is effective at generating a profit and scaling a business. Instead of relying on new customers to make a purchase, SaaS companies can safely depend on monthly subscription payments.

To get people to subscribe to your product or service, they need to become customers. Afterward, the customers need to engage with you to make those payments. The SaaS business model emphasizes the use of smaller, regular subscriptions. 

The SaaS lead generation model stresses the use of more frequent, cheaper subscription payments. Instead of converting prospects into customers and then having them pay you for subscriptions, you direct customers to your website. Once on the website, customers can sign up for a subscription. 

Regularly charging customers smaller subscriptions removes the high price that keeps some prospects away.  Additionally, this business model increases customer loyalty and upgrades, and reduces security vulnerabilities. 

These frequent subscription payments help SaaS companies maintain a healthy budget that helps them plan for the future. This is because the subscription payments are predictable. You’ll have consistent money coming in. 

The lower subscription costs help attract and retain more customers. A high customer retention rate means companies save on high acquisition costs. SaaS companies scale by relying on loyal customers to pay subscriptions. 

The Data-Driven SaaS Model

Companies that adopt a traditional business model tend to make decisions based on intuition and gut feelings. With SaaS lead generation, the emphasis is on data, and there are numerous tools readily available for data analysis. 

In the SaaS business model, information about website visitors and prospects is gathered and used to attract and retain customers. Prospect information leads the nurturing process. Data obtained in the SaaS model also helps the company to see which areas are going well and which areas need review. 

While it is easier than ever to analyze business data, an astonishing 73% of organizational data is never analyzed. This means non-data-driven organizations are not able to make the best decisions to scale. 

Barriers to harnessing digital analytics

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The Benefits of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is some of the most valuable data you can get for B2B SaaS lead generation. When you make necessary feedback improvements, you acquire more prospects, have higher net revenue, and accelerated product growth.  

Feedback from current customers helps you identify your ideal client profile. The information you obtain can also be used to create buyer personas that direct your sales and marketing efforts. 

When you listen to your current customers, you provide better customer service and experiences. These go a long way in acquiring and retaining customers. Forward-thinking, customer-driven SaaS companies do the following: 

  • Segment their customers.
  • Design customer-friendly onboarding and in-app product walkthroughs.
  • Reach out to customers to increase engagement based on product data.
  • Create health scores on prospects and automate plans of action based on those scores.

With customer feedback-driven data, companies can meet their customers where they’re at. Your business can do its lead generation for SaaS with less time and cost using automated triggers.

The benefits of customer feedback include improvement of your product or service, higher brand loyalty, and better lead generation endorsements. These will help your SaaS lead generation efforts succeed and make your company grow.

Creating a flow of qualified leads

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Improve Your Product or Service

Under the traditional business model, the sales team is responsible for pushing product or service upgrades onto customers. This creates a one-sided, transactional relationship between a company and a buyer. As a result, customer service dwindles and buyers don’t have a positive experience. 

With lead generation for SaaS, the customer success team drives customer attainment and upgrade conversations into authentic experiences. When customers don’t feel pressured to upgrade but have positive relationships with a brand, they are more likely to convert. When clients have a good experience with your brand, they will enjoy your product and be eager to upgrade. 

SaaS lead generation increases net revenue retention (NRR), which indicates potential business growth from customers. This metric measures recurring revenue from existing customers. Upgrades, churn, and downgrades are included in the NRR. 

Automation helps your customer success team in getting upgrades and renewals. Your sales managers will be freed up for high-risk accounts. Automation enables your customer service teams to better their outreach prioritization with growth likelihood and churn forecasts. 

SaaS B2B companies that use automation give customers consistent service that leads them to value a brand, product, or service. These businesses rely on user experience gained from customer segmentation, behavioral data, and buyer’s journeys. Through data and analytics, SaaS businesses can improve the adoption of their product or service. 

Increase Brand Loyalty

Customer feedback can help increase brand loyalty by letting companies know how to improve and better meet customer needs. You can better market your product and service to meet the pain points of your customers. 

You can develop a customer journey map once you know their needs. Monitor your customers as they go through the sales process. If a customer stalls in the funnel, your team can intervene to keep them progressing forward.

Conversely, if a customer masters your product or service, you can use feedback to upgrade or upsell advanced features. Strategic touch points along the buyer’s journey help sales teams track customer engagement throughout their lifecycle. 

These touchpoints go beyond specific milestones such as onboarding and renewing. Observing customer behavior, where they are at, and what they need, creates more touchpoints. Additional touchpoints lead to reduced churn, customer value maximization, and improvement in customer service. 

Encourage Endorsements for Lead Generation

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful SaaS B2B lead generation strategies. People are more willing to do business with you when they see others benefiting from your products or services. Endorsements are a great way to up your lead generation.  

Endorsements of a product or service are through a distinct, outside party, usually an influencer, celebrity, or industry titan. These people or companies help sell your product or service to your customers. Credible spokespeople boost your company’s brand so your products and services appeal to and are trusted by a wider customer base. 

Product and service endorsements are an important component of lead generation for SaaS. This is because the SaaS business model is customer-centric. Customers are skeptical of working with a business unless its brand, services, and products get approval from trusted others.  

Word of Mouth Marketing Statistics

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Importance of Nurturing and Retargeting

To scale a SaaS business, you must attract and retain customers. B2B SaaS lead generation is customer-centric. Each person in the company needs to make customer success their priority. 

One way to get lead prospects interested in your brand, service, or product is through retargeting. This effective advertising strategy shows targeted, customized ads to each prospect. The tracking of a customer’s interaction with a business’s website generates these ads. 

Retargeting is a way to get prospects into your sales funnel to begin the nurturing process. These ads keep your business at the top of a customer’s mind, making it more likely they will convert. 

Lead nurturing is also important and is tied to retargeting. Nurtured prospects are higher quality and more likely to make a purchase. 

Nurtured leads will have consistent interactions with your brand and are more likely to convert. They will know your brand and what you offer. The personalized treatment they receive will give them increased confidence in your company. 

How to Create a Content Distribution Strategy to Boost Lead Generation

How to Create a Content Distribution Strategy to Boost Lead Generation

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Your company, like every business, wants to draw in website traffic and generate sales. With everyone online, your first step is to create a website. You could try and wow potential customers with a fancy website and hope that word gets around about it. 

However, a snazzy, optimized website is not a recipe for effective digital marketing and lead generation. You’ll have to do more. You need a comprehensive content distribution strategy. 

A content-focused marketing strategy is essential for many reasons. The most important reason to invest in content distribution is that content fosters relationships between your customers and your brand. When it comes to people buying your products or services, relationships mean everything.

People who have a relationship with a brand are more likely to do business with that company. Content distribution and content promotion are key to building vital customer relationships. Lead generation content begins with a solid content distribution strategy. Keep reading, or use the links below to learn how to create a content distribution strategy in your company:

Content Distribution

To produce content your customers will love, you must know what content distribution is and how to do it well. Content distribution is when you share, create, and promote content on various media channels to an online audience. Content comes in many forms that include: 

  • Ebooks 
  • Podcasts
  • Videos 
  • Infographics 
  • Case studies 
  • Webinars 
  • Blogs and articles
  • Social media posts
  • Thought leadership and Point of Views
Types of content

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There are three types of content you can share with your online customers. These are: owned, earned, and paid. For effective content promotion, you need a content distribution strategy that uses all three types. 

Owned

Owned content is that which your company has already produced. With this type of content, you can control how and when it is published and distributed. Examples of owned content include website content, blogs, social media pages, and e-newsletters. 

Earned

With earned content, third parties share or promote your content. These third parties include bloggers, customers, influencers, and journalists. This sharing and promoting of content is free to your business. 

Earned content are product reviews, social shares and mentions, guests posts, forums, and public relations shared by third parties. Though the sharing of the content is free, the third party owns it, not your business. 

Paid

With paid content, you pay to have your content distributed. The most common paid content distribution forms include pay-per-click ads, sponsored content, paid influencer content, and paid social ads. Each type of paid content has varying price points, format, and audience.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

With pay-per-click (PPC) ads, you pay a third party when people click or have an impression on your ad.  These ads are commonly seen on search engine results pages (SERPs). They can also appear on social media platforms where they have “ad” identifiers next to the page listing.

PPC is a search engine marketing tactic that, when paired with your SEO strategy, can produce quality leads. Google Ads is a popular pay-per-click ad platform used by businesses.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is paid for by an advertiser that is shared by a publisher, person, influencer, or brand. The most effective sponsored content includes a company or person that targets your ideal audience. Sponsored content can include videos, images, podcasts, and social media. 

Paid Influencer Content

With paid influencer content, you pay a top content creator to write and promote the content for you. This influencer should be a well-known person in your industry. Influencer content benefits your business by boosting your brand awareness, conversions, and website traffic. 

Paid influencer marketing uses word-of-mouth and social proof. Both of these are crucial in establishing brand trust with customers. This type of content has been so successful that companies spend around $15 billion on influencer marketing. 

Paid Social Ads

Paid social ads include influencer content, PPC, and sponsored content. These paid ads share your content on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Your content targets a specific audience most likely to interact with it. 

To maximize your content’s impact on social media, you need a strategy.  A strong PPC social strategy will include native social media tools to create, schedule, and share the ads. 

To have an effective content marketing strategy, you need to incorporate owned, earned, and paid content. SEO, PPC, and paid promotion are ways to blend the three content types. The most powerful content is the middle ground where the three types overlap.  

Content Distribution Trifecta

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The Power of Content Marketing

Content production and distribution takes time, effort, and resources. It also tends to be overlooked. While content marketing may have taken a back seat in your strategy, there are many reasons to prioritize it. 

You can undergo a thorough search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to make your website and your brand more visible. What you’ll find is that you can’t optimize your website without quality content. Additionally, posting content because you have it will not do you any good. 

Regular content production and distribution are important in your lead generation strategy. Content marketing is important because it centers around relationship-building. It is a chance for you to both share information and bond with your online customers. 

Your customers will expect a fair share of content production and distribution. With all the websites out there, they will only do business with those whose content is valuable. This is because people want quick, relevant answers to their problems and questions.

If you’re still skeptical of content marketing, here are some key statistics to consider: 

  • Around 90% of companies do content marketing
  • 91% of business-to-business marketers use content marketing
  • 80% of customers learn about a company through custom content
  • Content marketing costs 60% less than traditional marketing and generates 3 times as many leads 
  • 87% of business-to-business marketers use social media to distribute content and encourage sharing
  • 78% of customers feel there is a relationship with a brand through custom content 
  • Content creates brand awareness, cultivates loyal customers, and incentivizes readers to convert 

Now you know the importance of content marketing, we’ll show you how to create an effective content distribution strategy.

Current state of content marketing

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Step-by-Step Process for Creating a Content Distribution Strategy:

Not all content distribution strategies are created equal. Throwing out poorly conceived digital marketing content everywhere you possibly can is not a good strategy. You’ll find success with strategic content distribution that shows you know your audience and what they find interesting.

Promoting your content can be overwhelming and time-consuming. If you want your content promotion to be effective, here are some steps to get you started: 

1. Clearly Identify Your Target Audience

As great as you think your content is, not everyone will be interested in reading it. Those who could care less about your content will go to another website for content they deem to be more relevant. When people bounce from your website, your search rankings and reputation can take a hit. 

For successful lead-generating content, you need your content to be read by people interested in it. This requires you to research and identify precisely who your target audience is. 

People who see value in your content are more likely to continue consuming the information you make available. Ultimately, these are the leads that are most likely to convert into successful sales. This is your target audience. 

To create content your target audience will value, in addition to properly identifying who your ideal audience is, you must understand  their typical consumer journey. Look at their demographics, pain points, objections to buying, and what they are interested in reading. 

Research your customers’, website visitors’, email subscribers’, and social media followers’ income, age, gender, education, location, and other relevant demographics. You can find this information using Google Analytics and social media analytics tools. Try to narrow down the reach of your content, but don’t over-filter your audience so that it is too narrow. 

After looking at the demographics, collect customer feedback. Ask readers how they feel about the content and how it’s distributed. Ask them what their pain points are and whether the content you provide adequately addresses these issues.  

Use the feedback and demographics to create buyer personas. These buyer personas represent the preferences, motivations, and pain points of your ideal customers. Write different versions of content geared toward each of your personas.

2. Choose Your Content Types

There are different types of content. Each type of content caters to a different audience. Every content distribution channel also requires a specific content type. 

The kind of content you choose to create will largely depend on where it is distributed. For instance, content developed for a blog is very different in style and length compared to what would be appropriate to share in a social media post. 

A company blog is a highly recommended place to start creating online content. Blog posts are easy to share and repurpose.  Additionally, nearly half your customers will read your blog before making a purchasing decision. 

Depending on your objective, tailor your blog content to match the type of action you want the reader to take. If you want to generate leads, for example, offer lead generation and traffic generation content. 

In contrast, social media content is much more casual and concise. With social media, it is important to research your audience using each platform’s analytics tools. This knowledge will assist you in delivering content that will not only catch the readers’ attention, it will help you to make personal connections with them.

Similarly, when you send emails, you have to carefully think about what to say and how to say it. Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of lead generation around, making it a form of content marketing you should engage in on a regular basis.

Content can also be shared via videos and images. Infographics work well when promoted via social media. Video content needs to be engaging, interesting, clear, and brief.

3. Choose Your Distribution Channels

Your website is your first-stop distribution channel. On your site, you have greater freedom as to what you say and how you say it. Your website includes information on your pages and your blog posts. 

You must conduct audience research and choose your distribution channels before you write your content. These two pieces of data will inform the type of content you write and where and to whom it is distributed. 

Popular content distribution channels include blogs, social media, email, directories, guest posting sites, and forums. Sometimes traditional public relations may be an option. The content distribution channel you choose must be aligned with your target audience’s interests, demographics, and behaviors.

It’s important to know your audience and where they regularly visit online. Young people, for instance, spend a lot of time on various social media sites. Even among social media sites, there are different audiences. 

Look to see where your target audience tends to go to gather information. Do they read industry blogs, watch YouTube videos, or scroll through Facebook? Knowing which distribution channels your audience frequents most is vital to planning a successful content marketing strategy.

Your blog should be your first distribution channel as it is one of your company’s owned properties. Two others that you need to optimize are your social media pages and e-newsletter. With these three channels, you control the content and its distribution. 

Social media is a popular distribution channel. In fact, 87% of marketers use social media to share content. Of those, most use an average of five social media platforms.   

Content distribution via social media is a good option for many reasons:

  • Ease of distribution
  • The content is short and largely image-dominant
  • Ease of audience targeting
  • Provides a great opportunity to have casual, personal interactions with customers
  • A majority of your customers likely use at least one social media channel
  • Content is instantaneously shared with customers
  • It is free to share your content

People are more likely to do business with your company when they trust you. Finding the best combination of distribution channels to share your content will boost your brand authority. When customers see and consume your knowledgeable content, they are more likely to accept you as an authority in your field and will look to your organization as the best solution to their challenges.   

Guest posting on reputable, industry-specific websites and forums like Reddit or Quora are excellent ways to distribute content to new customers. Be sure that the information you provide is high-quality and free from self-promotion and spammy links. This content should not be focused on your company, products, or services, but should be geared toward educating readers. 

Best times to post on social media - Facebook

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4. Develop a Content Distribution Plan

An effective content distribution strategy involves having a plan for how, where, and when to disperse information. Both the creation of lead-generating content and its distribution need careful thought. Once you settle on a writing and distribution process, you need to be consistent. 

Writing content and publishing it everywhere on the Internet will lead to unsuccessful content promotion. If search engines don’t rank your content highly and the appropriate marketing strategies aren’t applied, your target audience will never find your content.

A good foundation for your content distribution strategy is having S.M.A.R.T goals. These goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Having such goals helps you see where your current strategy is at and what future success looks like. 

With your content distribution strategy goals in mind, develop a detailed editorial calendar. There are many tools out there for you to use such as Google Sheets, Excel, Asana, Trello, and Google Calendar.  

To start a consistent content distribution plan, assign certain people to develop and create different kinds of content. Then, establish an editorial calendar for publishing the content on a consistent basis.  

An editorial calendar focuses and aligns your team to work toward common goals. If you contract out your writing, a calendar can inform your editors and writers about what’s coming up. 

Some questions to ask as you start developing your editorial calendar include: 

  • What audiences use which channels?
  • What opportunities exist on each channel that you can’t achieve on others? 
  • What subjects are most likely to resonate with your target audience?
  • How often and when does each audience post on each channel?
  • What content types or formats should you use on each channel?
  • When should you post on each channel to get the most engagement? 
  • What conversations work best on each channel?
  • Who will be in charge of managing each channel and posting on them on behalf of the company? 
  • Where do you want to drive traffic to on each channel?
  • What metrics will you use to assess the success of your content distribution strategy?

No two content distribution strategies are the same. The best one for your company will be unique as there is no silver-bullet solution. 

How you produce and publish content will depend on how many resources you have, team size, industry, and brand. The concept of creating a comprehensive content promotion strategy can seem overwhelming at first.  Useful content creation and distribution tools include Anchor, AnswerthePublic, Canva, and Vidyard. 

Content Backlog in Asana

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5. Develop Effective Lead Magnets 

You’ve created lead-generating content, but if it doesn’t have a call to action (CTA), it won’t be effective. CTAs tell the reader what to do next after reading your content. With CTAs in your content promotion, be sure to somehow capture the reader’s contact information, especially phone number or email. 

To bring more readers to conversion from your content, you need to consistently get new leads to cultivate. Lead magnets are the best ways to capture the names and contact information of prospective leads. Lead magnets have content people are willing to give information to read. 

Lead magnet content needs to be interesting, valuable, and applicable to the reader. If you don’t know where to start, here are three lead magnet strategies to try: 

White Papers

White paper content highlights industry news like trends, the current state of the industry, and what the future holds. Industry overview white papers are the most common. 

The other type of white paper is a product breakdown. Product breakdowns highlight company products. These white papers may go into detail about what a product does, who benefits, and the problems these items help solve.

White papers let prospective leads know that your brand understands their pain points and questions. These types of content also show leads that your product solves their problems.

Webinars

Webinars are another effective lead magnet. You can use live and recorded webinars to get a lead’s contact information. With webinars, you can ask someone to leave their phone number or email address to access the webinar. 

Webinars can be one-off or regular events. Webinars are great ways to show your product or service. When you conduct live webinars, you allow the audience to interact with you. 

Risk-Free Trial

Offering a limited-time risk-free trial has been a long-time favorite lead magnet for B2B and SaaS companies. With this type of lead magnet, customers enter their contact and payment information to access a product or service. Besides free access, some free trials give customers temporary access to an upgraded or premium version of products or services. 

For most sign-ups, the terms and conditions of the risk-free trial must be clearly stated. You should be up-front about subscription cancellation and when a customer will be charged after the trial period ends. Besides transparency, your risk-free sign-up form must be simple and quick to complete.

Once you’ve created your lead magnet, publish it on your website, in blog posts, and on your social media channels. Lead magnets are also effective when used as part of your email marketing strategy.

6. Publish and Promote Content

Now that you’ve created your content, it’s time to publish it. Use your editorial calendar to push it out to your ideal audience at the best time and on appropriate channels. Regardless of what channel you use, follow the rules to optimize your content promotion on each channel. 

Using a combination of platforms for your content distribution is a great way to maximize its effectiveness. For example, you can publish an industry white paper and push it out via email, social media, and paid ads. Use these channels to get your content before readers or have them sign up to see it.  

Content marketing is and will be key in generating leads. For effective lead-generating content that drives sales, you need carefully-crafted content. A strong content distribution strategy looks at the best content type and what channels you should use.  

 Thorough familiarity with your target audience is the foundation of any successful content promotion strategy. 

Contact LeadBoxer today to learn how we can partner with you to generate more leads and drive more sales.  

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Top Lead Strategy for 2023

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Top Lead Strategy for 2023

Lead Engagement, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing / By

The most effective lead strategy methods are constantly changing and your company must evolve with them. The nuances of technology mean what worked for lead generation even a year ago may not be applicable now. If you aren’t regularly reassessing your lead strategy tactics, you’re missing opportunities to find new prospects.

We’ve compiled a list of the top lead strategy approaches for 2023. We have included statistics that will make you want to start using them. We will first go over some of the foundations of an excellent lead generation campaign. 

Read on or jump ahead to a section:

First-Party Data Analytics

When it comes to data collection sources, you have two options: your own data or data from a third party. While there are instances when using data collected from an outside business can be helpful, your own data is better. First-party data analytics are important for many reasons including: 

  • The data is your own, meaning it’s readily available and it’s free to use
  • The data is obtained from interactions with your customers
  • The data can be easily tweaked and improved upon

Third-party data gets gathered by a company that likely doesn’t fully know your target audience. They aren’t as familiar with your products or services so they can’t relay the same convincing messaging that you can. This can lead to inaccurate, less thorough data analytics on which to build your lead strategy. 

The foundation of a strong lead generation strategy begins with the quality of your data. The source by which you collect data will impact how successful your lead generation campaign will be. Your own first-party data takes time to collect and requires effort, but will better bolster your bottom line.

Once you decide to use your first-party data collection, you need to research your target audience and competitors. 

Know Your Audience

It’s important to get your content in front of people who want to read it. Potential leads who are interested in what you offer are more likely to convert into a sale. On the other hand, those who aren’t interested will leave your site and/or delete your emails. 

You need to figure out who your target audience is, those who see value in what you offer. Once you identify your audience, you’ll need to find them and learn how to reach them. 

You likely already have access to information on your target audience. Analytics tools such as Google Analytics give you insights into your target audience such as demographics and preferred communication channels. 

Analytics tools identify your ideal customers and what channel source they will most convert through. Researching your target audience includes taking note of the following:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • User’s interests
  • User’s location
  • Language
  • Browser type
  • Device
  • Channel
  • Source
  • Referral

In addition to learning about your target audience, Google Analytics can also reveal information on your competitors. Competitor research gives you valuable insights into what the competition is doing and alerts you to their strengths and weaknesses.

Google Analytics 2

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Know Your Competition

The next step requires you to dive into competitor research to uncover where your competitors are investing. You can find everything your competitors are doing using tools like Google Analytics Benchmark Reports, SimilarWeb, Semrush, and SpyFu. These tools will show you which networks they’re advertising on and how much they’re spending to do it.

Then, you need to figure out what is in-between where you are and where your competitors are. To help you with this, ask yourself the following questions: 

  • What is your spend, and what is theirs?
  • What is your cost per acquisition for each channel?
  • How much can you scale each channel?
  • What is the saturation point for each channel?
  • What is the plan to improve each channel so that it converts for less?

After you get first person data and research your audience and competitors, it’s time to look at lead generation strategies. 

1. Product Demos

You can extensively market your product, but people need to be convinced that what you offer meets their needs. Product demos show people how the item works and how it can help solve a problem. Demonstrations are an excellent way to sprinkle video into your lead generation strategy. 

Product demonstrations are one of many video formats you can use. Some other lead generation video ideas include explainer and straight offers.

2. Email Marketing

People check their email up to 20 times a day, making email marketing an effective lead generation channel.  What makes email marketing so effective is that it captures email addresses. An email address is another avenue by which you can interact with a lead. 

There are numerous ways to get a lead’s email address off your website including:

  • Email capture pop-ups.
  • Nano bars.
  • Footer captures.
  • Gated content.

A strong email marketing campaign centers on testing and analysis. A/B testing of messaging, performance, and delivery will help your emails avoid the spam folder. In addition to testing, map every page on your website to a micro-conversion for improved tracking.

A cold email campaign is a great place to start an email marketing strategy. The content of a cold email is valuable to readers and features links to your website. 

Getting Started With an Email Marketing Campaign

The purpose of an email strategy is nurturing leads into customers through continuous touches. Each email should offer content that urges prospects onto the next step of the buyer’s journey.

The first step in developing an email marketing strategy is to implement a tracking pixel into your email campaigns. The tracking pixel will provide better statistics to measure email engagement and give real-time data. Use software that will integrate with website data for the most accurate view of users’ behaviors.

Lead Nurturing Campaigns

With the average conversion rate of 2-5%, lead nurturing campaigns are vital to lead generation.You need to foster relationships with those in your sales funnel. Lead nurturing takes time and effort and must be done correctly to maximize conversions. 

Implementing a lead nurturing campaign that uses marketing automation sends relevant information based on what leads view on your website. This increases the possibility of them converting into customers. 

Newsletter

If you don’t already send out a newsletter, you need to start. Newsletters help inform your current customers of your service or product offerings to cross-sell them on other services. People are more open to reading an e-newsletter than an email ad, which makes newsletters great for getting contact information. 

Email Marketing Help

Check out LeadBoxer’s complete email tracking guide for B2B sales teams to learn about successful email marketing campaigns. You can also review the best email tracking apps that work with Gmail and Outlook to track campaigns.

3. Conferences And Events

Around 75% of marketers generate leads through event marketing with 85% of leadership teams saying events are important for business. At events, you meet with people who are more likely to be interested in the services or products you provide. Also, conferences are a great place to show people your company’s brand and let them know what you stand for. 

Demand Generation

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4. Networking

Networking is one of the best ways to get to know other people who may be interested in your services.

When you go to trade shows, you can expect to acquire 5% to 20% of your new customer base.  When networking, you need to remember you’re not meeting these people with the intent of selling to them.

You’re simply making new business connections. Even if you’re able to help them or sell them something they need, it shouldn’t be your top priority.  

5. Cold Calling The Right Prospects

You might hear people say cold calling is dead, but in fact,  cold calling was still relevant. When you combine this tactic with the right tools, it can be extremely effective.

Use a lead intelligence tool that can identify website visitors and provide you with their information. This way, you’re only calling people who are interested in your services.

Though poorly-trained marketers and pushy salespeople tarnished cold calling, it’s still one of the most effective lead-generation tools. In fact, according to marketing research by MarketingSherpa, 92 percent of B2B buyers are open to cold calls. 

According to a leading lead generation company, SalesHive, cold calling is still one of the fastest ways to get direct prospect feedback. This, in turn, optimizes your pitch and marketing strategy. The goal is to allow your reps to focus on one thing and one thing only – booking meetings. 

To be effective in cold calling, consider outsourcing qualified B2B sales cold-calling specialists. Such reps are dedicated to your account, are more comfortable with your market, and consistently book meetings with prospects. 

6. Video Campaigns

More than 90% of people say videos make their buying decisions, and 84% say a video makes them more likely to purchase. Below are some great ways to begin creating videos: 

Webinars

You can start creating video content by hosting live and recorded webinars. Create a content calendar to schedule topics, dates, and times when the webinar will go live. Then, send people emails asking them to sign up for the webinar, and promote it on your social media channels.

Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn Live

Another way to get started with video content is by going live on social media platforms. You can do this from your smartphone.  You’ll notice you reach a larger audience compared to the response you receive from a standard image or video post.

Survey Data

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7. Social Media Advertising

Nearly 4.5 billion people use social media, allowing you to easily reach new people who fit your target demographic(s).

Facebook

Facebook is great if you’re looking for a less formal way to reach your potential customers. Two-thirds of Facebook users regularly visit a local business’ Facebook page. 

Posting interesting content and images that grab people’s attention allows you to build a large audience without advertising. If you use Facebook advertising, you can do so without spending much money as the cost ranges from .63 to $3.77. 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the best places for B2B companies to generate leads. More than 90% of marketers use LinkedIn because it produces 80% of all B2B leads. The leads from LinkedIn far outpace those from all other social platforms. 

One of the best tools LinkedIn offers to aid in your strategy is its lead generation forms. These are specific LinkedIn ads that get people to fill out their information so you can contact them. 

These lead generation forms work so well because people are actively engaging with you by volunteering their information. Additionally, they understand that you’re going to reach out to them. Once a cold lead, they have now been converted to a warm lead ready to receive your pitch.

Lead Generation Statistic

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Instagram

For companies that have products and not a service, Instagram is a great place to showcase it. The platform only allows posts with images or videos, making it the perfect venue for grabbing attention with eye-catching photos. Around 90% of Instagram users follow one or more businesses, so posting on this platform can yield great results.

8. Public Relations Strategy

Most companies only look at public relations (PR) strategies after something bad has happened. With most people having a cell phone to share videos, your company could easily find itself facing a PR disaster. 

Consider hiring a PR manager if you don’t already have one. Work with them to start doing community outreach and implement positive campaigns before a crisis occurs. Be sure to fully inform employees about your company’s values and guiding mission.  

Any kind of negative publicity is bad, especially if you’re trying to generate leads. With easy access to information and countless competitors, prospective customers will be critical of your brand. Show your leads that your company can be trusted with great PR.

9. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a popular and effective solution when done right. That’s because, like consumers, business firms want to equip themselves with the right information before a big buy. 

Approximately 47 percent of buyers read three -five pieces of copy before contacting a salesperson. This means that nearly half of your potential customers have already done research on your company. When a salesperson contacts them, many likely have already decided whether or not to make a purchase. 

It is important your content provides targeted, valuable information so it can sell your brand before your salesperson contacts them.  You can also make sure you integrate your content with lead magnets. Whitepapers, courses, or e-books are free resources you offer your visitors in exchange for their information. 

Create A Content Marketing Plan

Companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those who don’t. Blogging generates 3 times as many potential customers compared to outbound marketing. It also costs 62% less than traditional marketing campaigns, making it a powerful lead strategy. 

Inbound marketing best practices

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Blogging is one of many content marketing strategies. Others include social media and video. However, it’s not enough to create content; you need to have a plan that includes the following:

Search Engine Optimization 

It would be unproductive to create content, only to find you’re not showing up in search results. This is why you need to create a search engine optimization (SEO) plan. This way you can understand the types of information your customers are searching for and develop your content accordingly.

A foundation of any SEO strategy begins with identifying keywords to use in your content. The keyword tool on Google lets you see the search volume for words and other valuable content information.

You can go on with ongoing SEO campaigns with B2B content marketing support to generate meaningful leads. It aligns with your intentions by offering first-rate content that educates prospects and moves them through your lead generation funnel. 

You can do this in a variety of ways. For example, you can start by understanding how keywords attract different users. Keyword use will drive different people to your website, so it is vital to understand each set. 

A Link Building Strategy

A backlink is an incoming website link that Google factors in determining search rankings. To gain more backlinks, you need to look for opportunities to guest post on blogs within your industry. For example, if you’re a web designer, write guest posts for these 11 blogging platforms that specialize in web development.

Keep Your Website Updated

A good content marketing plan can go wrong if you have a bad or outdated website. Google recommends websites aim for a loading time that’s less than 2 seconds. If you create a great article relevant to your target customer, but it loads slowly, people will not read it.

Keeping your website updated is an essential component of your lead generation strategy.  When looking at your website, implement both inbound and outbound marketing strategies.  

Start Generating Leads Today

Now you know how to start a lead generation campaign and use the top lead strategies it’s time to get started. Read this post on B2B lead generation strategies for additional information on drumming up more profit for your business. 

There are people out there who need and want your products and services. You need to find them, engage with them, and deliver quality content.  If you’re ready to get serious about your lead strategy, Start free or get a demo with LeadBoxer today.

7 Reasons for the Growing Demand for Lead Management Software

7 Reasons for the Growing Demand for Lead Management Software

Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing, Tools / By

You know how important it is to find potential customers most interested in your products or services. These are the consumers who will make a purchase. Quickly finding these prospects with a lead management platform shortens your sales cycle, increasing profits. 

To learn more about lead management software and the importance of qualifying leads, keep reading or use the links below to jump ahead:

The Purposes of Lead Management Software

To make any sale, you need to invest in building relationships with the best prospects. 

Relationship-building takes time and energy. A lead management platform helps salespeople qualify good leads and disqualify bad ones.

Why is it important to qualify leads? 67% of lost sales are a result of sales reps not properly qualifying potential customers. Unqualified prospects will not go through the entire sales process, so they won’t become paying customers. 

Qualifying leads will not only result in more sales. It shortens your sales cycle and betters the use of your sales team’s time by focusing them on ideal leads. Sales teams can prioritize building relationships with the most promising prospects with lead qualification tools.

There are people out there who want your product or service. Lead qualification software helps your sales team identify and build relationships with them. Engaging the right people will bring more sales at a quicker pace.  

LeadBoard

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What Is Lead Qualification?

Lead qualification is the process of identifying prospects most likely to make a purchase. The process prioritizes the nurturing of the most promising leads.

Below are the three types of qualified leads: 

  • Marketing qualified leads (MQL): These leads gain interest in a brand, product, or service through marketing strategies. These leads come by clicking on a link in an email, downloading an e-book, or subscribing to a newsletter.
  • Sales qualified leads (SQL): These leads are interested in a brand, product, or service after interacting with a sales representative. They often will ask about pricing and agree to a presentation or demo.
  • Product/Service qualified leads (PQL): These leads are interested in a company, service, or product. They usually contact a salesperson after a free trial or consultation.

Lead management platforms identify the prospects your sales team needs to prioritize in nurturing. Qualified leads will progress through the sales funnel at a more rapid rate, resulting in revenue.

MQLs vs Other Types of Leads

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Lead Qualification Tools

Qualified leads are crucial in generating revenue for your organization. Lead qualification tools can help you quickly identify your most promising prospects. Here are some lead qualification tools you can use to attract and nurture quality prospects: 

Interactive PDFs

PDFs are effective ways of informing people in a way that is easily accessible. They are downloadable, saveable, and shareable.  Interactive PDFs add engagement and shorten your sales cycle.  

Interactive PDFs are lead qualification tools that allow you to add filtering questions, thereby identifying your most promising prospects. These PDFs can help tailor your follow-up and move them quickly down the funnel. 

Solution Finders

Other effective lead qualification tools are solution finders. They help identify and provide a custom-tailored solution to a customer’s problem. When leveraged appropriately, solution finders can shorten the sales cycle. 

Solution finders, also called product pickers, help leads navigate the various products or services your company offers. Prospects get personalized product or service recommendations with short assessments. 

Qualified leads may not always know what they want or the best solution. Through solution finders, you help prospects avoid frustration and headaches. This goes a long way in building relationships between your salespeople and customers. 

ROI Calculators

ROI calculators work similarly to solution finders in that they provide tailored customer service. These tools generate numeric results for each lead based on a formula generated by customer input. These calculators quickly identify and evaluate pain points, speeding up the qualification process. 

ROI calculators offer personalized, valuable content tailored to each stage of the buyer’s journey. ROI calculator data can be used for scoring, disqualification, and trigger campaigns.

ROI Calculators

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The Lead Qualification Process

Leads don’t automatically get qualified or disqualified on their own. There is a lead qualification process that is simplified using lead qualification tools.

1. Establish Lead Qualification Criteria

The first part of the lead qualification process is establishing prospect criteria. This has two parts: whether the lead is a good fit and how interested the lead is in your offerings. 

When looking at whether a lead is a good fit for your offerings, use the BANT methodology. This looks at the following four factors a lead will consider when faced with a buying decision. 

  • Budget: What is the financial capacity of the lead to make a purchase? What budgetary constraints are there that will affect their willingness to spend? 
  • Authority: What is the lead’s position, authority, or power to finalize a deal or make a purchasing decision? 
  • Need: How useful are your products or services for meeting the wants and pain points of the lead? 
  • Timeline: When does the lead need to make a purchase? 
What is BANT

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2. Lead Generation

The second stage of lead qualification is lead generation. Once you have the qualification criteria set up, you’ll need to attract prospects. There are a variety of inbound and outbound strategies you can use for lead generation.  

Inbound lead generation involves methods to get leads to come to you. These include referrals, social media ads, and web form submissions. 

Outbound lead generation strategies involve seeking potential leads and using sales strategies. Cold calling, introductory emails, and meetings are examples of outbound lead generation activities. Once you’ve generated leads, you can begin the process of qualifying them. 

3. Lead Score and Categorization

Once you have your lead qualifying criteria and the prospects pouring in, it’s time to score and categorize them. The leads that show the greatest interest through your inbound or outbound sales activities will earn more points.

It’s important to separate sales and marketing qualified leads. As you’re interested in sales leads, assign fewer points to prospects that interact with your marketing campaigns. They will be nurtured differently. 

You can score and categorize leads manually, though lead management platforms and customer relationship management software does this automatically. After you score your sales prospects, it’s time to rank them. 

4. Distribute and Rank Leads 

Once you generate your leads and score them, it is time to distribute and rank them. MQLs and SQLs require different lead nurturing techniques. 

For example, a sales qualified lead will get a sales presentation or demo to understand your product or service better. Each sales prospect should be ranked and prioritized by lead score or BANT analysis.  

To nurture MQLs, offer more in-depth content. Start with emails and free trials for top-of-funnel prospects. Offer an e-newsletter and then whitepapers and e-books to bottom-of-funnel leads.

Once you categorize and distribute your leads, it’s time to rank them. Lead qualification tools prioritize sales-qualified leads with the highest score and rank. These will be your most qualified leads.

5. Continue Qualifying Leads Throughout the Pipeline

The last step for lead qualification is to continue down the steps of your sales pipeline. The goal of lead qualification is to move prospects through the funnel. 

For SQLs, your salespeople may ask additional probing questions during presentations and demos. They are qualified and nurtured to move on through the sales funnel.  

For marketing-qualified leads, you need to get them sales qualified and handed over to your sales team. MQLs will continue receiving lead scoring points as they show additional interest and interact with your campaign. 

Lead management platforms that qualify leads make it easier to move prospects through your funnel. The quicker leads become paying customers, the more closed sales you’ll have.

Steps to Effective Lead Scoring

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The Importance of Qualifying Leads

Every company has a sales process or funnel whereby prospects enter as mildly interested leads and leave as paying customers. Along the way, you employ various marketing and sales tactics to move them onto the next stage. If your sales process is long, there are more opportunities for leads to drop off before becoming customers. 

When you nurture your ideal prospects, they quickly progress through your sales funnel. As they are already excited and knowledgeable about your service or product, a long sales process is unnecessary. 

Lead qualification tools shorten your sales cycle. A shorter sales funnel leads to more conversions and quicker sales.

The Growth of Lead Management Software

Lead management software is by no means going away anytime soon. Lead qualification software use will increase. Technavio predicts that the lead qualification solutions market will increase by 17.5% between 2021-2028.

Some of the driving factors that contribute to the growth of lead management platforms include: 

  • The development of cloud-based and SaaS software and solutions (especially on mobile)
  • Increased demand for social interaction between companies and consumers
  • The heightened popularity of crowdsourcing 
  • The increase in CRMs integrating lead qualification into their marketing and sales automation platforms
  • More companies looking to improve the relationship between their sales and marketing departments
  • The higher likelihood of sales conversions
  • The increased need for enterprise-level lead management software

With information at their fingertips, your leads and prospects will be selective about who they do business with. Building relationships and nurturing the right people will make them paying customers. Lead qualification platforms do this.

Lead management platforms like LeadBoxer are becoming increasingly popular because they allow salespeople to focus on the most promising prospects. There are various lead qualification tools to move prospects through your funnel. Maximize your prospect generation efforts by following a lead qualification process. 

The Growing Importance of Product Led Growth in B2B Selling

The Growing Importance of Product Led Growth in B2B Selling

Marketing, Other / By

Remaining competitive in the B2B sales industry relies on customer retention and overall satisfaction. Many companies are embracing the idea of product led growth (PLG) to help boost their numbers and increase brand loyalty. 

It seems obvious you must have a good product, but the value of providing quality services continues to increase. PLG is more complex than simply having something worth buying. It relies on ensuring a user-friendly experience and excellent customer service to create lasting relationships.

Marketing is no longer the only way to push leads through the sales cycle. By combining a focus on the customer experience, sales and marketing can create a cohesive end goal. Not only does a product centric approach help align departmental goals, it allows the customer to have a voice throughout the sales cycle.

To learn more about the ways your team can benefit from PLG, keep reading, or use the following links to jump ahead:

What is Product Led Growth (PLG)?

Like many trending B2B strategies, product led growth is not a new concept. It is, however, an important strategy to empower customers and retain sales. As PLG continues to increase in popularity, your team should better its understanding and implementation of the concept.

Simply put, PLG allows the product or service to drive sales and retain customers. This relies on several factors like ease of use and excellent product experience. Rather than expecting marketing to do the heavy lifting for brand awareness, this strategy incorporates product functionality directly into the sales process.

By putting the product at the center of all conversations, it can help align goals across departments and boost business growth. This also means employees will be working toward the single objective of excellent product experience for all customers.

Through this all-company collaboration, more people are introduced to the user experience, which drives conversations with customers from all angles. However, PLG isn’t solely based on your team’s understanding of the services your company sells.

Another key component of this strategy is allowing customers to see the product value before asking for a purchase. This means having a strong user experience that allows prospects to dive deep and trial the product on their own. 

Rather than watching product demonstrations or Q&A webinars, customers should be able to test the functionality on their own. Through implementation of this strategy, success relies on overall customer satisfaction before a sale has been completed.

For example, free trials work hand-in-hand with product centric approaches. Allowing customers to test how the product can provide solutions to their unique problems helps provide valuable insight before purchase. It also allows prospects to address concerns and work out potential problems with a company expert. 

PLG helps instill confidence in clients through transparency of service. By providing an inside look at user experience, your team can boost customer satisfaction and increase overall retention rates. 

Product Led Growth Public Companes

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It is not surprising that the B2B industry saw rapid digitization during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before this sudden shift to virtual sales, leaders in the industry were finding ways to innovate customer experience through increased use of technology. While the pandemic sped things up, trends like PLG are here to stay.

Buyers have the resources to be more educated than ever on products before making a purchase decision. This means remaining competitive in the industry relies heavily on customer experience throughout the entire sales cycle. 

As brands continue to have an increased online presence, customers are able to interact with products before they even speak with a salesperson. In fact, research shows 94% of B2B buyers perform online research before initiating contact with a sales team. 

Educated buyers are now interacting with demos and free trials as early as possible in the sales cycle. Rather than wanting to speak with salespeople for a product introduction, clients are eager to have a hands-on approach to testing solutions. According to a 2015 Forrester survey, almost 75% of buyers would rather make an online purchase than go through a sales team.

This has shifted initial sales conversations to focus more on product details and the technical capabilities of products. Customer preparation has led to an expectation of expert customer service throughout the sales process. In most cases, buyers want salespeople to act in tandem with the website so they can navigate the process alongside an expert.

The Benefits of a PLG Strategy

Product led funnel vs Traditional funnel

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To understand how this strategy can benefit your business, it is important to make a comparison between traditional growth methods. Starting off, marketing teams usually qualify leads through online interactions like targeted ads, web forms, and email marketing. From there, leads enter the sales funnel and the salespeople reach out for an introduction.

Next, the sales department focuses on showcasing product benefits and providing details on how the product can provide needed solutions. If interested, the customer chooses to make a purchase. 

Once the sale has been completed, the customer works with the success team for onboarding and implementation. Assuming things go well, the customer becomes a repeat buyer and the sales cycle restarts.

The traditional strategy allows for a long period of time before the customer is introduced to the product’s functionality. In a time where buyers are prone to making quick decisions and competitors can offer easy demos, following a traditional timeline may not land your company the sale.

In contrast, PLG allows the prospect to jump right into the product. Marketing and sales departments act as experts to help guide customers through the user experience. Rather than client information being captured from online traffic, this cycle starts as soon as the customer signs up for a trial.

Known as product-qualified leads (PQLs), these clients begin interacting with the product as soon as possible. Rather than waiting to be contacted by a salesperson, clients are most often familiar with the brand before the introduction occurs. Once a salesperson reaches out, the conversation can focus heavily on the client’s specific areas of interest, potential personalized features, and any other questions the customer may have about the product.

This kind of transparency is a huge benefit to companies. PQLs convert at a rate 3-4x higher than traditional marketing leads. When customers feel confident in a product before making the purchase, retention increases. 

PLG is a great way to gather feedback from customers and improve overall product functionality. When the product is a driving force behind sales, customers are able to provide honest feedback to companies about their experiences.

When a sale is completed, your team is able to hear what was the deciding factor. On the flip side, offering your customers a free trial of your product, even if the sale falls through, helps provide insight into areas that need improvement. 

This strategy is cost-effective. Customers begin the onboarding process by themselves, which frees up your employees to concentrate on providing excellent customer service. Less time and money are wasted on deals that don’t come to fruition. 

Providing a better user experience increases customer retention and provides incentives for word-of-mouth advertisement. When clients are able to test out a product for free, they are able to share this information with others in their network who may be looking for similar solutions.

Since there are no hold-ups on anyone being able to trial the service, these leads come directly into the pipeline once they sign up. Along with increasing a user base, this helps speed up the sales cycle. 

Gaining valuable customer contact information is easier when your product leads the marketing strategy. Usually, web traffic may visit a page or interact with an online ad, but their contact information might never reach your pipeline. Since users have to fill out a full form for free trial access, your marketing team is able to take PQLs directly to the sales team.

For example, when using Leadboxer to capture web traffic, your team can tell these customers are already qualified and scored since they began the demo. This pushes them to the top of the sales cycle, which allows for speedy outreach from your team. By encouraging a quick turnaround time, PLG helps outreach happen faster while leads are still interested in the product.

Implementing PLG Into Your Business

Before jumping into this strategy with your employees, it is crucial to understand PLG is a long-term approach rather than a short-term fix. Implementation will take time and resources to be successful. It may require departmental changes and an overhaul of the company mission to ensure a product-centric focus. 

When implemented correctly, PLG will help lead your team to higher sales and increased customer retention. Below are tips on successfully getting started and utilizing a PLG strategy:

1. Evaluate your product

Having an intimate understanding of your product, including its flaws, is the first step in implementing a PLG strategy. Before it can sell itself, your company needs to thoroughly understand the value the product brings to the market. 

Evaluation can begin with a few simple questions:

What is the core function? What solutions does your product provide to customers? What feedback is most often received?

Compare your product to the competition. Notice the similarities and differences. 

Find the best way to engage prospective customers when speaking on these topics. Educated clients are willing to ask directly about these types of variances. Be prepared to answer honestly during these conversations.

For example, your product may lack certain features compared to that of a competitor. However, your starting price point may be lower. Understanding how to explain this to prospects will help build trust within the relationship.

2. Focus on the customer experience

When the customer is driving the sale through self-education, a user-friendly experience is crucial to finalizing a deal. Beginning with initial onboarding, signing up for the product should be self-explanatory and easily accessible. Prospects are eager to get started, so the sign-up process should be quick enough to hold a customer’s attention.

Sales conversations should bring value to the customer. Rather than relying on old-school tactics, your team needs to focus on acting as product experts to prospective clients. 

Removing fluff from these interactions is one way to increase trust within the relationship. Make sure customers feel like they took away valuable information from each conversation with your salespeople.

Allow ample opportunities for clients to provide feedback. Not only will this help customers feel more valued, but it will give your team vital information regarding potential product improvements. 

Customize features when possible. Buyers love the idea of personalization, especially when they’re looking for solutions to unique problems within their organization. 80% of customers favor the ability to customize their user experience. 

3. Provide continuous onboarding

In the initial onboarding process, users will be signing themselves up for a trial. That doesn’t mean your team should take a backseat to onboarding, though. Instead, customer success teams should concentrate on secondary and next-tier opportunities to increase user engagement.

Customer retention increases when there is a strong need for your product. By encouraging clients to continuously use new features and engage with your software, your product will quickly integrate into their daily workflow.

This is another opportunity to allow conversations with customers about their user experience. As they add more features to their product usage, make sure your team is doing their due diligence. 

Having check-ins about new features during the continuous onboarding process will help your team have internal conversations about product performance. This allows your team to collect data on what is working, as well as find areas that may benefit from improvements.

4. Align departmental goals within your company

Overhauling long-term business strategy can be a big undertaking. For success, departments must be on the same page about the company’s mission. When practicing a PLG strategy, marketing and sales teams will be trying out nontraditional tactics.

It is important to make sure the product is always central to the mission. Marketing teams should work closely with sales and customer success to understand the feedback being given. Adjust your marketing outreach to lead with the product.

These efforts from all departments should encourage excellent customer journeys and work to increase brand loyalty. Even though the product and customers are doing a lot of heavy lifting, it is still the goal of your team to provide value throughout the sales cycle.

5. Tailor your marketing practices to showcase the value

Since much of the beginning sales cycle in PLG strategy involves solitary customer research, messaging is key. Customers will want to see an overview of key features as well as pricing when comparing brands.

Make sure your pricing sheet is accessible and easy to understand. Marketing content should help explain how clients can benefit from the premium version of your product. Simple explanations of which plans work well for specific groups can encourage prospects to explore the features that are most relevant to their needs.

Online resources, like blogs or social media posts, should showcase the features your product offers. Many users will be looking at multiple options during their research. It is important to make your product stand out by providing valuable information about the user experience rather than fluff content.

6. Utilize upsells and premium features 

Once a sale is made, the goal should be to encourage repeat purchases from that customer. This typically happens through contract renewals, but there is an opportunity to add more revenue through upsells and new features.

If a client is thoroughly enjoying the service your product provides, your team should brainstorm ways new features may bring additional value. Asking customers what they want to see in future rollouts is a great starting point.

Offer items in discounted bundles or find ways to include an option for premium features. These types of add-ons may be an easier sell once clients are familiar with your product. Ongoing outreach from the sales team to current customers is crucial for landing these upsells. 

7. Encourage user referrals

PLG provides ample room for customers to refer your product to others in their network. If your trial period is easy to access, prospects can sign up and get started within the same day of hearing about your product. 

Capitalize on your customer experience by offering a referral program that incentivizes current relationships to bring in new business. This type of program can help boost brand loyalty, as clients can continue to tell others about your product.

According to McKinsey, a recommendation from a trusted friend or colleague is 50x more likely to result in a purchase. This helps boost your overall return-on-investment (ROI) since referrals typically cost less than acquiring a brand-new lead.

User referrals can help boost overall customer satisfaction. Current clients will feel appreciated when their recommendations are rewarded by the brand.

8. Follow through on your advertisements

When customer experience is a major driving factor for sales, following through on promises is crucial. The classic saying ‘under promise, but over deliver is a good motto to have when implementing PLG.

Your product will be doing most of the selling, and it should be able to stand alone while customers are participating in a demo. However, if your salespeople make promises about product features or capabilities in conversations, it is important to see them through.

Transparency is huge when utilizing product led marketing. It will negatively impact customer retention if users don’t see sales agreements come to fruition. 

This comes into play when customers are making the transition from the free trial to the premium version. If your team offers specific features or personalized capabilities, it is crucial to ensure these are available as soon as onboarding begins.

Clients have educated themselves on the benefits of your product versus your competitors. Since they’ll have spent time with your services, they will notice any lack of follow-through on promises. 

PLG relies heavily on customer retention, and the easiest way to lose a relationship is by not providing the right service. Make sure to have honest conversations about the features your product has, and address any concerns as soon as they arise.

9. Use data to drive product choices

PLG strategy relies heavily on accurate data to understand the customer’s needs. Data analytics will help your company ascertain what value users are receiving from your product. This information can also help develop product improvements as your team rolls out new features. 

When implementing a PLG strategy, it is important for your company to equip itself with the right tools and resources for success. Make sure you have a way to track data and pilot the user experience. 

Along with using these kinds of tools, manage expectations among departments by setting KPIs and reviewing targeted goals. This allows your employees to easily measure success throughout the process. 

Key Takeaways

Product led growth may be the newest trendy buzzword in the B2B industry, but the strategy is here to stay. In order to remain competitive, your company should be looking at the long-term benefits of a product-centric approach. 

As customers continue to push for more virtual sales options, your product will need to be able to sell itself during the trial phase. Focus on having your salespeople become experts on product features. Tailor your marketing to showcase features that set your product apart from competitors. 

Understand the best way to implement PLG into your organization. Invest in the right resources to ensure this strategy increases your customer base and retention. 

Allow user experience and customer feedback to drive initiatives within your departments. Build lasting customer relationships through transparency. By focusing on the customer experience and product value, your company can benefit from this strategy.

To get started with Leadboxer, click here for your free trial!

The Value of Pre CRM and Marketing CRM

The Value of Pre-CRM and Marketing CRM

Marketing, Tools / By

Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and strategy is vital to a successful B2B sales team. CRM software has become a major asset for many companies as it helps organize, integrate, and streamline customer management.

With more businesses offering remote or hybrid work options, keeping up with customers has begun to rely heavily on the successful use of CRM software. While using a CRM is great once a lead has come into the pipeline, there is value in developing a pre-CRM strategy.

To learn more about the function of pre-CRM strategy and the usage of a marketing CRM, keep reading or use the links below to jump ahead:

What Does Pre-CRM Mean?

Traditional vs Modern CRM

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Tracking website activity and importing potential customer data into a CRM is usually the first step in creating a relationship. Although, there are probably more website visitors than contacts in your CRM. Not every prospect is going to input data into your web forms, so there needs to be a strategy in place to anticipate prospects who may eventually enter the sales pipeline.

Having a Pre-CRM strategy means your departments are working to improve initial customer interactions to begin developing a strong business relationship. Before companies were able to have a strong digital presence, salespeople needed to greet customers and have organic interactions to cultivate their pipeline.

By taking these old-school tactics and adapting them to fit your company’s digital presence, the pre-CRM stage can help present your company to prospects. Engaging potential customers before they’ve been entered into your CRM can be tough. Utilizing social media, email marketing, and a website can help introduce your brand before customers are familiar with your team.

Most importantly, taking advantage of the Pre-CRM stage means your company is using its marketing and digital presence to help create product awareness. Many customers only become active when they have a need, but engagement can start before then. Marketing should focus on sharing what your company offers while allowing customers to interact with your content.

Reaching Out to Pre-CRM Leads

How do you reach out to customers before you know their needs, or before they understand what your company specializes in? Finding ways to engage pre-CRM leads takes creativity, but the payoff can help boost your sales pipeline.

Thinking of it as similar to greeting customers in the offline world can help map out the best way for outreach. Find ways to humanize digital communication, like displaying employee profiles and making contact information readily available. Encourage engagement through chatbots, and utilize video features to showcase products and salespeople.

The goal of this outreach is to improve initial customer impressions. When your company is able to create a positive first touchpoint, prospects will be more inclined to continue engagement with the brand. This will help filter leads in your pipeline and CRM, which will help boost sales. 

What Is a CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is software that can be used to manage your company’s relationships and interactions with clients and prospects. This technology helps streamline your business, grow your pipeline, and organize goals across departments.

A CRM can be used throughout the entire customer lifecycle, including marketing, sales, and customer service. This software stores prospect and customer information, which helps build out your database for maintaining relationships.

By keeping data all in one platform, your CRM can help make sure all of the necessary steps are being done to provide clients with quality service. It also allows your teams to track customer engagement, plan outreach, and identify future sales opportunities.

Many teams have turned to a remote or hybrid working environment, so utilizing a CRM can make a big difference in collaboration when employees are stationed across multiple locations. This software can also align your sales and marketing departments to tighten up the lead generation and nurturing process.

Along with creating more efficient workflow within departments, CRMs can integrate with other technology to streamline the sales process. Many CRMs have the ability to work with your current tech stack to free up time and resources for customer outreach. For example, Leadboxer integrates seamlessly with CRMs to improve lead-generation processes.

The CRM Cycle

CRM is a great strategy for improving the quality of your outreach, and in turn, creating stronger customer relationships. Rather than aiming to cast a wider net, successful customer management will help encourage repeat sales and brand loyalty.

There are seven stages within the CRM cycle, and each plays an important role in customer success. Walking clients through this journey will help fill your pipeline with quality prospects and increase sales.

The Pre-CRM stage begins with brand awareness and creating an environment that encourages customer engagement. Inputting a new lead into the CRM happens once your team has contact and basic information about the prospect. Log the details in your CRM and begin walking them to the next step in the cycle.

Once a prospect begins interacting with your brand, like clicking on an email link or filling out a web form, the nurturing process can begin. By using features in your CRM software, you can tag clients and track their engagement. This helps your sales team determine which leads are cold or warm.

Moving toward the sales opportunity happens once a lead schedules a sales call. This moves the customer from warm to hot. 

Your team should be tracking the movements of this client as they move through the sales funnel. Enter the details from the sales call to log the outcome in your CRM. This helps your team see which leads are actively working their way toward closing a deal.

A little over halfway through the cycle, the goal is to have hot leads converted into closed deals. Once the client says ‘yes’ to your sales pitch, you can consider them an active customer. 

However, the CRM cycle does not end here.

Next, delivery of your product or services should be scheduled. It’s important to create follow-up reminders to keep in touch with the customer as they begin using your product. This phase should also include gathering feedback and providing any additional training or information that the customer may need to be successful.

Instead of moving on to the next cold lead once a deal has been completed, try bringing your customers into the ‘upselling’ stage. If clients are happy with the product and experience they’ve had so far, pitching an upgrade in your services can help boost the overall sale. Engage with customers to see if there are any additional needs your team can help fill.

Lastly, the CRM cycle relies on continuity to cultivate strong customer relationships and promote lasting brand loyalty. Continue reaching out to current clients. 

Schedule regular check-ins and encourage feedback. These actions can help increase repeat purchases throughout the length of the business relationship.

The Benefits and Challenges of a Marketing CRM

CRM Strategy Enablement

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Implementing a CRM can play a huge role in the success of your marketing department. Since the goal of marketing is to create awareness and generate leads for the sales team, a CRM can help align the efforts of these departments.

By breaking down barriers to avoid organizational silos within your company, a CRM helps increase the flow of information between teams. This will improve the overall quality of customer service as your marketing campaigns direct qualified leads into the sales pipeline. 

As website visitors interact with content and email recipients click on links, a marketing CRM can help your team track these actions to qualify leads. By integrating with other technologies like lead generation software, the CRM increases conversions and campaign effectiveness.

While a CRM can be a huge asset to many companies, there are a few challenges to be aware of before implementing the software. For employees who are unfamiliar with the system, learning how to use a CRM effectively can be a daunting task. Provide extensive training to make sure your team is confident in the program.

Integration with tech stacks is a great benefit to using a CRM, but it is important to make sure the CRM you choose works with your current technology. Marketing campaigns can benefit from tracking customer engagement, and a marketing CRM can help organize this data. 

Key Takeaways

A Pre-CRM strategy can help humanize your company and begin nurturing leads before they have entered your pipeline. Use this strategy to create positive brand awareness with potential prospects. Encouraging early engagement will help drive customers to your business when they have a need for your product.

Utilizing a marketing CRM is a great way to create a communication flow between departments and increase campaign effectiveness. Tracking and tagging engagement from customers can help inform future marketing efforts and outreach for sales pitches. 

To see how Leadboxer can integrate with your CRM, click here for a free trial!

Automated Lead Sales Intelligence Platforms

Automated Lead & Sales Intelligence Platforms: The Key to Successful Sales Strategies

Lead Generation, Marketing, Sales, Tools / By

Automated lead generation software is paving the way to success for B2B companies. These highly integrated platforms have continued to rise in popularity. For businesses who want to keep a competitive edge within their sales and marketing departments, lead generation software has become a necessity.

Diving deeper into the market trends and forecasts, several reports have closely inspected how lead generation and automated marketing will trend through 2029. Keep reading, or use the links below to explore these findings:

According to an Insight Partners study, the lead generation market was valued at 3,103.80 million USD in 2021. It is expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5%, and reach a value of 9,589.11 million USD by 2028.

The Global Lead Generation B2B Software Market Research Report 2022 shows that the lead generation market is split up into four areas. They are lead capture software, lead intelligence software, lead mining software, and lead scoring software. 

These sections each play a role in successfully generating and nurturing leads while saving companies time and valuable resources. 20% more sales opportunities are created when leads are properly nurtured. However, 65% of B2B companies have not established a process for lead nurturing.

Technology-driven processes are crucial for companies to identify quality leads. In fact, 44% of marketers are already using software like automated marketing for lead scoring.

On average, sales leads for B2B companies can cost between $31 and $60. Within six to nine months of utilizing lead management automation, companies can see a revenue boost of 10%. This software helps drive sales and increases (return on investment) ROI. 

Lead generation software continues to increase in popularity due to its flexibility, low maintenance, and resistance to corrosion. As businesses continue to grow within the digital space, this software helps companies remain competitive within their industries.

Forbes reports that 58% of business leaders see lead generation as a key challenge. Lead generation platforms like Leadboxer are instrumental in helping companies find qualified prospects to fill their pipeline. Through automation, data collection, and software integration, these platforms are able to improve processes across multiple departments.

Lead generation software has benefited from the advancement of technology, and it will continue to optimize its product performance. Integration between customer relationship management (CRM) and lead generation platforms is a step toward success.

52% of companies have already integrated their marketing software and CRM. 88% of marketers will use web analytics to continue improving their lead-generation strategies. Lead generation platforms like Leadboxer integrate with CRMs and other technology to provide quality leads and analyze data.

Lead generation priorities of marketers

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The Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 released by researchsandmarkets.com takes a closer look at the current environment for this software. The report finds the market was valued at 5.45 billion USD in 2021. As automated marketing software continues to gain traction among businesses, it is projected to reach 8.58 billion USD by 2026.

Due to the increased usage of these platforms, the market is expected to grow by 9.49% between 2022-2026. The report notes the advantages of using this software include improved efficiency, reduced staffing costs, and an overall increase in revenue. 

Cloud and On-Premise are the two studied segments of marketing automation deployment types. Cloud deployment was found to cover a market majority at 58%.

This report studied eight channels of marketing automation: 

  • lead nurturing
  • mobile application 
  • campaign management
  • inbound marketing
  • social media 
  • email
  • reporting/analytics 
  • other

Out of the channel categories, email marketing automation led the way with 17%. 

A Demand Gen Report found that 53% of marketing teams say that early-stage lead generation is most effective when done through email. With email automation pulling ahead of other channels, automated marketing software can help companies save time and resources in producing email campaigns. 

Across industry applications, it was observed that healthcare began utilizing marketing automation software strategies. This implementation has helped create consistent messaging and improved customer service. During 2022-2026, the use of marketing automation in healthcare is expected to grow by 12.5%.

As for regions, this report discovered that North America made up the largest share of marketing automation at 34.3%. Over the forecasted period of 2022-2026, Europe and North America are expected to be the largest markets. Due to a rise in mobile usage and increasing use of advertisement campaigns, the Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest-growing market. 

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Shaped Automated Software

COVID-19 continues to show lasting effects on the way businesses handle sales outreach. With quick switches to digital communication as in-person meetings were canceled, many B2B companies had to adapt to a virtual environment.

58% of experts believe poor technology infrastructure led to businesses struggling to deal with the pandemic.  The Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 suggests that the pandemic highlighted the importance of marketing automation as companies made the switch to digital channels to keep in touch with customers.

Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are playing a significant role in the post-pandemic world. 50% of businesses plan to push forward with their AI strategies as they enter into post-COVID operations.

While the pandemic caused upheaval across all industries, it also helped drive innovation and advancement. 43.42% of B2B marketers plan to switch their in-person meeting budgets to digital efforts. 

By investing in automated marketing and lead generation software, B2B companies will be prepared to face a post-pandemic world. 

The Future of Lead Generation and Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Valuable Features

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Lead generation software and marketing automation is a growing markets. The Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 found several factors for these upward trends including higher social media usage and trending mobile marketing.

While many marketing budgets continue to shrink, a survey from Gartner finds 26.6% of Chief Marketing Officers plan to increase their spending on automated tools. Statista Research Department shows that 2.6 billion USD was spent on lead generation in the United States in 2019. This number is predicted to hit 3.2 billion USD by the end of 2023.

The demand for these tools continues to increase, but this market does face challenges as well. Cyber security and data quality issues were found to be impeding issues for market growth. The quick nature of social media and continued internet usage has posed security and compliance challenges for marketing teams.

Despite advancements in automated software, 40% of businesses find their marketing tools are outdated. This suggests companies are still working to find the best lead-generation platform for their needs. 

As the B2B industry continues to evolve within the digital sphere, lead generation and marketing automation will increase in marketing and sales departments. The content marketing platform is expected to grow the fastest between 2022-2026. Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 suggests it will increase at a CAGR of 17%. 

85% of marketers say their biggest focus from content marketing is lead generation. Research shows an emphasis on producing quality customer experiences and a growing need for analytics-based content will drive content marketing growth. 

AI integration, predictive analytics, and a focus on personalized marketing are contributing to the market increase.

The combination of AI and automation software is pushing businesses toward better customer service and creating stronger interactions with prospects. Lead generation platforms help target the correct customers to drive marketing efforts in the right direction.

Key Takeaways

Lead generation and marketing automation are paving the way for companies to save time and resources when filling the sales pipeline. 80% of marketers saw an increase in their leads after using marketing automation. 

Both markets continue to grow and are projected to rise to new levels by 2029. B2B companies will need to include lead generation platforms and automated marketing into their business strategies to remain competitive in their respective industries.

Marketing automation provides a huge boost in sales leads. Using this software for marketing campaigns can increase these numbers by 451%. Content marketing is used for lead generation by 80% of companies. It is expected to be the fastest-growing channel for automated marketing between 2022-2029.

Lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to push companies toward digital communication. Customer trends show that many prefer buying in a virtual space. These habits will most likely increase as social media marketing trends upward.

While lead generation and personalized outreach benefit from automated software, challenges with consumer privacy and data quality will continue to be part of the conversation. Salesforce found that 86% of consumers want more transparency regarding the usage of their personal information. 

Investing in highly integrated platforms like LeadBoxer will help departments utilize their existing tech stack to its full potential for lead generation, marketing automation, and customer management.

See what LeadBoxer can do for your business. Get your free trial today!

Harnessing the Power of Video Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Harnessing the Power of Video Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Creative lead generation can help your B2B company fill the sales funnel with qualified prospects. Social media continues to be vital for marketing teams, and jumping on the upward trend of video content is a way to boost your outreach. 

Utilizing video marketing is a great way to increase brand awareness and encourage content engagement. This tactic can push your outreach to additional target audiences and help increase your lead generation. Video marketing can also work when trying to retarget and engage potential prospects.

Keep reading, or use the following links to jump ahead:

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing statistics

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While the strategy isn’t new, video marketing has become crucial for staying relevant in a competitive market. According to WyzOwl’s 2022 Video Marketing Statistic Report, 86% of businesses already use video in their marketing strategy. 

This marketing tool is important to have across all channels. Videos are an easy way to educate prospects on your product, as well as create brand awareness.

In a Hubspot survey, it was found that video content was the second most popular way to increase social media engagement. By encouraging interaction from customers, this strategy can help boost shares and expand audience reach. 

Even though video marketing has been around for a while, many businesses saw a rise in demand for this content during the pandemic. 64% of marketing teams feel the pandemic has affected their 2022 video marketing strategies. Coupling this with the rise of marketing on social media platforms like TikTok, utilizing these tools can make a big difference in engagement.

Increasing Sales Conversions Through Videos

Marketing teams work hard to reach audiences that can be converted successfully for the sales department. These tactics require a lot of planning and resources to make sure content is being delivered to the right prospects.

Video marketing is an accessible tool that helps engage customers before they’ve even spoken to a salesperson. If you’re just beginning your video strategy, a great place to start is finding ways to include this type of content on your website.

According to BizCommunity, conversion rates can be increased by 80% if you include video content on your landing pages. When leads are visiting your site for the first time, videos are able to introduce your product and brand quickly. This type of content encourages engagement as prospects are able to get a glimpse of what your company has to offer.

Additionally, adding videos to your site can help improve search engine optimization (SEO). By having this content on your pages, visitors are more likely to spend more time on your website, which helps boost your page in search engines.

Moving on from initial lead impressions, video marketing can play a role in boosting customer retention. This content has the ability to support salespeople as they walk clients through the sales journey. By having video tutorials and demonstrations, leads are able to interact with your product before making a purchase, which can increase customer confidence.

The options for video content are endless, and it is a great tool to build trust while showcasing an authentic brand to prospects. Utilizing how-tos, customer testimonials, and customer support videos are just a few ways your team can take its marketing strategy to the next level.

How to Create a Successful Video Strategy

Creating content that encourages audience engagement is a good starting place. With high-quality smartphone cameras and a multitude of editing apps to choose from, access to video creation is easier than ever. 

However, starting without a plan can be an overwhelming undertaking for any marketing team. Take time to allocate resources and prepare your team for the content rollout. This type of foresight will help align the marketing and sales department to ensure the highest return on investment (ROI) is being achieved.

Once your teams are ready to go, begin by evaluating your company’s needs. Determine which pages and social platforms will benefit most from the content. Laying out the areas that will receive videos can help decide what the content will showcase.

Next, determine the target audience. For video marketing lead generation, have your team identify what platforms see the most traffic from prospects. 

Bizcommunity found that videos help 90% of customers make buying decisions. By getting this content on pages that see the most interaction from leads, video influence can help push these prospects into the sales funnel. 

Align the goals of the campaign across departments. Multiple videos can serve different purposes, but it is good to have a clear objective before creating any content. This data will also play a role in determining the video’s success late in the journey.

Decide on the video distribution platform. There are a few factors that will help narrow down the best place for your content. Consider your budget, including money for sponsored posts, and your current tools. 

Shorter videos may find their home on TikTok or Instagram, whereas Youtube remains a leader for long-form content. Determining a platform before filming will help drive the subject matter. It is important to take into consideration the type of audience on each social media channel, as well as how engagement is measured.

Platforms like Instagram reels and TikTok rely on short, snappy videos that can quickly grab a viewer’s attention. These sites also work off of algorithms that rely on comments, likes, and shares. Longer videos may do better on Youtube or LinkedIn, especially if the goal of the content is to educate. 

Begin scripting and filming content. If you are not sure where to start, look at similar businesses or competitors to see what type of videos they are sharing. This can help your team gather an understanding of where your industry fits into the digital sphere. 

Once posted, begin measuring the content’s success. While each business may track unique metrics, there are a few basic ones that can help your team see what works and what needs improvement. Engagement is huge. Track comments, likes, and shares. 

Time spent on your site is another great metric to consider. If you have longer videos, are your visitors watching the whole thing? Take a look at any generated leads or conversion boosts. 

Are your visitors interacting with other areas of your site after watching the video? For example, keep an eye out for any upticks in form completion.

Lastly, continue to re-evaluate and produce video content. While you shouldn’t fix any content that seems to be working, don’t be afraid to add new posts. Variety in content can boost engagement and encourage frequent customer interaction. 

Revisit any videos that don’t produce the results your team wants. This form of content is constantly evolving, and it is good to be prepared to embrace changes as needed.

Best Practices for Video Marketing

Once you have a strategy ready to go, implementing best practices can help boost the success of your marketing campaigns. Understanding the different types of video content can help your team see a positive ROI from this work.

Videos like product demonstrations, educational content, or expert interviews can help increase lead generation. While content like customer testimonials, live streams, or personalized messages from employees can create brand awareness.

Use video marketing to retarget old leads. This content can help encourage prospects to re-engage with the sales journey. Maybe the lead wasn’t sure your product was the right fit, but an educational tutorial or how-to guide can help show the ways their company can benefit from a purchase. 

Video Marketing & Social Media

Time spent watching online videos

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The rise of platforms like TikTok and Instagram has expedited the evolution of video content. Now, businesses are able to utilize these channels and interact with leads at a faster pace. In turn, social media has also helped shape marketing trends.

Viral trends dominate the ways content is viewed across platforms, and brands are not exempt from participation. While being TikTok famous isn’t the goal of video content for your business, it’s becoming more common for companies to participate in these trends. 

In 2020, Statistica found that one-fourth of adults online have viewed videos posted on TikTok. Tapping into these markets and finding ways to engage with viewers is important for making the most out of your online presence. 

Influencer marketing has also continued to rise in popularity. Videos like a how-to or product reviews from influencers help create brand awareness and build trust with customers. This type of sponsored content speaks to viewers without seeming too forced. 

According to HubSpot, 64% of businesses found new customers because of a Facebook video. Social media helps successfully mix business with pleasure, as many adults spend time scrolling through Facebook and Instagram throughout the day. By posting video content on social media, your company can see a higher ROI on video marketing.

Get started with lead generation by trying out Leadboxer today!

Top B2B Lead Magnet Examples

Top B2B Lead Magnet Examples

Lead Generation, Marketing, Sales / By

Attracting qualified leads to the sales pipeline is crucial for B2B businesses. Identifying prospects and cultivating relationships will increase sales conversions and create loyal customers.

With email marketing filling up a prospect’s inbox from your company and competitors, it is important to offer valuable content that will help your product stand out. Finding ways to establish yourself as an expert in the industry and producing informative marketing materials can help create lasting customer relationships.

When trying to find potential clients and obtain their contact information, utilizing a lead magnet can kickstart the conversation. Use the links, or keep reading, to learn about lead magnet examples and how your company can benefit from their usage:

What is a Lead Magnet?

Number of lead magnets on websites

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Simply defined, a lead magnet is an incentive that companies can provide to prospects in exchange for contact information. More than that, though, this type of offer can start building trust with potential clients from their first interaction with a business.

Types of lead magnets can vary across industries, but all of them should provide value to the recipient. For example, retailers may offer first-time website visitors a small discount code if they join their mailing list. 

For B2B companies, lead magnets can be more than just a way to grow their email marketing outreach. Connecting with prospects and exchanging contact information is vital for building out a B2B sales pipeline. 

By utilizing a lead magnet, prospective clients can begin to see the value your product offers. With this in mind, planning and executing lead magnets may be different for each potential customer. 

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to this marketing strategy, and businesses that provide innovative and informative lead magnets can boost themselves ahead of competitors. The content within the lead magnet is crucial to forming the foundations of a strong business relationship.

Lead magnets are not seen as optional for businesses that want to remain competitive within their industries. These tools can help plot the trajectory of a prospect’s customer journey by providing a valuable glimpse into a business’s product. 

For technical industries, a lead magnet tends to lean into a demonstration of a product’s solution. This can be done in many ways, like White Papers or Webinars, but the content should provide valuable market insight. 

The Importance of Customizing Lead Magnets

Just like any other marketing tool, customization of outreach is important for lead magnets to be used to their fullest potential. Whether your business has a large array of products or only a few solutions to offer, customers will be coming to you with unique problems that are specific to their organization.

Initial content provided by your business, especially as a way to gain contact information and create first touchpoints, should begin the process of selling your solution. The magnet isn’t a sales pitch itself, though. Rather, it’s a marketing tool to generate interest and educate prospect’s on your product’s capability.

The goal of your marketing efforts is to be seen as an expert in the field. This means prospects and current customers will look to your content for industry insight. Using a lead magnet should entice prospects to provide contact information because they want to engage with the content of value.

Knowing your audience and understanding their needs will help create trust between customers and the business, as well as cultivate interest in your products. Alongside providing solutions, loyal customers will appreciate customized content that caters to their interests.

Before choosing the types of content you want to produce, it is important to identify your target audience and take the time to understand their needs. Research prospective clients, find pain points that your product can help alleviate, and pay attention to market trends. 

Identifying and targeting the correct audience will make sure your content is providing information to those who are most likely to become loyal customers. By investing in research to understand your prospect’s interests, your company should see a higher ROI for lead magnets and other marketing materials.

Along with customization for specific customer bases, making sure your content is up-to-date and relevant to current events can help create engagement. Utilize statistics to show ongoing trends in your industry. For example, as the economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, providing customers with content that addresses this topic will help your business be seen as an informed source.

Lead Magnet Examples

Lead Magnet with Highest Conversion Rate

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Email marketing, lead generation, and content engagement are all important tools for becoming a successful B2B company. These are no longer optional if you want to be a competitor in the market. On top of utilizing digital marketing to reach prospects, any content provided to potential clients should begin to build a relationship.

Creating sales pipelines and adding qualified leads to the funnel can be a tough task. Some prospects may be weary of providing contact information, and others may have no idea who your company is. 

By creating and providing quality lead magnets, your business should be able to showcase its value to these potential clients to build trust and begin the sales journey.

Not all lead magnets are the same. Some will serve different purposes depending on the type of customer you are working to attract. All of these tools should be enticing enough to earn contact information. 

Digital marketing continues to evolve as new social media platforms pop up and customers continue to be inundated with content. However, lots of clients are still beginning their search for solutions by turning to Google. 

Attracting potential clients through organic web traffic is a great way to score contact information from potential leads. This is where lead magnets can become a huge game changer. This content should be accessible on your website, in exchange for contact data, and it should be interesting enough to catch a prospect’s attention.

Below are lead magnet examples that can help your business take its lead generation to the next level.

White Paper

This tool is one of the top lead generators for B2B companies, but it needs to be interesting enough to garner interest from website visitors. There are several approaches you can take to white papers, and any form should provide unique information that is specific to your client’s industry.

A white paper is a tool that provides industry information using facts and statistics, but also helps build a case for the product that is sponsoring it. This content provides research-backed knowledge and promotes a solution through authority on the topic. 

As with all lead magnets, the content within the paper should be valuable, and it is important to make sure it’s enough to convert a prospect into a qualified lead. The subject should be creative, but something that can be heavily backed by data.

Providing a professional reference guide or one written by a C-Suite member can be a great start for a white paper. Allowing the CEO or COO to be the face of a paper on a trending topic in the industry can help establish your company’s expertise.

A professional reference guide would act as a comprehensive resource for professionals in your industry. While this type of content may seem basic and geared toward beginners in the field, it helps show off the knowledge of your company. This content is also easily refreshable, which takes fewer resources to maintain. 

Taking a more statistical approach can help gain points from prospects who may value insight into market trends. Analyze a case study or write about market predictions based on past trends. This content can help establish your organization’s credibility and focus on how your product fits into the current market. 

A simple type of white paper can be a comprehensive product breakdown to provide crucial insight into the solutions your business provides. This helps with the technical aspect of your sales pitch and can help introduce prospects to your tools.

Webinars

Leaning into a product demonstration, webinars are an easily accessible avenue for prospects to become acquainted with your company. Live webinars are a great resource to pitch your product to potential customers who may be exploring several solutions. 

These live streams provide in-depth product demonstrations and leave time for questions that participants might have. By showcasing your product and demonstrating your team’s expertise through answering questions in real time, webinars help prospects familiarize themselves with the solution your company provides.

Also, webinars make capturing contact information extremely easy. Many platforms require participants to sign in with their email addresses and include information regarding their role within the company. This allows your team to start targeted outreach to these prospective clients as soon as the webinar begins.

Live webinars help give easy to provide participants with a call-to-action at the conclusion of the demonstration. After seeing your product and its features, potential clients can easily take the next step to set up a meeting with one of your business development employees.

Another option for webinars is creating an ongoing series that is relevant to current market trends. This moves the presentation away from a simple demonstration and allows your team to discuss your product’s role within the industry.

This type of series helps create fresh content to promote engagement from prospects and loyal customers. Along with providing valuable market insight, these conversations and the Q&A following can help potential clients see the way your team interacts with existing customers.

By showcasing your customer service and your expertise within the industry, prospects may feel more inclined to move along within your sales funnel.

Risk-Free Trials

A classic lead magnet for many B2B companies is offering a free trial of the product. This is particularly popular for businesses that are promoting software as a solution. Some prospects may benefit from exploring the product on their own to determine if it’s a good fit.

Important factors for a risk-free trial to be successful in qualifying leads include clear communication about the trial’s terms and ease of cancellation before being charged for the service. 

Free trial sign-up forms will capture contact data so your team can reach out to these prospects and discuss their needs while they’re trying out the product. This is a great way to establish a relationship and help potential customers see the full benefit of your services.

Another aspect of the risk-free trial is gaining feedback from prospects as they self-navigate your product. Conducting check-ins to the contact information provided can start the conversation and allow your team to hear about the customer experience.

This type of lead magnet does require a product that can be easily trialed, but other types of products may be able to utilize a virtual demonstration if a free trial is not possible. Allowing prospects to test the software before purchasing can help build trust. 

Communication is important for successfully providing free trials as a lead magnet. Make sure your team is able to reach out to the user as they work, listen to feedback that’s given, and be transparent about the subscription details. 

eBooks

Similar to a white paper, an eBook is a long form of content that can serve as an informational guide to prospects. However, an eBook tends to cover general topics and may combine multiple pieces into one piece of content.

This type of lead magnet is great if your marketing team works heavily with blogs or has a series on specific topics that relate to your product and industry.  Different from a white paper, an eBook tends to be less academic and bundles more information together.

Sharing an eBook with prospects helps them save time that they would’ve spent searching through your website. The information covered in the content can go over trending industry topics and the solution your product provides. 

Since prospects won’t be able to view the content in your book before providing contact information, the brief overview and title should be catchy enough to catch their interest. 

Quizzes

A creative option for lead magnets is creating a quiz that prospects can take on your website. This type of content encourages direct engagement with your site, and should tell the potential client something about themselves and your product at the end of it.

A quiz can be a fun way to introduce your product and help clients feel comfortable sharing their contact information with your business. 

Making sure you’re implementing an appropriate quiz format is important for this type of lead magnet to be successful. Create a relevant title that entices website visitors to engage.

For example, if your company offers multiple solutions to workplace problems, you could use something as simple as “What Type of Product is Right For You?”. Next, the length of the quiz matters. Avoid making it too long because you don’t want prospects to get bored and abandon the activity.

The results of this should prompt action from the prospect. Try to tailor the results to collect contact information from qualified leads. You can take it a step further by using a quiz to assess where the prospect is in their customer journey.

This type of lead magnet can provide your team with data to move the lead within the sales funnel, as well as encourage prospects to take the next step with your product.

Templates

Offering a way for a prospect to streamline their process by simply providing contact information in return is an easy way to start building a relationship. Often, potential clients are trying to achieve something through their search and that’s how they’ve ended up on your webpage.

By providing templates as a lead magnet, customers are able to gain access to a quick solution and then explore your product in more depth as your team begins targeted outreach. Templates are a great resource for your marketing team to create as well because they don’t require constant refreshing.

Templates can also be used for most industries since they are easy to create in any form. For example, your business can offer email, design, social media, or spreadsheet templates. This type of content targets qualified prospects by tapping into their needs and providing a quick solution.

While templates don’t necessarily demonstrate how your product works, they are able to provide market insight. Tailoring these templates to things such as “Cold Outreach” or “Instagram Posts” can help your prospect see the understanding you have of the industry.

Email Courses

While online courses are easily accessible, taking it one step further and implementing an email course can expand your reach. According to a Statista survey, 96% of workers check their email outside of office hours, and 13% say they check theirs multiple times per hour. 

Email inboxes are cluttered with promotional emails and irrelevant content, so it is important to find ways to reach your prospect with valuable information. Email courses are a great way to allow potential clients to opt-in to a sequence providing insight into industry topics.

This helps establish a relationship between your company and the customer, and they are actively engaging with your content by reading the course. Also, it can help promote the ways your product integrates with the topics covered in the emails.

An email course provides multiple touchpoints to continue nurturing the lead and qualifying their needs. While some prospects may download an eBook but never get around to reading it, email courses provide a consistent stream of digestible content.

This helps your company stay at the forefront of prospect’s mind while they are searching for solutions to their needs. By sharing educational content, the customer will feel like your business has added value and they may be more inclined to move forward in the sales process.

Another great thing about email courses is they can help continue engagement with prospects who may not be ready for purchase yet, but will want to buy your product in the future. These sequences serve as a quick reminder of your business and help cultivate the business relationship, even before a sale is made.

Using Lead Magnets to Demonstrate Product Solutions

Lead magnets are resources that your marketing team is investing time and money into creating, which means you want it to serve a strong purpose. Rather than passively capturing contact information, a lead magnet should do more than just expand your email campaign lists.

Using these tools to their full potential means finding ways for them to demonstrate how your product provides solutions. Potential clients want to see the value your business can share, and a lead magnet is a great first step.

By relating the magnet to your service, your business should be able to qualify the incoming leads and ensure they are getting to the right salespeople. High-tech service providers need to demonstrate the value of their product, whether its data analytics or AI software. By using a lead magnet to begin showcasing the product’s features, potential clients will start to understand the solution.

While it may seem like the easiest way to do this is using a free trial as a lead magnet, other formats can provide the same kind of experience. Webinars, email courses, and white papers help establish businesses as key players within their industries while building trust with clients.

The important thing is to make sure lead magnets are providing educational information, not just serving as an advertisement for the tools your business offers. White papers can lean into your product’s ability while providing data-backed research on market trends. Webinars and email courses can cover industry-specific topics and demonstrate the solutions offered by your product.

This content should be specific to the audience you are trying to engage. Lead magnets should be tailored to the interests of your potential clients and refreshed as needed to stay relevant within the industry. By demonstrating how a product works and the features it has, targeted prospects should feel more confident in allowing your business to provide the solution.

To get started with engaging prospects with these lead magnet examples, check out Leadboxer’s free trial. 

The Benefits of Sales Team Diversity

The Benefits of Sales Team Diversity

Sales / By

The subjects of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are leading conversations surrounding best business practices. While discussions about diversity in the workplace have increased over the past few years, these topics are more than just trendy buzzwords. Research suggests that diversity in sales can increase return on investment (ROI) and improve customer satisfaction ratings.

Staying competitive in the sales industry starts with creating a company that attracts diverse talent. Accomplishing this takes more than simply acknowledging the need for a diverse sales team. To benefit from DEI, companies must work to provide welcoming environments that offer a pathway for professional success for employees of varying backgrounds, genders, races, and ethnicities.

Keep reading, or use the links below to see how sales team diversity can help your company succeed:

Diversity Drives Increased Sales

Reasons to create more inclusive work groups

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Every business to business (B2B) company shares one major goal: increasing sales. Successful companies work hard to drive higher sales each year. 

A diverse sales team can be the key to higher numbers. According to a study by Forrester, 60% of sales teams surveyed attributed increased sales to having a diverse and inclusive sales force. 

Creating a diverse work environment means more than hiring from underrepresented groups. Successful teams will create a culture that celebrates diversity and allows these differences to become a driving force for their sales process.

Racial and cultural diversity has been at the forefront of these discussions, and with good reason. According to a 2019 study, only 5% of employees at Silicon Valley tech firms were people of color. The same study found women filled just 28% of roles in the tech industry. 

These numbers provide insight into the glaring DEI issues many industries are still facing.  Along with obvious race and gender gaps, diversity in age and life experience are important for driving increased sales. 

The Census Bureau notes that an annual $4 trillion dollars in buying power comes from Millenials, African Americans, and Latinx populations. Having a diverse sales team that is representative of these groups can help you tap into this lucrative market. 

On top of achieving higher sales numbers, diverse hiring practices can help bridge the gap for unfilled positions. Many companies struggle to fill sales roles with employees who meet or exceed their quotas. By expanding the candidate pool outside of the usual network and into more diverse groups, the time it takes to fill these open positions can decrease.

Sales team diversity also leads to innovation in the workplace. When collaboration is needed to explore new sales tactics, having a team with members from different backgrounds can make a huge difference. 

The Harvard Business Review reports that companies leading in diversity are 45% more likely to report market growth from previous years. This research suggests that sales team diversity drives innovation and allows new ideas to be heard.

Widening Your Lead Pool

Leads are vital for any B2B sales model, and most companies spend time and resources to widen their lead pools. Sales team diversity is another tool to help add leads to your pipeline, and research suggests diversity leads to higher conversions. 

According to Forrester, teams leading in diversity see a conversion rate of 54% for leads to opportunities. In contrast, other teams only see a 26% rate. 

When more groups are represented on your sales team, it is easier for customers to connect with salespeople. This helps engage leads and nurture them throughout the customer journey.

Harvard Business Review found that salespeople who share ethnicity with a potential client are 125% more likely to understand their needs. This statistic shows how vital diversity is for converting leads. When new prospects enter the sales pipeline, being able to provide a positive customer interaction is crucial for landing the sale.

Customer bases are diverse, and reaching out beyond your immediate network can help introduce your team to new leads. It’s important to acknowledge that American consumers expect brands to embrace DEI practices. Forrester found that 55% of consumers will buy from a brand that reflects their personality.

These statistics show how important it is to employ a diverse pool of salespeople. For your sales team to succeed, it is crucial that it be made up of different ethnicities, races, ages, and backgrounds your customer base can relate to. 

40% of Americans identify as diverse, based on race or ethnicity. With such a large group of diverse consumers, sales teams must reflect this reality. 

Increasing ROI With Diversity and Inclusion

Successful sales practices are an investment for any company. These costs include hiring, software, lead generation, customer retention resources, and marketing. The goal of these business investments are to see a higher return due to increased sales conversions.

By attracting a diverse sales team, the ROI for your company can increase. Through higher sales forecasts, lead conversions, sales attainment, and customer satisfaction, DEI can play a huge role in bolstering B2B sales success. 

During a 2021 study, Forrester found that the sales team leading in DEI initiatives had already hit 43% of their sales attainment goals, while other groups were sitting at 31%. Understanding the value of DEI can help set your team apart from those who are lagging in diverse hiring practices.

Among those businesses who lead the way in DEI, 44% believe diversity will continue to play a larger role in business decisions for the next two years. Investing in

inclusive practices will pave the way for future success.

While creating a diverse sales team with an inclusive environment does not happen overnight, taking the necessary steps can pay off by leading your team to higher sales. To begin, analyze the demographics of your existing team and look for areas where improvements are needed. Survey current employees to better understand how their gender, race, or background affects their experience at your company.

Harvard Business Review found that in the absence of diverse leadership, underrepresented groups are less likely to see idea endorsement compared to their counterparts who are straight, white, and male. Women are 20% less likely, LGBTQ+ are 21% less likely, and people of color are 24% less likely to have their suggestions seriously considered.

Understanding how these numbers can harm your business will help unlock insight into ways to drive a higher ROI. Establishing a culture that encourages innovation from diverse employees will help tap into underrepresented markets. 

Improving Customer Satisfaction

Importance of inclusive and diverse marketing ads

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Customers are the most important part of B2B sales. Retaining customers helps increase ROI, as it is five times more expensive to attract new customers than it is to engage current customers. By improving customer satisfaction rates, your company can save money and increase sales conversions.

Sales teams leading the way in DEI report a 24% increase in customer satisfaction scores. Having an accurate representation of your customer base on your sales team can help improve customer relations. 

Leaning on the ideas of your employees can help engage customers in a personal way. By diversifying your sales team in age, race, and gender, each customer can interact with a point-of-contact that understands their needs. 

Along with customer representation, sales team diversity helps bring fresh ideas that can appeal to other demographics. For example, having older employees on your team can help engage customers in the same age group through proper marketing channels.

With multiple generations in the workforce and a diverse American population, understanding motivation is the key to customer success. These varying viewpoints can allow your team to see what types of sales pitches, products, and marketing materials different groups prefer.

Marketing and sales work hand-in-hand to identify and qualify leads. Creating targeted audiences for marketing materials is important for a personalized customer experience. Through DEI practices, these resources are more easily refined to appeal to each target base. 

Through research, Facebook found that 71% of consumers want to see promotion of diversity and inclusion in their online marketing materials.Yet, 54% don’t feel represented in online ads. Utilizing diverse sales teams can help encourage marketing that accurately represents an equally diverse consumer base.

By representing customers accurately, customer loyalty will follow. In fact, 59% of consumers are more loyal to brands with inclusive marketing practices. Incorporating DEI into your hiring practices and customer experiences can have a huge, positive impact on customer loyalty with your brand.

Key Takeaways

Sales team diversity is not just the right thing to do, it has a direct correlation to success in the current market. Investing in the resources, tools, training, and employees who can bring diverse outlooks to your sales team takes time and money, but ultimately increases sales and ROI.

The consumer base wants to feel represented when buying from companies, and diverse sales employees can lead to improved customer experience rates. Alongside marketing tactics, inclusive practices will help engage underrepresented communities and generate brand loyalty.

The research is clear: diversity in the workplace leads to more innovation. Remaining a competitor in B2B sales is vital, and leading teams in DEI see higher sales attainment coupled with longer employee retention. 

Understanding and acknowledging the importance of an inclusive company culture is the first step to creating sales team diversity. Next, listening to employees and improving DEI practices can help launch your B2B sales to a higher level.

Creating Generational Marketing Strategy

Create a Generational Marketing Strategy Without Alienating Key Target Audiences

Marketing / By

Creating a marketing strategy that appeals to a diverse range of ages can be a difficult undertaking. Mass appeal to multiple generations requires a deep understanding of how each group tends to interact with marketing materials. Planning ahead and using appropriate resources are essential elements of any successful generational marketing campaign.

Reaching a broad range of target audience members during a marketing campaign is important for maximizing your return-on-investment (ROI). The goal of your generational marketing strategy should be to reach potential customers without alienating any key audience bases. 

For tips on creating a successful generational marketing strategy, keep reading, or use the links below to skip ahead:

What Is Generational Marketing and Why Does It Matter?

As you are probably well aware, marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach when building the right customer base for your business. Even if your team is only selling one product, the pitch needs to be adjusted based on a variety of factors, including age. It’s important to understand ways you can incorporate content that appeals to mass audiences throughout your generational marketing strategy to avoid alienating key target groups.

Generational marketing uses segmentation to split audiences by age to better reach each target demographic. Currently, there are four generations of consumers your marketing team should be targeting: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. 

It is important to understand that each generation interacts with marketing differently. By understanding which age demographics are in your target audience, your team will be able to produce appropriate content. 

For most businesses, it is beneficial to appeal to multiple generations. By analyzing the preferences of each generation you seek to engage and eventually convert, you can gain valuable insights, making it possible for your team to develop and apply a successful generational marketing strategy.

Annual Consumer Spending by Generation Feb 2019

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Baby Boomers

In 2020, the Baby Boomer generation made up 21.45% of the U.S. population. This generation refers to those born between 1946-1964. Their substantial makeup of the population means they play a significant role in the economy.

Most importantly, Baby Boomers are a generation that has had to embrace major advancements in technology as it has developed at an accelerated rate in recent decades. In comparison, younger generations have had high levels of technology use incorporated into almost every aspect of their lives from a young age. Because of this disparity in lived experience, many Baby Boomers are used to traditional marketing tactics and tend to prefer in-person interactions. 

This isn’t to imply Baby Boomers are out of touch when it comes to technology. According to Pew Research, in 2021, 71% of adults aged 50-64 use at least one social media site. Baby Boomers are a great example of how traditional sales tactics can be combined with social media for maximum outreach.

Generation X

Sometimes referred to as the “Middle Child” generation, Gen X encompasses those born between 1965-1980. This group was the first to grow up with access to personal computers, and tend to be more tech-savvy than their predecessors.

This group makes up less of the population than Boomers and Millennials, coming in at 19.71% of the U.S. population in 2020. Gen Xers tend to be swayed by customer testimonials, and it’s helpful to provide a mix of traditional marketing with digital tactics.

Millennials

Also known as Generation Y, Millennials surpassed the Baby Boomers in size in 2020. Currently, Millennials make up 21.93% of the U.S. population.  

Those born between 1981-1996 are classified as Millennials, which means they grew up during the rise of technology. This demographic tends to have a large online presence and a good grasp of digital marketing tactics. 
There are more than 80 million millennials, most of whom are very active on social media and tend to consume information on their cell phones. Marketing tactics should take mobile compatibility into consideration when trying to reach this generation. Delivery of advertising and other content via online blogs and social media is highly effective with this demographic.

Generation Z

A young generation on the rise, this group makes up those born between 1997-2012. They account for 20.35% of the U.S. population, but only a fraction of this group is old enough to enter the workforce. 

Gen Zers grew up online, and have embraced social media from a young age. They tend to have a shorter attention span and the ability to consume different forms of media simultaneously. A  2017 survey by the National Retail Foundation (NRF) shows 74% of Gen Zers consider ‘spending time online’ to be a hobby. 

As a unique group, Gen Z may not be fully entered into the workplace yet, but that hasn’t stopped them from having a substantial impact on the economy. The NRF found that consumer spending on Gen Z equated to $829.6 billion in 2015. 

Generation Z prefers quick messaging and dislikes marketing ads that disrupt their online experience. They tend to lean toward tech-savvy sales tactics, but they place a larger emphasis on quality when it comes to products.

Establishing Your Target Audience

With such diversity spread across the generations, it is important for your marketing team to know which groups they need to target. Not all products will appeal to a mass audience, and that’s okay. By knowing your customer base, your company can allocate its resources towards marketing efforts aimed at reaching the right people.

Start by creating your ideal customer profile. The idea is to target clients who will most likely benefit from using your product. Odds are, your customer base will span across several generations, but it is possible it may not appeal to all of them.

Creating an ideal client profile takes time and resources.But the information gleaned is worth doing the necessary research so you understand who is most likely to benefit from and purchase your service or product. This information will prove vital in assisting your marketing team as it begins creating successful campaigns aimed at nurturing potential customer relationships. 

Once established, take a look at the generational demographics of your target audience. If your list contains members of Generation X or younger (and it most likely will), your team should start thinking about the best ways to incorporate social media into its campaigns.

Millennials and Generation Zers are known for their online presence, but they are also in tune with marketing tactics. These groups don’t want to be bombarded with ads during their content scrolls, but they do want quality information delivered in an easy-to-digest format. 

According to a 2022 consumer survey, 81% of consumers prefer receiving personalized communications from brands. This means your company needs to establish which customers are buying your products and then find ways to personalize your marketing outreach.

What is Attitudinal Segmentation?

Similar to generational marketing, attitudinal segmentation involves splitting your audience into groups. Rather than focusing on age, attitudinal segmentation groups customers together based on shared beliefs. This strategy dives deeper into the way customers think and feel.

This type of audience segmentation can help your marketing team personalize their outreach based on the feelings of specific customer groups. It is also most successful when combined with other tactics, such as generational marketing.

Using these strategies together can help maximize outreach and avoid alienating key audiences. When beginning the implementation of attitudinal segmentation, starting off with a few simple questions can kick start the process.

Try establishing motivations with questions like “Why do you…”, or focus on opinions with “What do you think of…”. These answers will help guide audience members into segmented groups based on their purchasing behaviors. By understanding the way consumers feel, your marketing team will be able to develop content that speaks to the needs of your customers. 

The Importance of Brand Loyalty Across Generations

The Importance of Brand Loyalty for Consumers

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There is more to creating a successful marketing campaign than simply understanding generational preferences and customer attitudes. Audience engagement helps lead a marketing campaign to the finish line by filling the sales pipeline with qualified leads ready to start the purchasing process. 84% of consumers will interact with advertising when they feel loyal to the brand. 

The sales cycle begins with marketing touchpoints that happen long before customers get the chance to speak with the sales or customer service departments. That means brands start building their reputation from the moment content is extended to an audience. Establishing and maintaining a credible brand is important for encouraging customer engagement.

According to Havas, over half (60%) of brand-related content fails to deliver and is considered clutter by consumers. Before taking any concrete steps to plan a marketing campaign, the team should understand that consumers value quality over quantity when it comes to brand communications. 

Generational and attitudinal marketing strategies align when it comes to understanding what customers want to get from a brand. Not all consumers share the same attitudes, and many are loyal to the same brands for different reasons. Diving into the insights that generational and attitudinal preferences share with brands can help your team create a successful campaign that reaches the correct audience.

For example, Gen Z looks for brands who are able to provide for the greater good and offer value. As a group that has grown up connected to communities through the internet, 68% of Gen Zers say they expect to see brands positively contribute to society. On top of their overall belief in bettering society, Gen Zers look for tech-savvy brands. In fact, the majority of this group won’t engage with websites/apps that are slow to upload.

Gen X is known for being the most brand-loyal group. Statistics show four out of 10 Gen Xers will stick with brands with which they have already established relationships. Continued outreach and implementation of customer feedback will be important to maintaining loyalty with many in this age group.

Along with preserving a good standing among consumers, brand loyalty leads to repeat purchases by customers. Studies demonstrate purchases by repeat customers are vital to success, accounting for up to 65% of a company’s business. Brand loyalty helps establish long-term relationships with consumers and encourages multiple purchases from these buyers. 

In between buying cycles, marketing plays a large role in nurturing customer relationships through targeted content. This outreach helps your company and the services or products it provides stay top of mind for consumers. 

Creating a Generational Marketing Strategy Without Alienation

After taking a deeper look at the different generational motivations, the best place to start with campaign creation is understanding how incorrect use of this information may cause alienation. Generational marketing can help successfully reach out to consumers across different age ranges, but overgeneralizations about the groups can cause more harm than good. 

While understanding generational differences, especially with the preferred communication styles, is important for marketing, it is just as important to avoid stereotyping. A successful generational marketing strategy will combine with attitudinal segmentation to provide a positive personal experience for the target audience. 

To start a successful campaign, it is important to identify where age will play a role within your company’s outreach. Knowing how generational differences factor into your brand will help your team segment audiences appropriately.

Diversity Within Generations

One of the main problems with traditional generational marketing is failing to take into account how large these groups are. For example, with 80 million Millennials in the generation, it is safe to assume not all of these consumers share the same beliefs. All of the generations are made up of diverse groups who may act differently from their peers.

Consumer age can provide insights into their preferences, but these trends do not replace a personal connection with the customer. Simply assuming your client will act a certain way due to their generation can cause tension and potentially ruin the business relationship if those assumptions are proven false.

Implementing attitudinal segmentation alongside generational marketing can be a great way to find middle ground when creating campaigns. Using data that provides insight into customer opinions, purchasing history, and lifestyle, these tactics can help companies avoid getting caught in a stereotype trap. 

This allows your marketing team to focus on creating content for groups with similar interests, rather than just age. By delivering quality content that speaks to a consumer’s preferences, attitudinal segmentation can boost overall engagement and reach mass audiences.

Stick With Tried and True Marketing Tactics

Social media usage continues to grow across generations, but traditional marketing tactics still have a place in campaigns. Email communications continue to be the preferred marketing channel for most generations, except Gen Z. 

Continue to communicate with groups via email blasts, but focus on tailoring content to reach the targeted audience. Segment these groups based on preferences like the amount of communication the consumer wants or specific products they may buy. 

Quality customer service remains a high priority for consumers. According to Microsoft, 69% of U.S. consumers view customer service as an important factor when maintaining brand loyalty. Customers will continue to repeat purchases from companies they view as excellent in the customer service department. To ensure these efforts are reaching the right audiences, tailor your customer services to the needs of different generations. 

Millennials and Gen Z are known for their online presence, and online customer service options make addressing these issues easy. For those who may prefer a more traditional route, implement customer service over the phone and make sure consumers are able to interact with a real person. 

Marketing for Tech-Savvy Groups

A huge mistake that can be made during generational marketing is assuming some groups may not be active on social media. While Millennials and Gen Z tend to spend more time online than others, it would be incorrect to assume Gen X and Baby Boomers avoid the internet completely.

68% of Baby Boomers are active on Facebook, which means a majority of this generation sees Facebook advertisements daily. For those companies who want to utilize social media for all generations, sticking with traditional outlets like Facebook can help with effective outreach.

Two-thirds of the Millennial generation are active on Facebook daily. Reaching Gen Z, however, may be more successful with Snapchat or Instagram, since over 50% of this generation uses these apps daily.

Due to the Millennial’s and Gen Z’s tech-savvy lifestyle, digital marketing tactics are important for reaching consumers in these age groups. It is important to have a strong understanding of the way these groups interact with online communities to maximize outreach efforts.

According to Epsilon, 75% of these generations shop online with their smartphone. That means usability across devices is important for closing sales. Website compatibility and access on smartphones will help connect younger consumers with your products. The study also found that Millennials spend more money online than other generations. Having the ability to purchase items directly on a website is important for tapping into this generation’s spending potential.

While Millennials lead the way in e-commerce buying on sites like Amazon, Gen Z has adopted a different tactic when it comes to online purchasing. According to Forbes, 97% of Gen Z view social media as their main source of shopping inspiration. Being able to purchase items in apps, like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, helps Gen Z have a more personalized shopping experience. 

While younger generations tend to lead the way in online shopping, multi-generational households are changing the way older generations make purchases. Baby Boomers with kids are 42% more likely to shop online. 

77% of consumers in Gen Z who still live with their families say they have an influence over household food and beverage decisions. These multigenerational interactions mean it is important to maintain digital marketing with mass appeal. 

Embracing Brand Authenticity

Generalizations about age groups are nothing new, but falling into these traps can be detrimental to your generational marketing strategy. Avoid getting stuck in the belief that all boomers hate technology or that millennials are entitled. These stereotypes often find their way into conversations, but they alienate audiences and can negatively impact your brand’s image.

Instead, focus on authentically presenting your brand in a way that can resonate across generations. Consumers are smart, and they will easily identify inauthentic attempts to ‘fit in’. For example, unless it is already part of your company’s persona, using cheesy social media lingo can be a turn-off to younger customers.

According to a study done in 2018, transparency is one of the most attractive qualities for 69% of consumers. Hiding behind generational stereotypes can cause customers to feel as though your brand is not presenting an authentic vision. Forbes points out that over one third of Gen Z follows brands that they like, which means consistent branding is important for this generation.

Not only does the youngest generation care about authenticity, but overall, brands with consistent presentation saw a 33% increase in revenue. Across generations, consumers are focused on the image a company presents and how its actions back this up. With customers holding the buying power, authentic brands will benefit and continue to rise to the top.

Key Takeaways

Generational marketing is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Marketing teams should avoid jumping into a campaign that is based on age alone.   Instead, creating a diverse plan with attitudinal segmentation and patterns based on generational behavior will avoid the alienation of key target audiences.

Embracing technology works for all generations, but some may require more creativity to be persuaded into a purchase. Stick with traditional outlets to reach Baby Boomers and Gen X, but don’t be afraid to try out new platforms like TikTok in hopes of reaching Gen Z. Maintain authenticity and transparency across all social media and email, though. Consumers will appreciate consistent branding, and this can increase your company’s brand loyalty. 

Establish your target audience through a range of factors. Look into their lifestyles, communication preferences, and product interests. Segment your audience based on attitudes and opinions, as well as generation when applicable. Focus on creating brand loyalty and rewarding repeat customers. 

Overall, generational marketing can help companies better reach their targeted demographic, but it is crucial to approach this strategy with ample research. To avoid missing out on outreach to key audiences, combine generational and attitudinal marketing strategies for a successful campaign.

For a free trial on using customer insights from web traffic, check out LeadBoxer!

Lead Generation Strategies that Boost Sales

Lead Generation Strategies that Boost Sales

Lead Generation, Sales / By

Your business wants to up its lead generation game. However, there are many strategies out there that promise you exceptional results. How do you improve your lead generation?

You may already have some of the pieces in place. Before you stress out over what new lead generation trend to follow, here are some strategies to try:

Update Your Website

Your website is the first interaction customers have with your brand. Make a good first impression with an updated website. 

Updating your website doesn’t mean going overboard with videos, graphics, or text. If you think your website is “cool” because it has Adobe Flash Player, think again. 

Great websites are optimized for search engines, have user-friendly designs, and valuable content. You may already have these on your website, but here are more tips to make your website great:

Don’t Overwhelm Visitors With Options 

People like having choices. However, too many choices can be a bad thing. 

When people have too many options, they can get confused and overwhelmed. They may get flustered and bounce from your website because they can’t make a decision. 

To see how easy (or difficult) it is to navigate the options on your website, explore it yourself. Better yet, have someone else poke around your site. Ask them to write down questions and observe their experience. 

Pay attention to how easy it is to go on to the next step. Look at whether your pages make sense and accomplish your company’s goals.

Put in the Effort to Tell People Who You Are

Chances are you put more blood, sweat, and tears into certain pages of your site. Your product or services pages and testimonial pages likely took much of your attention. How much time did you devote to your About Us page?

It’s great to give specifics on your products and services and share the experiences of satisfied customers. Consumers want to know about your company before doing business with you. Your About Us page is your chance to give a good impression and build trust with potential customers. 

Information to put on the website homepage

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Your customers will feel more comfortable working with your business if they know its background, staff, mission, values, and awards. Think of it as introducing your business to a new customer or friend. 

Be sure to include high-resolution images of your leadership and staff on your About Us page. For content, include your mission, value proposition, and a clear call to action. 

Get Information on Who Visits Your Website

Gone are the days when you hope the right people find your website, make a sale, and return. With our Lead Identification solution, you can know valuable information about who visits your site. We can tell you:

  • Who visits your website
  • What company do they work for
  • All the company’s firmographic details
  • What services or products they are interested in
  • Visitor’s company contact information
  • How many visitors from this company visited
  • Based on above and more, what is the visitor’s lead score value

Embedded Lead Identification into your website requires no buttons or forms to fill out. All the data is collected automatically and discreetly.

Utilize Effective Landing Pages

Landing pages are good at capturing leads. However, a poorly-created one will not give you the amount or quality of leads you want. Here are some tips for creating effective landing pages:

Keep Your Landing Pages Simple 

Marketers can overthink when it comes to creating landing pages. They want them to be complex and sleek. An overly-complex landing page, however, will lead to more bounces. 

The purpose of a landing page is for people to leave their contact information to access valuable content. It is important to grab people’s attention and offer high-quality content. You also need a clear call to action telling people what to do next. 

Get straight to the point in telling visitors why they need your services or products. Also clearly show them what they need to do to get started.

Include Testimonials on Your Landing Pages 

You know how powerful testimonials are. You use them on your website. Why not use them on your landing pages?

Testimonials by satisfied customers let people know your offerings are effective and your brand is trustworthy. Adding testimonials to your landing pages are simple and effective lead generation strategies.

It is easy to find testimonials. Look at your company’s social media channels, customer support emails, and product reviews. Before you use a testimonial, reach out to the source and get permission. 

Have a Mobile-Friendly Landing Page 

Your leads and customers are more likely to view your website and landing page on the go via their cellphone. Your landing page needs to be optimized to fit on the tiny screen of a phone. If it isn’t, your landing page will look clunky and unappealing. 

If you don’t think a mobile-responsive website is important, you might want to think again:

  • 70% of web traffic comes from mobile devices 
  • 80% of the best websites are mobile-friendly
  • 61% of users won’t return to a non-mobile-friendly website  
  • 70% of mobile searches lead to a conversion 
Importance of optimizing opt-in forms.

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Since your landing page will be formatted and look different than it would on a desktop or tablet, shorten your opt-in forms. Be sure to optimize your call to action (CTA) buttons and make them highly visible. 

Remove Menus From Your  Landing Pages

Menus on your landing pages are distracting. Going back to the first point, the simpler the landing page, the better the conversion rate. Remember, you want them to stay on the landing page and follow the call to action. 

Upgrade Your Content

Using the text on your website and blog simply as an area to stuff keywords won’t get you conversions. To generate leads, you need to know your desired customer and what content will be valuable to them. You’ll attract customers most likely to convert and your informative content will boost your brand’s authority. 

There are many ways to use high-quality content. You can have it on your website and feature an opt-in form for visitors to read more. A blog with good content has a better chance of getting noticed and shared.  

Start Blogging and do it Consistently

Blogs are real estate for you to share valuable information with website visitors and they can boost your SEO. A blog adds personality to our brand and improves your brand’s credibility. They can also attract 67% more leads per month.

First-time website visitors will want to know more about your company than the great products or services you offer. They expect your business to be knowledgeable in your industry. They also want to be treated with the utmost importance. 

Once you start a blog, you need to regularly produce high-quality content. If you’re not consistently blogging, customers will get bored. Your blog content will no longer be engaging, current, or relevant. 

When you blog consistently, you help create an engaging interaction with potential leads. The longer a lead engages with you before signing up or opting in, the more likely they will become paying customers. 

A relationship with a lead not only increases their likelihood of becoming a paid customer, but also a returning customer. Loyal customers can be counted on for repeat business and they can become valuable brand ambassadors. 

Before you write your blog posts, research your target audience and keywords to use throughout the content. If you need help coming up with topics to write about, look up trends happening in your industry. When writing your blogs, be sure to include clear CTAs (call to actions) alerting readers what to do next. 

Email Marketing is Your Friend

You may think flooding people’s inboxes with emails is a bad idea. However, email marketing is one of the most effective lead generation strategies around. It is also one of the easiest to do.  

According to Neil Patel, email marketing has an effectiveness of 48% and a difficulty rating of only 18%. Email marketing beats out content marketing, landing pages, social media marketing, and SEO. Only the creation of landing pages is easier.

Lead generation difficulty and effectiveness by channel.

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To get results, you’ll need to carefully plan out your content, segment your audience, and schedule your emails. 

Get Active Online

Your blog isn’t the only way you can engage with leads online. Here are some ideas you can try to share your expertise: 

  • Answer questions on Q&A sites like Quora or HARO (Help a Reporter Out) that relate to your industry
  • Get involved in relevant conversations on Twitter
  • Cross-promote content on other websites and blogs via guest posting. (Remember: guest posting is reciprocal)

Get Active on Twitter

You may think that LinkedIn is the go-to source for professional social networking. Twitter offers options to form valuable business and sales connections. 

When you create a Twitter lead card and attach it to a tweet, you can get people’s emails. This happens when someone clicks on the CTA button on your tweet. 

Lead generation on twitter

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Whether you need a landing page, a blogging or email strategy, or to get started on social media, LeadBoxer can help you to translate your Lead Generation Strategies into qualified leads. They know how important lead generation is for your business. 

Effective online lead generation is easier than you think. You may be doing some of the listed ideas already. Regardless of what strategies you try, remember it is about the customer.

How to Create a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

How to Create a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Marketing / By

Want to stimulate interest in your brand without paying for ads? Content marketing is the answer. This type of marketing involves making videos, blogs, and social media posts that solve problems for your ideal customers, thus building loyalty to your brand and encouraging them to buy from you. 

This strategy is essential for staying ahead of competitors. A 2021 report from HubSpot found that 70% of over 1,500 marketers surveyed are actively investing in content marketing. The same study noted that 40% of marketers consider content marketing vital to their overall strategy.

Creating and implementing a content marketing strategy doesn’t have to be time-consuming. The following techniques will set you up for success.

Read on or jump ahead to these topics:

Get Company-Wide Support

Great content marketing happens when everybody in a company collaborates. To do this, you’ll need to get the leaders of various teams and departments behind you.

Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions explains, “You need executive backing to fund and source a content strategy. You also need the support to ensure there is enough commitment to see a content marketing strategy through.”

To get leaders of your company on your side, position content marketing as a way to help their departments reach their goals.

Understand Your Audience

Before creating content, you need to think carefully about your ideal customers and anticipate what videos, blogs, or resources they want. Consider these questions:

  • Who is the ideal person reading your content?
  • What information do people want that isn’t readily available?
  • What pain points are your customers feeling?
  • How does your target audience make buying decisions?

By creating content that anticipates and answers your ideal customer’s questions and pain points, you can simplify their decision to buy from you.

Invest in Branding

Consider hiring a reputable agency to develop your brand’s look. The visuals and messaging used to represent your company impact your bottom line. A 2019 Reboot study of 2,500 consumers found that the right color can increase brand recognition by 80%. Furthermore, a 2019 Lucidpress survey of 400 organizations found that a consistent presentation of brand imagery, messaging, and values across channels can increase revenue by 33%.

Publish Guest Blog Posts

Curating blog posts from thought leaders in your industry is a win-win for all involved. It creates new content for your website with less lift from your marketing team and gives contributing writers a platform for sharing their ideas.

Guest blog posts also encourage the creation of backlinks, or links connecting one website to another. This happens when the contributing writer shares the article on their personal site. Backlinks signal to search engines that your content is valuable, which in turn boosts your site’s ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).

Here are some tips for finding and recruiting credible guest bloggers:

  • Visit other blogs in your industry and see who is writing for them
  • To grow your audience quickly, reach out to in-demand writers with large audiences and offer to pay them
  • Mention the benefits of writing for you, such as the number of monthly visitors to your site and the exposure writers will receive

Create Evergreen Content

While new content is helpful for keeping social media and email audiences engaged, there’s no need to churn it out all the time. Instead, invest energy in creating evergreen content, or resources that are always relevant. Examples include:

  • Frequently asked questions
  • How-to guides
  • Tutorials
  • Encyclopedia pages
  • Troubleshooting articles

Over time, these pieces of content will rise to the top of SERPs and draw new prospects into your audience.

Repurpose Content

Another way to save your marketing team time is to reconfigure content for different channels. For example, transform an interview between a member of the marketing team and one of your executives into a podcast episode, blog post, infographic, and series of social media posts. 

Content repurposing ideas

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This gets more mileage out of the original piece of content and can help you reach audiences on various platforms.

Organize Content on Pillar Pages

A pillar page is a high-level article that provides prospective customers with an overview on a topic. The page includes links leading to blog posts or pages that cover subtopics in more depth.

Pillar page blog structure

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Pillar pages help keep your site organized. They’re also another effective way to reuse existing content.

Include Videos and Graphics

Visuals help break up long blog posts, appeal to visual learners, and can increase site traffic and the amount of time visitors spend there. A 2020 survey conducted by Wyzowl found that 86% of marketers say video has increased traffic to their website. The same survey noted that 83% of marketers credit video with helping increase the average time visitors spend on a page.

Measure Your Results

Analyzing the effectiveness of your marketing helps determine what types of content lead to the most sales and what parts of your strategy need improvement. To measure your results, use a tool like Google Analytics or LeadBoxer to study your site’s data.

LeadBoxer tracks what your leads do on your website or when you email them. You can see what pages they visit, how much time they spend there, and what resources they download.

Leadboxer content analytics features

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By comparing customer journeys, you can identify common pathways or pieces of content that lead to sales. You then know which content types are most effective and worth replicating. You can also determine which pages to keep updating and sharing on social media.

Final Thoughts

Content marketing is vital for attracting, nurturing, and retaining customers. By anticipating and answering questions with your content, you establish your brand as a thought leader with unparalleled customer service.

Techniques like publishing guest blog posts, creating evergreen content, organizing content into pillar posts, and repurposing content across channels help your marketing team reach the most people with the least amount of lift.

A tool like LeadBoxer helps you analyze your strategy. With LeadBoxer, you can see what pages or downloadable resources are driving the most sales. Get started today with a free trial.

How Intent Data Can Increase Sales Conversions 3

How Intent Data Can Increase Sales Conversions

Lead Generation, Sales / By

Having a deep understanding of customer behavior can increase sales conversions. As technology continues to advance, businesses have the advantage of utilizing data to target their audience and successfully pitch their products.

Collecting this data helps marketing departments better understand their ideal customers. Sales teams are able to improve outreach and streamline their communication with potential clients. 

Use the following links to jump ahead, or keep reading to learn ways to successfully increase sales through internal data. 

What is Intent Data?

As industries continue to face constant evolution within technology, the way sales are made have changed. Most customers begin their journey for new products or services through a web search. Online behavior can provide crucial insights for sales teams.

Intent data is information that is collected regarding a user’s online behavior, specifically through content interaction. By tracking these actions, businesses are able to see patterns and gain knowledge about their prospect’s interests.

Most importantly, this data can provide clues that help sales professionals understand the likelihood of a purchase from customers. This helps tailor sales tactics, drive marketing campaigns, and increase the chances of conversions within the pipeline.

Behavioral data is collected through the ways users are interacting with your content. This allows your team to see what areas of your site are most attractive to potential customers. This information can also help sales professionals gain an understanding of where a client is at in the buying process.

Gaining Insight Through Behavioral Data

Intent Data Uses for B2B Digital Marketing Strategy

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Having access to this information helps take the guesswork out of the sales process. Intent data can help pinpoint the market for your product, how to segment clients for marketing outreach, and what their purchase intent looks like.

Analyzing behavior is a huge asset for marketing. This allows teams to personalize content to target the proper audience for your products and services. By reaching these prospects, your sales team will have more leads funneling into their pipeline.

Behavioral data can help with brand exposure. Having an accurate idea of the topics and areas on your site that get the most traction provides marketing with important insights. The team is able to customize messaging to drive similar customers to your web pages. 

This type of brand awareness helps your business reach more individuals who are still in the research stage. By having content that reaches customers in need of your solutions, information on how your business is the best fit for prospective buyers is provided.

Another major benefit of behavioral data is aligning your marketing and sales to see a higher return on investment (ROI) on your outreach. Research shows that companies become 67% better at closing deals when marketing and sales collaborate for account-based marketing (ABM). 

This data allows your teams to sync up by higher quality leads and better understanding of client behavior. Marketers are able to discover unique interests among target customers, and this information allows sales to strengthen relationships with their accounts.

Behavioral data provides your business with the necessary tools to accurately predict buying patterns. By having insight into their actions, it is possible to track where customers are at in their purchase process. This allows marketing and sales to accurately plan outreach to nurture leads and walk clients to the end of the sales process.

First Party Intent Data Vs. Third Party Intent Data

While intent data can help increase sales, it is important to understand the different types and how they can play a role in your business. First party data is collected through your website and content pages. This tracks how visitors are engaging with your marketing.

First party data is something most businesses already track in some form. Analytics, automated tools, and the backend of your website keep up with this engagement. Internal data provides deep insight into customers, but often, it comes across as anonymous engagement.

Leadboxer helps your business discover the leads behind internal data. The platform captures the cycle of behavior from online engagement, starting with the first visit to your site. By uncovering this data, Leadboxer is able to identify who your visitors are.

This allows your team to have access to qualified leads, which helps plan client outreach. The identification of these customers happens through IP addresses, email engagement, and other touchpoints.

Third party data comes from providers who are able to collect the ways prospects are engaging on other sites. This allows for a complete view of buyer activity to see how customers are interacting with competitors. Behavior data can provide a sense of consumer purchasing patterns online.

This side of things provides valuable insight into any backtracking or missteps that are made throughout the buying cycle. By seeing where customers are spending their time, it is easy to pinpoint their pain areas and see where their greatest needs lie. 

Most third party intent data will surface during the research stage. This information can provide crucial guidance for future outreach and marketing tactics. Third party data shows what keywords customers are using, which brands they interact with first, and what solutions they are searching for.

Privacy Concerns and Third Party Intent Data

Difference Between First, Second & Third Party Data Intent

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While first party data comes directly from users interacting with your content, third party information can be trickier. As privacy concerns push for tighter restrictions, companies that rely on third party data are beginning to focus on ways to utilize what they are able to collect.

The biggest concern regarding third party data is that it can be unknowingly collected. This information comes from tracked behavior across websites, and it can contain personal identifiable information (PII). As concerns have grown, actions have been taken to promote transparency within the data.

Sites that use third-party cookies, which track engagement across sites, are putting banners on their content to ask for consent from visitors. These regulations have caused restrictions on the data that third parties are able to provide. This shift promotes the need for businesses to rely on first-party data.

Internal Data and Its Importance to Closing Deals

Once your business understands the importance of intent data, it is time to optimize its use. Most importantly, internal data is a tool that can help increase sales conversions by encouraging warmer leads and stronger client relationships.

Businesses must qualify prospects as part of their sales planning. In order to see higher sales conversions, the team must know where to spend their time and resources. Not every lead that comes through a website will be a buyer. 

Through behavioral data, engagement can provide insight into how serious a customer is about making a purchase. From the first website visit, Leadboxer tracks the content, forms, and emails that see prospect interaction. This helps put together a timeline for sales professionals, as they are able to gauge where a client is in their customer journey.

Creating Customer Profiles Based on Internal Data

A customer profile helps your business keep personalized records of your clients. This information helps marketing segment their messaging and allows sales to keep up with their pipelines.

Each profile is a detailed record of a customer’s needs, demographics, and behavior patterns. By using intent data to fill out these descriptions, your team can keep track of customer relationships and note their behaviors to increase conversions.

By understanding what problems individual customers are facing, sales will be able to drive solutions to their doorstep. Online behavior can provide insights through touchpoints to help illustrate a customer’s current needs. 

When a qualified lead begins interacting with your product page, downloading your content, or filling out interest forms, sales will be able to reach out at the right time. This data helps sales nurture leads through the process.

Providing Insight to Identify, Segment, and Score Leads

Each visitor is tracked when they reach your site, but it is important they make it to the right place in the sales funnel. Throughout their time on your site, Leadboxer collects information and tracks their actions to accurately discover the lead’s identity. 

From there, leads can be integrated with a business’ tech stack to move them through the cycle. After identification, prospects can be segmented into groups to receive appropriate marketing. These segments allow your team to filter leads by company name, size, location, or behavior. 

Most importantly, Leadboxer handles automatic scoring to keep the most relevant leads at the top of your pipeline. This distinction is based on customer behavior, interests, and properties. Sales will be able to begin their outreach to provide the proper solutions according to specific customer needs.

With internal data, lead scoring is accurately ranked to help pinpoint prospects who are most likely to make a purchase. Their behavior helps determine where they are in the process, and what they need to get to the finish line.

Get started with your internal data analysis today by signing up for a free Leadboxer trial!

How Customer Connections Drive Relationship Based Sales

How Making a Customer Connection Drives Relationship Based Sales

Lead Engagement, Lead Nurturing, Sales / By

Successful businesses thrive on strong customer relationships. These connections help increase the number of sales conversions. Most importantly, the resources used to create a strong customer connection will see a strong return on investment (ROI).

Professional relationships go beyond initial contact points as good sales teams work hard to personalize the customer journey based on individual needs. By cultivating a strong relationship with clients, the likelihood of their repeated patronage increases.

As technology continues to evolve, businesses are constantly competing for attention from prospects in the digital realm. Focusing on relationship-based sales can help boost engagement with your social media, as well as direct your messaging to the correct target audience.

Keep reading, or use the following links, to learn more about how these connections drive customer relationships to a sale:

The goal of every sales team is to increase their numbers. There are many tactics out there to see higher conversions, but it is crucial to start at the beginning of the pipeline. Customer connections can happen during the first introduction to a prospect.

Making the most of interactions, even while a prospect is still in the ‘Lead’ stage, can have a huge impact on finalized sales. Before starting the process of making these connections, it is important to understand the driving idea behind this strategy.

Relationship based sales happen when a salesperson prioritizes the interactions and connections with a client to complete a sale. While price and types of services will always be a factor for customers, relationship based sales primarily focus on building customer loyalty.

Actions Needed to Move Towards Relationship-Based Selling

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Utilizing this strategy to foster relationships will help each customer feel more valued by your business. Clients will lean towards loyalty to brands when they are appreciated by the company.

B2B businesses can see a huge benefit from adopting this mindset. Since purchases of these services typically require a higher-level of commitment due to the size, customer loyalty goes a long way.

Personalized outreach is a great starting point for creating strong customer engagement strategies. Customers start their buying journey when they have a problem, so it’s important to segment your marketing for tailored audiences. Once a lead enters your pipeline, allow your salespeople to take time to nurture the prospect and gather insight into their needs.

These customer relationships have many aspects that will require personalization. The more effort your team puts into creating these lasting bonds, the higher your conversions will rise. Starting off with personal interests, encourage your salespeople to get to know their customer contacts.

By knowing their geographical location, personal hobbies, and basic profiles, it will be easier for your sales staff to find similarities to create connections. For example, an easy connecting point between sales and clients could be a similar interest in sports teams or graduation from the same alma mater. 

On the other side of things, ensure that your sales team is working hard to listen to the needs of each customer. Find out if your services or products can be tailored to provide the best solution possible. Take time to listen to customer insight before pitching specific packages.

Another crucial aspect to forming lasting customer connections is having continued contact once a sale is finalized. If your product requires training or onboarding, make sure the correct resources and enough support staff are available during this time. Be proactive in your outreach to gather feedback, and listen to any suggestions these customers may have.

Ensuring Loyalty Through Customer Experience

Once you’ve started focusing on the ways to foster strong connections, it is important to make sure these interactions are increasing customer loyalty. The key to this strategy is good customer experience throughout the buying journey.

Before implementing a customer connection strategy, you need to have an understanding of what your current clients think about your services and their experiences. According to Forbes, 80% of businesses believe they excel in customer service, but a mere 8% of customers agree with that statement.

Conducting research and opening the conversation for genuine client feedback can help your team see where improvements can happen. This information is valuable for sales strategies, and these interactions will help your customers feel valued and appreciated. Be sure to incorporate as much of their feedback as possible into your future relationship.

Looking ahead to future customer experiences, it’s important to understand how much each interaction matters in the cultivation of customer loyalty. Forbes asserts that within a day of a poor customer experience, 47% of consumers are willing to take their business to a competitor. Due to the ease of finding other options through a quick web search, there is little room for mistakes during the buying journey.

Speed and efficiency are key elements of a positive customer experience. While B2B sales cycles tend to be longer than B2C due to the nature of service, clients still value quickness. Instead of looking at ways to shorten the sales cycle itself, focus on the ways your communication can be streamlined.

Many people are conditioned to expect answers within seconds due to the availability of instant online search. While having salespeople within reach as soon as every problem occurs may not be possible, there should be resources  in place to help customers. Make sure your web forms work, check emails regularly, and don’t be afraid to hop on a call to quickly offer solutions.

Offer loyalty programs or rewards for repeat customers. 73% of customers enrolled in loyalty programs recommend that business to other buyers. By incentivizing current customers, your business will be able to attract new clients as well. 

How To Avoid a Bad Customer Journey

Conversion rates will increase when your clients feel they are on a good buying journey. There are a few ways to help avoid negative experiences during the purchasing process.

Start by focusing on the entirety of the process rather than singular pieces. Analyzing the customer journey from beginning to end will help your team pinpoint problem areas. From there, begin tracking customer behavior to identify patterns throughout your target audience.

Personalized messaging, optimized payment options, and convenient sales processes are all ways to engage modern consumers. Clients are online more than ever before, so use the data detailing their actions to your advantage.

Make sure your team is setting realistic conversion rates. Despite all of the great customer service your business provides, not every lead will result in a sale. To have an understanding of the genuine ROI from marketing and sales efforts, reasonable conversion goals are necessary.

Focus on communication while making customer connections. At the end of the day, most clients will appreciate when a business goes above and beyond to listen to their needs. Fostering strong relationships and ensuring quality customer journeys requires time, commitment, and consistent communication.

Social Media & Customer Connections

The Social Consumer Analytics

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While it is one of the newer resources in the long line of sales strategies, social media has begun to dominate the playing field. Utilizing these platforms can help accelerate your numbers, and provide valuable insights into consumer behavior.

The top platforms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Youtube, will be enough to help provide your business with the tools for successful social selling. Starting off, social media will generate leads and track data for better understanding of customer behavior.

Leadboxer’s platform integrates with your team’s tech stack to access data, generate leads, and provide tools for higher conversion rates. Throughout your email and social media campaigns, Leadboxer is able to uncover data to provide contact information and behavior patterns for potential buyers.

One of the key benefits of social selling is gaining insight and learning about customers to create meaningful connections. By integrating your workflow with technology like the Leadboxer platform, your team will be able to gain a broad understanding of this data.

Generating leads through social platforms helps your salestaff find new prospects for outreach. From the very first interaction, customer connections can begin to take shape. Social media offers vital personal information to help your salespeople find similarities with their contacts.

Using social media as a way to teach about the industry and your products is another great use of the tool. By reaching your target audience with educational information, your business will be able to establish itself as a reliable leader in the industry. This allows prospects to find your product before your team even has a chance to discover them during a search process.

Engagement through social media helps to continue the professional relationship with clients. According to Hootsuite’s Digital Report 2021, 22.7% of internet users are using social media to network and handle work-related research. Continued social media outreach and marketing is crucial for maintaining strong customer connections, with many consumers using the internet to develop business relationships.

To see how social media integrations can help with customer connections, check out LeadBoxer with a free trial.

16 Best WordPress Plugins for Business

16 Best WordPress Plugins for Business

Lead Generation, Tools, WordPress / By

Generating leads is a crucial part of building revenue for any business. This involves having a constant stream of new customers to nurture into repeat, loyal patrons. Your prospects are looking online for products and services to meet their needs and solve their problems. 

The lead generation process begins with your website, your company’s online presence. With more than 455 million websites built on and hosted by WordPress, chances are yours is too. WordPress is a solid website builder that offers easy customization and SEO-friendly items. 

If you use  WordPress, the many plugins can be overwhelming. Which ones are best for your business? Which ones will generate leads?

Below are the 16 best WordPress plugins for business – read on or use the following links to jump ahead:

1. WPForms

Your website must have a way for customers to reach you. WPForms allow you to easily create surveys, payment forms, order forms, contact forms, and subscription forms. With WPForms, you can access 300+ pre-built landing pages and forms and see valuable analytics like tracking and abandonment. 

2. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights connects websites to Google Analytics which allows you to gather data on who visits your site and how they find it. With MonsterInsights, you can make the necessary changes to boost subscribers and traffic. 

3. All in One SEO

More than three million websites use All in One SEO. This plugin is SEO-friendly and offers all the tools you need to maximize your on-page SEO. With an SEO-maximized site, you’ll boost your website traffic, which increases revenue. 

4. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the most widely-used plugin for boosting sales and email subscribers. It allows you to convert bounced website visitors into email subscribers. With hundreds of conversion templates, it is easy to build personalized campaigns. 

OptinMonster WordPress Plugin

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5. PushEngage

Push notifications allow you to send targeted announcements to website visitors. PushEngage plugin offers A/B testing, drip campaigns, tracking, segmentation, and opt-in reminders. 

6. Shared Counts

Social sharing effectively allows your customers to tell others about your company. With Shared Counts, you can add social sharing buttons to your website. Additionally, this plugin lets you see how many people shared your content. 

7. WPML

With the Internet connecting people worldwide, you likely have customers in different countries speaking various languages. WPML allows your business to create multilingual websites. 

8. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a must-have plugin for e-commerce businesses. More than five million websites and online stores use WooCommerce. WooCommerce offers a  WordPress ecosystem that includes hosting and themes.

WooCommerce WordPress Plugin

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9. Nextiva

Believe it or not, people do still contact you by phone. Nextiva’s plugin allows your business phone to have online faxing, unlimited calling, call routing, and more. 

10. Ahrefs

With Ahrefs, you can get an inside look into your competition. You’ll be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Ahrefs also track your and the competition’s backlinks.

11. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon boosts website engagement by sharing your new content. It offers plugins to many popular social networks. Smash Balloon allows you to customize your feed anywhere on your website. 

12. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo helps you get your content out there with the ability to connect with influencers and generate high-performing content. It also allows you to find trends in your industry. 

BuzzSumo WordPress Plugin

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13. WP Super Cache

With the speed of the Internet, customers are impatient. If your website takes too long to load, people will abandon your site and head to another. WP Super Cache improves your site’s speed by converting dynamic pages to static ones. 

14. Pure Chat

Having more than one way for customers to contact your company will help you retain them. In addition to contact forms, offering live chat with Pure Chat will allow customers to talk to someone at any time. With someone always available, your customers will be satisfied. 

15. MailChimp for WordPress

It is crucial to have an email list. MailChimp allows you to access customer emails from comments, contact forms, and opt-in pages. MailChimp is one of the best and easiest-to-use email platforms around. 

16. LeadBoxer

LeadBoxer tells you who visited your website. This notifies your sales team and lets them know who they need to reach out to. People who repeatedly visit and spend time on your site are interested in what you offer. 

LeadBoxer WordPress Plugin

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Leads are what generate sales for your business. One of the most important lead-generating options out there is a WordPress website. A website will ensure your company will be found online.

Having a website for your business is a great start. However, if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your website, you need customization. With these 16 WordPress plugins, you’ll be on the fast track to building your business. 

How to Develop and Implement Your First Successful SEO Campaign

How to Develop and Implement Your First Successful SEO Campaign

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Marketing strategies are constantly evolving to keep up with the fast-paced digital world. Now, more than ever before, customers are able to see a comprehensive list of solutions in a matter of seconds.

As technology continues to get smarter, potential buyers are becoming even more accustomed to personalized product searches. In order to stay relevant, businesses must remain on top of the trends to make sure the internet is working to their advantage.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a new term to those familiar with digital marketing practices. However, SEO has become a major buzzword as these campaigns continue to rise to the forefront of marketing plans. With this increase in popularity, successful digital communications rely on an accurate understanding of SEO and best practices for campaigns.

Read on or jump ahead to these topics:

What is an SEO Campaign?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving your digital resources to increase visibility and engagement through web traffic. The goal of SEO campaigns should be twofold: to grow the volume of visitors and to improve the quality of their online experience.

This works when your content is able to show search engines that it is the best answer for the topic. While all search engines are powered by different algorithms, Google has a market share of about 92%. Focusing your optimization efforts around this platform is the best place to start.

Spending money and allocating resources for marketing strategies is an investment for future growth. You want to make sure your return-on-investment (ROI) is as high as possible. By using SEO, you should start to see an uptick in web traffic from qualified leads as your site reaches your target audience.

Timeframe for Seeing SEO Campaign Results

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Successful SEO campaigns are based on thoughtful and targeted keyword research, link building, and web analysis. An in depth understanding and correct implementation of fundamental SEO principles will significantly boost your ROI.

Over a three year average, B2B industries see a 702% ROI from SEO campaigns, and a 7 month timeline to break even.

Identifying Your Target Audience

The first step to successfully implementing an SEO campaign is understanding who your target audience is. A target audience is a real group of people that could be interested in the products or services offered by your company. 

Your SEO campaign should work hard to direct as many potential buyers to your site as possible. This kind of brand exposure will help increase your sales conversion rates and build out your sales pipelines with new leads.

By understanding the ideal base for your audience, you will be able to map out your SEO strategy. This will help guide your keyword search as you narrow down the most likely used terms for optimization. Tailor your online content toward this specific group of visitors to help improve your overall customer experience.

There are a few ways to determine your target prospects. Start by understanding your current client demographics. Open communication between marketing and sales teams will allow salespeople to share profiles of their customers. 

Take advantage of social insight tools. Social media and website tracking can provide vital information about exactly who is actively engaging with your content. 60% of consumers subscribe to email blasts to stay involved with promotional messaging. By analyzing current followers and subscribers, you can build out your ideal target audience.

Identify the questions being asked by potential buyers. Which problems does your current customer base have that are solved by your products? If you can pinpoint the topics of discussion, your content can reach similar groups facing these issues.

Organic Keywords & Data Analytics

Share of commerce traffic generation from organic searches

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An organic keyword attracts free traffic through SEO, whereas pay-per-click (PPC) words are bid on through paid campaigns. 

On average, there are 3.5 billion Google searches happening each day. Organic keywords can help drive traffic from those searches to your website. Using words in your content that people are actively searching for is the best place to start gaining organic traffic. 

Organization is also key. Avoid dumping words onto one page, and make sure to use them throughout your site. Unique content that offers genuine information is the best way to utilize these organic keywords.

Data-driven marketing means using collected data as the main component when creating your SEO campaigns. This tactic allows your research to guide the build-out of marketing strategies for effective implementation.

Use data analysis tools to better understand the ways traffic interacts with your content. By analyzing your data, you will gain a better understanding of visitor behavior and drive more organic traffic to your site. 

Developing and Implementing a Successful SEO Campaign

Now that you have the basics down, executing your SEO strategy should be easy. Try the following steps to get started.

1. Evaluate Your Current Site and Its Content

Are you using a modern website builder? If your site’s platform is up-to-date, optimization will be a much easier undertaking. SEO will not work outside of a user-friendly environment.

Audit your current SEO plan. Maybe some of your pages already have a good foundation. Don’t throw out anything that is already working. 

Make sure to pinpoint the areas that need change. Focus on evaluating your current URLs and page structures.

2. Topic & Keyword Research

Before you can develop a list of keywords, you will need to create a set of topics to explore. A topic is a set of related search terms broader than your keyword list. Gather all relevant details when building out these sets.

You will want to dive deep into the research to have comprehensive knowledge of your chosen topics. Figure out the total search volume for these words, analyze the type of existing content appearing, and gauge competition levels.

3. Create Quality Content

It’s a simple step, but it may be the most important one in creating your campaign. Content needs to be authentic and relevant to your audience. 

Your site should be free of technical errors. Pages should include strong titles, which is a key element in SEO.

Try to produce evergreen content. If your blog is full of pieces that are relevant to the industry, chances are you will see more engagement. This can include ‘how-to’ articles, product reviews, and videos. 

Establish partnerships and create strong relationships with social influencers. Your content should provide shareable information. Earn credibility by producing pieces to share your brand’s mission with your target audience.

Use backlinks to help build confidence in your brand. This helps signal to search engines that other sites approve of your content. Earning backlinks from highly respected sites should be a desired goal.

4. Implement On-Site Optimization

Once you have content ready to go, it is important to maintain your website for SEO-friendliness. Utilize keywords in your URL slugs. Optimize the alt-text for your digital media, and be sure to incorporate long-tail keywords. 

Don’t forget about technical optimization as well. Server speed, source code, and IP addresses should be evaluated for the best user experience. 

Making sure your content is mobile-friendly is extremely important. To help with this, use the smallest file sizes possible for graphic content.

Create meta titles and meta descriptions that look natural while featuring keywords. Optimize the layout for user experience and search engines. Focus on fixing any accessibility issues such as any 404 redirects from Google.

5. Combine Your Campaign With Other Marketing Resources

Email marketing is a strong tool on its own. It’s even more powerful when paired with a comprehensive SEO strategy. 

Use personalized blasts to drive qualified traffic to your site. Test content through email, and add successful elements to your site. 

While social media isn’t a direct ranking factor, you can still use it to boost your overall brand awareness. Increase engagement through social shares, find link opportunities, and have positive interactions with potential web traffic.

Thought leadership allows your brand to establish itself as a leader in the industry. 47% of C-Suite executives said they shared contact information after reading thought leadership content.

When providing this type of content, make sure it fits within your SEO plan. If potential decision makers engage with your site, it’s important to make sure they are directed to the right place.

Integrations and SEO Campaigns

Once you have a plan to roll out your SEO campaign, use integrations for smooth implementation. Leadboxer connects with email marketing tools like MailChimp to help track data from audience engagement.

This software allows you to see who is visiting your site so you can learn what they do once they land on the page. Use this information to fine-tune your content and improve the customer experience. 

By tracking engagement, Leadboxer helps demonstrate which parts of your SEO campaign are working and which areas could use improvement. 

To see how your business can benefit from the LeadBoxer lead generation platform and its many app integrations, sign up for your free trial today!

how to recapture and nurture inbound leads 2

How to Recapture and Nurture Inbound Leads

Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing / By

Your business wants to see revenue flowing in. Understandably, it makes sense that the more inbound leads you land, the more paying customers you’ll get. You devote your time and resources to gain new leads.

Lead generation is popular as 53% of marketers say half or more of their budget goes to lead generation. While over half of companies engage in new lead generation, only 35% of B2B marketers have a lead nurturing strategy. 

What about your old leads? In the rush to get your brand out there in front of new prospects, they can sometimes be forgotten.

Read on or ‘jump ahead’ to the following topics:

What Are Inbound Leads

For years, marketers and salespeople have relied on outbound sales to generate new leads. Cold calling and spam emails are common outbound methods of reaching out to prospective customers.

However, people don’t like to be pestered by businesses. Today’s best leads will reach out to you through inbound marketing and sales. Inbound leads are much more likely to convert.

What are inbound leads? They are prospective customers that respond to a piece of content as part of a business’s inbound strategy. Some examples include filling out a survey, downloading an eBook, or contacting a salesperson after reading an article.

Why should you use an inbound strategy? Why is it necessary to pay attention to nurturing your old leads instead of continually generating new ones? The section below highlights statistics that may inspire you to alter your lead generation strategy.

Stats on Recapturing Old Leads

Your business needs customers to make a profit. Constantly devoting resources to generating new leads is not the best strategy. Here are some reasons why:

Nurture Inbound Leads - Stats on Old Leads

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Inbound Leads Stats

Inbound leads promise more for your business than outbound ones. To fully maximize the power of inbound leads, they need nurturing. Here are some reasons lead nurturing works:

Nurtured vs non-nurtured inbound leads

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Ways to Re-Engage Old Inbound Leads

Those old leads you’ve forgotten are important. It is equally important to nurture them.

Maybe you have leads that have gone cold. How do you re-engage old inbound leads? Here are some effective strategies to try:

Continuously Offer Fresh Content

New leads are drawn to your company via interesting, valuable content. However, if the content doesn’t change, they will no longer engage with your brand and will go elsewhere.

To keep people coming back to your website or storefront, you need to continuously provide fresh, interesting content. This content can be website content, new product descriptions, blog posts, webinars, white papers, vlogs, etc.

Invest in Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective lead nurturing strategies out there. They can be sent with minimal effort and costs and they are received immediately.

However, email marketing is more than sending a massive e-blast every so often. Emails spared from the spam or trash bins are those that are interesting and personal. To have a solid email marketing strategy, you need to know your customers.

Categorizing your customers based on where they are on the buyer’s journey is the best way to get conversions. Researching who each audience is along the buyer’s journey will make your emails personal and eye-catching. 

Nurturing Inbound Leads Statistics

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Use Paid Retargeting Ads on Social Media and Google

Customers are on social media and/or browsing the internet at least once a day. While social media marketing and SEO are great lead generation strategies, they may not be enough.

Paid Google ads and social media retargeting ads only show advertisements the customer would most likely be interested in. The customer won’t be overwhelmed by irrelevant products or services. This means your offerings will only be shown to those customers most likely to make a purchase.

Send Personalized Notes Through the Mail

In this day and age, it may seem odd to send notes to customers via snail mail. Because of the rarity, personalization, and thoughtfulness of mailed notes, they are effective in warming up cold leads.

The effectiveness and feasibility of mailing notes to leads also depends on your targeted audience and your customer base size. If your ideal customers are younger and your business has thousands of customers and prospects, email is a better option.

Ask For Customer Feedback Via Surveys

In most cases, an inbound lead grows cold because it’s either been neglected, or it’s been engaged in the wrong way. Asking the potential customer to provide feedback will empower them, which sparks engagement.

Asking a cold lead to provide suggestions for marketing efforts shows you care about the customer. Online surveys via email, text, or social media are quick and cost-efficient. They can also be viewed by the customer anytime, anywhere.

To improve the likelihood of survey completion, offer the customer a ‘thank you’ gift or discount.

LeadBoxer Integrations Can Boost Your Inbound Strategy

If your company hasn’t done inbound marketing or invested in lead nurturing, getting inbound leads can be a daunting task. However, you don’t have to go it alone. LeadBoxer is a sales and marketing platform that offers numerous features and integrations to help recapture and nurture leads.   

With LeadBoxer, you’ll obtain valuable insights and analytics into your customers and their behavior. Learning who they are and what types of outreach they respond to will boost your marketing strategy and generate quality, loyal leads.

LeadBoxer works with a variety of marketing and sales tools you already use. The LeadBoxer platform identifies, enriches, and provides custom lead scoring so you know you’re targeting the right people. The insights provided also help you reach out to those most promising leads.

Some of the benefits of using LeadBoxer include:

  • Enjoying cutting-edge, big-data technology
  • The ability to identify, capture, enrich, score, segment your leads and customers
  • The ability to combine lead and customer activity and gain valuable insights into profiles and email/website behavior

Email Marketing Integration

You can’t recapture and nurture inbound leads without a strong email marketing strategy. LeadBoxer offers a variety of integrations for the email marketing programs you currently use. These include Hubspot, Marketo, Gmail, MailChimp, Outlook, Pipedrive, and Active Demand.

LeadBoxer provides thorough email tracking that allows you to import and export data. You can gain valuable insight into your audience and their behavior. 

Nurture Inbound Leads - LeadBoxer Email Marketing Integration

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MailChimp Integration

MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing programs. LeadBoxer can help you identify your audience and track their behavior on your website. This offers valuable information about what your leads do once they click through from the email to your website.

Once an inbound lead is identified, you can see their future visits to your site. By learning who visits and returns to your website and which pages they visit, you will be better equipped to nurture your leads effectively.

Through the integration of your MailChimp email marketing platform with LeadBoxer, you can:

  • Identify more users on your website
  • Learn what your audience does after they land on your website
  • Better understand your email marketing campaigns
  • Be notified when your audience is ready to make a purchase
  • Qualify leads based on profile data and behavior
  • Segment leads based on scoring algorithms
  • Data can be exported and synchronized to multiple programs

Data Analytics 

Why are data and analytics important to your inbound marketing strategy and nurturing old leads? The short answer is that it allows you to foster relationships with leads. Your marketing activities are personalized based on each lead’s behavior and preferences.

All your customers and leads are unique individuals who respond to different messaging and strategies. When you send out generic email blasts or paid search ads, they will turn away many leads. Effective inbound marketers know that one size doesn’t fit all.

Inbound leads come to your website looking for something. They chose to do business with you over the competition. To keep them coming back, you need to nurture them.

Lead nurturing involves a relationship between your brand and each customer. When your leads feel like your business knows them and values them, they are likely to come back. Using analytics to track audiences and preferences means you can alter how you connect with each lead.

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Nurturing Leads-Leadboxer platform

The insight you gain from data analytics will help you market to each lead in a way that sparks their interest. Additionally, the relationship they build with your brand will encourage them to become loyal customers.

There are people out there who want your products and services. If you don’t invest in an inbound marketing strategy, you miss these qualified leads. You need to recapture old leads by nurturing them.

LeadBoxer can help you with nurturing inbound leads and take your inbound marketing strategy to the next level. Contact LeadBoxer today and start generating high-quality leads who will become loyal customers.

B2B vs B2C Clients Buyer Intent

B2B Vs. B2C Clients: Key Comparisons in Buyer Intent, Decision Making, and Sales

Data-Driven analysis, lead hacking, Sales / By

Successful (business to business) B2B and (business to consumer) B2C sales rely on in-depth knowledge of targeted customer bases. While both of these business models involve sales, there are key differences between the worlds of B2B and B2C. Customers for each of these business models base their decisions on different factors. Understanding the decision-making process and buyer intent in B2B sales versus B2C will help you optimize the sales process.

Continue reading or ‘jump ahead’ to the following topics:

B2B Vs. B2C Mindsets

b2b vs b2c comparison

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B2B companies sell their products and services directly to other businesses. B2C companies sell directly to consumers. There is no right or wrong business model, but B2B and B2C have different mindsets when it comes to the sales process and buyer intent.

In a B2C environment, the product is being directly marketed and sold to the customer. There is no middle man in this process. 

Customers are directly interacting with the business during their purchase. With this model, customers tend to make purchases based on emotion.

Since the customer is directly involved, the emotional investment carries weight for B2C models. Advertising in the B2C world usually appeals to the customer by invoking feelings about the product. For example, a primary motivator to make a purchase may be because the product and advertisement make the customer feel happy.

B2C models typically see a shorter buying cycle. Customers tend to be less informed about the differences between competitive products.

It is easy for the business to capitalize on the quick decision process of these consumers

With B2C, there are fewer parties involved in the purchase. This allows B2C companies to relate directly to their targeted customers without waiting for their product to be approved by multiple decision-makers.

A B2B model focuses more on the logic behind buyer intent. B2B consumers tend to spend more time on research, and the sales cycle is longer. Typically, these purchases are larger in quantity, and the product has the ability to affect an entire company.

Because B2B consumers spend more time on research between competing products, B2B marketing tactics tend to lean on product information and avoid emotional appeals. B2B buyers invest time in the purchasing process, which allows them to thoroughly research and understand the product and compare it to alternative solutions offered by competitors.

The Markets of B2B Vs. B2C Models

B2B models rely heavily on customer retention and strong client relationships. Since the sales cycle is longer and requires more resources, it is crucial for these companies to have successful customer outreach. B2B sales teams must be prepared to speak with multiple stakeholders throughout the sales cycle, and the product must have broad appeal to the client.

A B2C model has a larger consumer base, but only targets customers on an individual basis. Most likely, any purchase made from a B2C company will be on a smaller scale with the majority of the decision-making done by a single buyer.

Because of these differences, B2B models tend to focus on a large-scale market. Typically, the products and services being sold aim to solve a problem that an entire team within a company is facing.

Understanding the price points of these purchases provides insight into the value of the product. The average B2C sale is $147. In contrast, the average B2B sale is much higher at $491. The vast difference between the average sale totals in the two business models illustrates the divergence in sales cycle length.

When B2B consumers are considering making a purchase, the higher price tag helps encourage a more informed buying process and buyer intent. The value of this purchase will most likely reach larger numbers of people since these services and products target entire organizations, teams, or departments.

The B2B Decision Making Process

Understanding the B2B buying process and buyer intent of B2B customers will help your company streamline its sales efforts. 

It is important to keep customers engaged throughout the sales cycle. B2B sales rely on informational marketing to provide an in-depth look at the product or service, as well as a strong sales strategy to make it to the finish line.

First, B2B consumers must identify a problem they need to solve. Known as the “awareness” stage in the sales process, a customer will realize there is an issue in need of an outside solution. This recognition pushes the consumer to begin researching potential products to help resolve their dilemma.

An active buyer in the B2B process will begin searching through their options to narrow down the products they would like to explore further. The market is full of B2B solutions, so customers most often begin their search online.

This is where B2B marketing and strong customer relationships play a huge role. If your marketing is targeting the correct audience, customers in need should become leads in your sales funnel. 

New leads can also come from existing clients. Strong customer relationships may result in a referral if a company knows someone who could benefit from your product.

Next, customers will begin to evaluate the solutions they have discovered. This is when numbers begin to play a huge role in the sales process. 

B2B consumers are driven by data-backed results

These clients will be evaluating products by features, conducting cost-benefit analyses, and researching the supply company.

After coming to a decision, B2B customers make their purchase. While completing a sale seems like the easy part, there are several things that will take place before a transaction occurs. Payment terms are negotiated on an individual customer basis and then the successful launch of the product can take place.

The final stage in the B2B decision-making process is nurturing the post-sales relationship. B2B models rely heavily on repeat customers. Continued contact after the original sale can be a pivotal determining factor in how long a sales relationship lasts.

Post-sales contact should include any troubleshooting with the client, collecting feedback, and providing additional offers or services over time. These interactions will help strengthen your ties with the customer and lead to future purchases during the escalation or contract renewals.

Influencing the B2B Purchasing Decision

As a B2B company, it is important to understand what factors help customers come to a decision. Knowing the driving forces behind purchase intent can help your company successfully target and provide information to potential clients.

A Gartner study reveals that a buying group spends 27% of their time researching solutions online, and only 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers. This means that your B2B marketing and online resources play a crucial role in instigating the customer life cycle before a sales rep even reaches out to a potential client.

When looking at their purchase decisions, customers will focus on product performance. They will need to know how your product can provide a solution, as well as how your services perform against options your competitors may offer.

Durability and product pricing plays a critical role when it comes to landing a sale. The client will need to know how long your solution will last, as well as what the cost-benefit analysis looks like. In addition to the overall price, customers will look at discounts, credits, and any hidden fees that could be incurred during the product launch and regular use.

By providing transparent information about your services, the sales process can be influenced. Focus on your online marketing as well as the information provided by any sales reps to make sure customers have access to the appropriate resources.

B2B & B2C Customer Lifecycle and Buyer Journey

customer lifecycle of B2B and B2C models

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The customer lifecycle of B2B and B2C models varies in length. Most commonly, the B2B customer will go through four phases within its cycle. The customer lifecycle follows general stages for both B2B and B2C models, with greater emphasis on each stage depending on the product.

First, awareness and reach are crucial to the lifecycle. When a consumer becomes aware of a problem, they will begin searching for a solution. 

For B2B customer bases, this includes research of product options and potential outreach to companies. B2C buyers rely on advertisements and marketing to inform their buyer intent.

Next, customers will begin to act on their needs. It is important to capitalize on this stage to begin converting these leads into sales. Most of the B2B customer lifecycle will focus heavily on the purchasing process while the client tries to get the best (return on investment) ROI on their purchase. 

Converting a B2C sale will lean on emotion through promotional outreach

The end of the cycle includes engagement and retention. Both B2B and B2C businesses need to form relationships with loyal customers.  

B2B and B2C customer journeys vary in terms of complexity and client involvement. B2B models engage with more people on their journey, as there will be multiple departments involved in the purchasing process.

Customers from B2B tend to make fewer, but larger purchases, which means the relationship is more valuable. More time and resources go into closing a B2B deal than a B2C sale. Overall, the B2B process can be lengthy due to the high complexity of the decision for the customer.

Check out Leadboxer for a free trial to begin finding clients at the beginning of their customer journey today!

customer centric strategy

Using CRM to Craft a Winning Customer Centric Strategy

Marketing, Sales / By

Managing your customers is an important task for every successful business. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become a major asset for companies, and the global market for this technology continues to rise, helping in arranging a winning customer centric strategy. CRMs help provide easy management of employee, customer, and lead interactions. This software automates sales processes, integrates seamlessly with other technology, and assists in organizing operations in individual silos.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses have found themselves leaning on CRMs more than ever to manage interactions with customers. In a recently released report by Global Industry Analytics, INC (GIA), research digs deeper into the current trends and predicts continued CRM growth in the coming years.

As companies continue into the world of digital communication and increased remote work environments, knowing the best practices for CRM use can help with successful operations.

Continue reading or jump ahead to the topics below:

Increasing Popularity of CRMs During COVID-19

CRM software market

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The pandemic has reshaped the way many companies approach their business strategies. Throughout these unprecedented times, there’s been an increased emphasis on remote working environments. Managing customer relations remains an all-time priority, yet the challenges for successful outreach have grown.

With an unexpected mass shift to virtual work, there has been a need for technology conducive to interdepartmental collaboration. CRMs can help fill multiple deficiencies across workflow when departments are communicating remotely. With integrations and automation, these systems help improve productivity.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the GIA study reveals that the global market for CRM software is projected to reach $81.9 billion by 2024. While CRMs may have been underutilized pre-pandemic, research demonstrates how crucial this technology is for successful remote work.

The GIA study also shows the overwhelming use of CRMs across different sizes of operations from start-ups to large corporations in the United States. CRM software in the U.S. accounts for 49.7% of the global market for this technology.

In a time when employee disconnect saw an all-time high, CRMs were able to help provide a sense of relief to businesses. Due to the rise in popularity, the usage of CRM software continues to be on an upward trend.

Workflow Management for CRMs in Remote Environments

Due to COVID, companies saw a quick switch to virtual work with little time to prepare for the transition. Since then, employees have relied on technology to stay connected with their teams. Improving workflow in remote work environments can be done through proper organization and constant company communication.

Improving operational activities within individual silos is just as important as encouraging collaboration between departments. CRM usage played a role in assisting companies to work at maximum efficiency within specific teams.

CRMs benefit employees through features like calendar and email integration, as well as notification systems. These are crucial in helping reduce the amount of missed information between employees. 

With data organized on one platform, workers are able to stay on the same page while working from different locations. Switching out of the office setting means the workflow of most departments faced disruption. 

Using CRMs means teams are able to utilize automated features to ensure proper delegation. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) can recognize and route customer emails directly to the right person without getting lost in the digital shuffle. 

Since coworkers no longer have the ability to quickly ask questions in person, built-in pipelines through CRMs can drastically improve communication.

Customer Outreach During COVID-19

In addition to causing employee engagement challenges, the pandemic also impacted customer outreach efforts. Keeping in touch with current and potential clients is vital to building out a sales pipeline. 

Due to the lack of in-person meetings and a constant stream of Zoom invitations, staying at the top of customer inboxes is an easy way to boost sales.CRMs can assist this process by sending out mass emails and setting reminders for timely follow-ups. 

CRM software allows companies to utilize templates and build-out personalized campaigns. By tracking customer engagement and storing data, CRMs also help your sales team nurture leads and re-engage stale leads.

Sales & Marketing Alignment

Successful sales campaigns are the starting line for closing a deal. To have this communication with customers, sales and marketing departments must work together. 

CRMs encourage alignment between sales and marketing teams through data collection, seamless communication systems, and software integrations. With a centralized database in your CRM, both teams can access all of a lead’s information for easy contact. 

CRM software can also help each team keep track of where a lead is within the sales pipeline. Allowing both departments access to this information helps direct marketing and sales communications to the correct clients while cutting down on duplicate outreach.

CRMs work to increase the success of your business’s lead generation and nurturing process, which ultimately improves your sales conversion rates. Utilizing a CRM can provide deeper insight into the customer journey.

Building out complete customer profiles in your CRM encourages your teams to get personal with their strategies. This allows your salespeople to understand the persona of each customer when pitching your product, while your marketing team can finetune campaigns for targeted audiences.

Customer feedback can be recorded in the system, which helps sales teams improve their sales strategies. Employees are able to track each interaction with potential customers. This information can be accessed across all departments. 

By properly using a CRM, your company can easily improve customer experience.

Customer Centric Strategy

A customer centric strategy also referred to as client-centric, means focusing your business model on creating a great customer experience to build brand loyalty. These businesses make sure that customers remain the center of their operations. The end goal is always client satisfaction.

This business approach uses the theory that going above and beyond to meet customer expectations is the best way to gain repeat sales. When utilizing the customer centric strategy, the goal is to properly maintain your existing client base to ensure long-lasting relationships.

Benefits of a Customer Centric Strategy

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Focusing your sales efforts to attract loyal customers can help your business in the long run. Simply put, new customers can be hard to find. Investing in existing relationships will help boost your sales.

Not only can it be a challenge to track down leads, but acquiring new customers is costly. Nurturing current relationships helps save your team money while selling more. The goal is to continuously provide a seamless customer experience across all of the products and services your company offers.

Using Your CRM for a Customer Centric Strategy

Improving your customer experience starts internally with your sales and marketing departments. Teams should have the proper resources to successfully meet client needs.

CRMs help streamline communication channels between teams and better your customer management practices. With easy access to contact information and the ability to track engagement with leads, staying on top of customer outreach should be a priority.

Implementing a Customer Centric Workflow

You don’t have to start from ground zero to centralize your business around customer needs. Taking advantage of your CRM and other software can help you get started with a customer centric model. There are a few key takeaways to keep in mind when using this theory:

Focus on all-hands involvement. To ensure your company is providing the best customer experience, get your teams on the same page. Emphasize interdepartmental communication. 

Make sure your employees are utilizing CRM functions for efficient workflow. Provide every team with access to customer insights so they can work to improve your client relationships.

Communicate with existing customers and gather valuable data. Understanding what your current customers like and dislike about your services provides valuable feedback for your company. Dig deep into the analytics and make sure your CRM has the most up-to-date data available for your teams.

Personalize your outreach. Automation is a huge help for mass outreach, even to your existing customers. Use your CRM to develop personalized email campaigns for segmented customer groups. 

Be sure to reach out to customers at the right time. CRMs can help keep track of when to follow up by setting reminder notifications for when it’s time for your next outreach.

Don’t be afraid of change. A customer centric strategy requires constant analysis of trends. The goal is to best predict your customer’s needs and continually provide quality solutions. As those needs evolve, make sure you are adapting to serve your base.

Automating and Integrating Your Technology

Devoting more time to an improved customer experience is easy when you have the ability to automate parts of the process. Integrating your CRM and other technology helps improve workflow and frees up time for customer outreach. 

Rather than having multiple tools to get the job done, merging your technology will create efficiency within your workflow. When combined with a CRM like Hubspot or Pipedrive, Leadboxer works with your existing stack to help push data where it needs to go. 

When using Leadboxer, your sales and marketing teams can easily access contact information, use tools for email tracking, and manage your customer relationships from multiple platforms.
Get firsthand experience with CRM integration capabilities by checking out a free LeadBoxer trial.

sales enablement in 2022

Sales Enablement in 2022

Lead Engagement, Sales / By

A major priority for all sales managers should be to put their team on the path to the highest earning potential. While the art of closing a deal is natural for some, businesses must provide all their sales reps with the most up-to-date resources for success. With remote working environments and a reliance on technology for company communications, sales enablement plays a major role in developing your sales team. Even though your employees may be working from different locations, it is still the duty of managers to successfully guide teams toward one unified goal.

As industries continue to navigate a post-pandemic economy, earnings from virtual selling tactics are at an all-time high. Coupled with increased work from home arrangements, sales enablement continues to be crucial for any sales department’s success. 

Despite the challenges derived from remote work in 2021, the potential to increase revenue remains extremely promising. Providing your team with support and focusing on sales enablement in 2022 will help companies thrive in the coming months.

What is Sales Enablement?

At its core, sales enablement is the process of providing sales training, coaching, enablement technology, and lead enrichment data to sales and marketing teams to improve performance across the board.

It doesn’t matter how great your top-earning sales reps are, there’s almost always room for improvement. Sales enablement helps everyone on the team excel by teaching, motivating, and most importantly, enabling them to exceed office quotas and expectations.

The Impacts of Virtual Working Environments

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employees to remain flexible as working from home has become the new normal for many. Despite a rushed transition period into remote accommodations during early 2020, workers have successfully settled into their new environments.

In fact, 77% of employees report higher productivity while working from the comfort of their home office. With increased engagement and focus comes the uncapped revenue potential from these eager salespeople.

In order to reach these exciting earning levels, sales managers must be able to provide their teams with the proper resources. On the flip side, due to an ever-increasing digital world, it is important to focus on quality versus quantity when utilizing sales engagement tools.

According to Forbes, globally, companies are averaging the use of 23 learning and engagement platforms. This number has doubled since 2011, and it is very likely it will continue to increase as long as remote work continues. While sales engagement tools can play a huge role in successful conversions, overload and employee burnout need to be taken into consideration.

The Importance of Sales Enablement

Consumers today have more information and power at their fingertips than ever before. A study by Salesforce & Publicis Sapient found that 87% of consumers begin their buying journey with online research. The study also found that 64% of shoppers say they feel that brands don’t truly understand their individual needs and desires.

Brands have to work hard to personalize their approach. Therefore, selling to informed customers has become a nightmare for many in the sales game. Check out this post on how to make a brand persona to learn more.

In order to break through and start a genuine conversation with potential buyers or clients, your sales and marketing teams need to be equipped with the most advanced resources available.

Four Benefits of a Sales Enablement Strategy 

The benefits of a sales enablement strategy are vast. So long as the sales reps within the team are capable and the products or services being sold are valuable.

1. Better Teamwork

Sales enablement enhances the team as a whole, not just the best sellers and not just those that need help. By implementing sales enablement strategies, companies no longer have to rely on top earners to carry the sales team.

2. Better Data

Sales enablement provides a superior framework for the collection and organization of data from engagements between reps and consumers. Data relating to pain points, customer personas, buyer intent, historic behavior, and more, all combine to help salespeople personalize each engagement.

3. More Efficiency

Better data and organization also increase team efficiency. With valuable resources at their disposal, salespeople are able to make faster data-driven decisions, decreasing the time it takes to go from prospect to client.

4. More Collaboration

Sales enablement increases collaboration between sales and marketing teams. Sales reps have to provide valuable, personalized content to prospects in order to persuade them to make the deal. The marketing team is often the source of that content. With that being said, marketing is invaluable and, in many cases, inseparable from the sales process.

Fostering Team Collaboration in Remote Environments

sales enablement approach

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The sudden switch to remote work during 2020 caused companies to adapt their communication strategies to a digital world. Zoom happy hours and endless slack threads became the roots of establishing a virtual rapport.

Now, continuing to navigate the challenges of working from home, teamwork remains vital for overall success in the sales industry. Cohesion through a single platform encourages collaboration and streamlines communication and project management.

Along with helping build your team’s correspondence, utilizing single platforms with integration capabilities will help with trans-departmental conversations as well. Lead generation and lead nurturing practices can be kept up within the same tools as your sales funnel. These combinations help keep your marketing and sales teams on the same page. 

Integration of Sales Enablement Tools

Just as capturing a customer’s attention amid the endless stream of online content has become a new challenge, so has to maintain the focus of your team during the workday. 26% of employees feel that app overload makes them more inefficient at work. 

74% of employees have more than five apps open at once. While 16% of employees are using 15 or more apps simultaneously.

Along the same line, the average worker switches through 13 apps around 30 times per day. Productivity is key to closing deals, but over inundating employees with too many platforms may have adverse effects.

Automation, artificial intelligence, and digital sales platforms can improve your team’s workflow when implemented correctly. Finding ways to consolidate the digital clutter that your employees are clicking through can drastically save time and preserve attention spans.

Leadboxer helps cut down on the number of individual apps used by your team through seamless integration with some of your most-used platforms. Through this combination, sales reps are able to find all of the necessary resources in one program. 

Whether it’s email automation, marketing campaign tracking, or data analysis, multiple sales engagement tools can be accessed from one place, hassle-free. 

The Importance of Better Content

One of the most important functions of sales enablement is ensuring that your teams have the right content and that they utilize that content at the right time.

There’s a wide variety of sales enablement content, but three of the most common types are:

  • Case studies
  • Blog posts
  • Emails

Case Studies

Case studies document real-life examples of a product or service in action. They’re essentially glorified testimonials, as they help identify the struggles faced by your customers as well as solutions you bring to the table.

They’re versatile, as they can be distributed to customers to highlight the advantages of working with your products and services. They can also be distributed to sales and marketing teams to highlight consumer behavior and customer pain points.

Blog Posts

Although content marketing and sales enablement are two different fields of study, there are some obvious applications that are worth highlighting here. Blog posts provide value to readers without asking anything in return. Not only can you build a wealth of trust and establish your brand as an authority in the industry, but you can also reveal to readers problems they didn’t even know they had.

Emails

For many brands, email is the first contact with potential customers. While this may be true, email marketing is an invaluable tool for the closing stages of a sale. It can be difficult to discern which types of emails to send and the best time to send them, but the combination of a great CRM and a great CMS will make the job much easier. 

There are several types of emails that are perfect for the closing stages of a sale. They include:

  • Order confirmations
  • Thank you emails
  • Abandoned cart emails

Most people check their emails on a daily basis. There are several elements to a great email and demand generation marketing strategy, and we won’t dive into them here, but emails are personal and you can customize them in a number of ways.

Continuing to Move Forward 

Navigating the changing landscape of the sales industry in 2021 has been a challenge for most, as well as an opportunity for uncapped growth and development. Teams who are willing to invest in the proper sales engagement tools will be set up for success as they continue to thrive in remote environments.
Focusing on integration and collaboration will help your team perform at all-time highs. To get started with a cohesive platform and see the ways consolidation can improve your workflow, check out Leadboxer for a free trial.

lead nurturing in 2022

Lead Nurturing in 2022

Lead Nurturing, Sales / By

Creating lasting relationships and increasing conversion rates are the main goals of your customer sales cycle. The process begins with lead generation and relies heavily on successful lead nurturing to obtain the desired end result – a sale.

Putting increased time and effort into your marketing and sales process means your client relationships will benefit. Ultimately, your company will begin to see a higher return on investment (ROI) on its efforts. Jack Born, the creator of Deadline Funnel, speaks about the many ways lead nurturing plays a role in successful conversion rates.

  • In 2022, walking leads through the sales process means navigating an increasingly digitized world. Timeless tactics like cold calling are great ways to cultivate leads. Although utilizing newer tools like data automation and content creation can improve your customer lifecycle. 
  • Incorporating AI software alongside tactics like audience segmentation and targeted messaging are the first steps to take for creating competitive marketing campaigns.

To learn more, read on or jump ahead to these sections:

Using Automated Messaging

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Born also points out that in this current time of endless content streams, maintaining top-of-mind awareness with your leads is crucial to nurturing client relationships. On the flip side, successful digital communication relies on avoiding repetitive and irrelevant content to reduce the clutter in a prospect’s inbox.

  • Marketing sequences require time and resources. Utilizing automated messaging can help alleviate these burdens. Automation allows your team to accurately target customers with informative content. It can help them make decisions throughout their sales journey.
  • Segmenting your leads will help improve your focused marketing and lead to high engagement rates. The immediate goal of your campaigns should be prospect interaction with your brand, rather than just a sales conversion. This helps get leads excited about your product. Also gives them the tools to explore the ways you can help them.
  • Through lead segmentation, specific content should be directed to customer groups based on their needs, buying habits, and customer profiles. Separating your outreach will help potential clients understand the distinct value of your product in relation to their unique business. 
  • Automated messaging allows content to be sent across multiple channels to reach audiences on different platforms. Data collected by these automated campaigns will also help improve your return on investment (ROI) since money spent on engagement will lead to higher sales conversions. 80% of users saw the number of leads increase when automation tactics were employed.
  • This technology tracks important data like email open rates, click through rates, and customer engagement with promotional content. For example, you will be able to see when a customer fills out a form through your campaign. This allows you to move them into the next stage of the sales process. 

Timing Your Marketing Campaigns for Lead Nurturing

Born stresses the fact that perfecting the art of segmentation is just one small step in utilizing automated messaging to its fullest potential. Understanding how crucial timing is for your outreach can help improve your conversion rates.

  • One of the biggest benefits to automated messaging is being able to ensure leads don’t run cold. Your chances of landing a sale are a lot higher if you contact a lead when you can offer a solution to their current problem. By being able to schedule sales follow-up sequences, clients will be reminded of your product when their needs are high.
  • Data analysis allows AI software to track a lead’s activity and engagement throughout the day to determine the best time to hit send on your campaign. By having a deep understanding of your client’s schedule, automated messaging helps increase engagement rates. It happens by delivering your content at the ideal hour for interaction.
  • Predictive sending takes the guesswork out of your email lead nurturing campaigns. This means your team can focus on creating informative content while technology handles the rest. Nurturing leads with targeted messaging sent at their peak activity times will help avoid the sales funnel leakage. It commonly occurs with infrequent contact.

Authenticity in a Digital World

types of content b2b marketers use

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Your content quality directly affects your credibility. No matter how big or small a role it plays in the marketing plan. It is crucial for your brand’s success to remain authentic when utilizing automation.

While technology helps maximize your outreach, nothing can replace genuine human connection. This means your marketing strategy needs to be driven toward providing relevant information that starts a conversation with your prospects.

  • Avoid creating a bad reputation for cluttering inboxes with fluff emails. The goal of automated messaging is to successfully nurture leads by effectively communicating with clients. And not to alienate them with a constant barrage of meaningless spam. When used correctly, automation helps boost your brand by sharing relevant, informative content with your prospects.
  • Another key component to increasing your credibility is ensuring automation does not remove the ability for conversation. Sequences, like email campaigns and deadline messages, often come in automatic waves across multiple days to spread awareness. Make sure your team is still available for contact if leads want to speak with a representative directly. Rather than relying solely on the scheduled follow-up emails.
  • Automation is meant to supplement your marketing efforts. Your sales team should still be putting in the effort to cultivate strong client relationships alongside your digital campaigns.

Evaluate Your Pricing Models

In order to make a sale, you need to drive traffic to your website to generate leads for cultivation. So, what does this traffic see when they visit your site? Most companies are going to be looking at your product and what type of solution it offers. But they are also going to focus on pricing.

tactical triangle

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As Jack Born has sketched out, there is a Tactical Triangle that can help your team evaluate your prices. As well as understand the lifetime value of your client. Simply put, the model explains how it is necessary to work backward to land a sale while understanding the moving economics of your campaigns.

  • Pricing models are an aspect that should constantly be evaluated. The most effective way to come up with prices for your product includes working off customer personas, using correct metrics, and listening to your customers.
  • Proper presentation is crucial for relaying your prices to clients. Are you offering one price or are there multiple price points for leads to contemplate? 
  • Ideally, you will want a price point for each level of the customer persona. This ensures web traffic will not be overwhelmed with your options. Plus, automated messaging can target specific groups with product promotions at the correct tier.
  • Another aspect to keep in mind when evaluating your models is the amount it costs to drive this traffic to your site. You’ll want to see a higher ROI on your marketing efforts. So prices need to be set accordingly, based on the amount spent to generate and nurture leads.

Utilizing Order Bumps to Increase Engagement

Staying competitive means more than just evaluating your pricing and offering deadline deals. Working with an order bump strategy can lead to higher conversion rates and bring in more overall revenue. 

  • This doesn’t have to be something that requires resources to create. But rather an automated offer to help increase sales among well-qualified leads. If a customer is already committed to the purchase, offering an order bump such as an upgrade from the basic to professional plan, can be an easy way to maximize the sale.
  • Using this tactic helps your lead take more time to think about your product and the benefits it can provide. Since this happens close to the end of the sales cycle, you can feel confident that a lead has already seen the value in the purchase. By offering a bump at checkout, the client may go ahead and make the switch to a higher price without feeling like the process was too pushy.

Extending Customer Life Cycles for Lead Nurturing

Determining your customer lifetime value (CLTV) can help your business successfully retain valuable clients. The CLTV also works hand-in-hand with the customer acquisition cost (CAC) to illustrate the timeline needed to recover the investment spent to generate leads.

  • The CLTV can be found by evaluating the amount of revenue brought in by a client in addition to the predicted length of the relationship. This metric is crucial to creating a customer retention solution, as well as company budgeting. It also allows your team to analyze the ways in which these customer life cycles can be extended.
  • Lead nurturing is the first step in building a customer life cycle. This process should continue past the initial sale. Client relationships will improve when you actively listen to their onboarding experiences, provide frequent check-ins about your product, and incentivize repeat purchases.

To experience how LeadBoxer can help you nurture leads into successful sales through the website and email tracking, lead segmentation, and marketing campaign tracking, get started with a free Leadboxer trial today!

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Ranking the Top 5 Lead Generation Platforms

Lead Generation, Sales / By

Businesses, particularly B2B models, rely on successful navigation of the sales journey to close the deal, like lead generation platforms. One of the most important stages of the journey is the beginning, which means lead generation. All companies have limited amounts of energy and resources to accomplish their goals, so it’s crucial to spend these on the right prospects.

Continue reading for an examination of why automation is a necessity in sales today and a breakdown of are the top five lead generation systems or “jump ahead” to the following topics:

Lead generation is the starting line for all sales. The research and efforts spent on this step will determine the rest of the sales cycle. Rather than burying employees with manual identifying and qualifying, automating the process with a lead generation company can kickstart a smoother customer journey.

What is Lead Identification and Lead Qualification?

traditional b2b lead funnel

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The first stage in any sales journey is pinpointing the prospects worth reaching out to, or in short, identifying leads. The next step is determining if these potential clients are worth your time and energy, also known as qualifying leads.

While there are many manual ways to determine the value of prospective clients, finding ways to streamline the process can help your company focus its efforts on closing the deal. The easiest way to simplify lead generation is through automation by investing in a platform that meets your needs.

Lead Generation Platforms and Data Analysis

Understanding the role data plays in automated lead generation will help your company better utilize any chosen tool. This data provides insight into a prospect’s engagement with your brand, as well as information that helps tailor your marketing strategies for maximum outcomes.

Lead generation companies help you accurately target clients who will benefit from your services. The data analysis from these platforms works to help break down information provided by online engagement, as well as score prospects based on their actions.

By tracking online traffic across your platforms and identifying these visitors, lead generation companies help you target customers and pitch your services based on their needs.

Lead generation companies help you see which parts of your brand visitors are engaging with. With this insight, you can tailor your marketing and sales strategies to highlight the ways you will be able to help these customers.

Top lead generation companies are able to collect contact information from anonymous web traffic, which makes it simple to connect with these prospects. Using a lead generation platform allows you to see how qualified these online visitors are in terms of benefiting from your services.

Crucial insights provided by this type of software kickstarts the sales journey. By targeting leads most in need of your services, your business will be able to increase sales conversions.

Understanding Lead Generation Software

Automation is one of the most important features of lead generation software. Instead of using employees and company resources on manual paperwork for data analysis, automated software streamlines the process by doing the crunch work.

Platforms track website and email engagement to identify potential prospects. By having a list of potential clients given to you, with data to illustrate their recent activity, your team can focus on selling instead of research.

So, how do you decide what software is best for your business? “Lead generation platform” has become a loose term covering several different types of technology.

Programs like LeadFeeder and Snitcher are considered  IP lookup tools. Their main function is identifying potential leads based on the IP addresses that visit your website. While online visitor identification is an important part of lead generation, other platforms offer more robust operations to dive deeper into the sales cycle.

Taking it a step further, other programs focus on providing contact details from visitors who engage with websites. Lusha and Seamless.ai are tools that create lists of email addresses and other contact information from online engagement. This gives a business the ability to get in touch with potential leads after being identified by the software.

The Top 5 Lead Generation Platforms

Getting the most bang for your buck is important when it comes to lead generation companies. You’ll want a program that offers both lead generation and IP address verification for website traffic. A strong combination of data analysis and integration capabilities will go a long way to helping simplify and strengthen your generation process.

1. LeadBoxer

LeadBoxer leads accounts clean
LeadBoxer leads and accounts view. Version 3.

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A strong choice that analyzes data across multiple channels, LeadBoxer is a platform with built-in features designed to enrich company or personal data. LeadBoxer makes your best leads easy to find so you can turn them into customers. It is a complete solution; from marketing campaign through to qualified leads – use leadboards to manage MQLs.

Included are powerful filters and intuitive scoring algorithms to divide your audience into segments. Results can be synchronized or exported using native solutions.

Free Trial. Click here to Get Started.

Top Features:

Integrations: Hubspot, ActiveCampaign, Marketo, Google Data Studio, Clearbit, Active Demand, Gmail, Outlook, Copernica, Google Big Query, Zapier, Google Tag Manager, MailChimp, Drupal, LinkedIn, WordPress, and Pipedrive. Open API.

Pricing: Free trial and starting at $195/month billed annually. See pricing for details.

Pros: Ease of use. Intuitive, automated reporting, flexible, syncs with 1st-party data, automatic scoring, multiple integrations, and tracks email and newsletters. Tracks BOTH companies and individuals. Compliant.

Cons: No ROI tracking, no free lite version

2. LeadForensics

leadforensics lead generation program

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LeadForensics is a software that works to uncover the identity of website traffic, so you can turn website visitors into actionable leads. This platform allows you to utilize it as an additional data source to gather names, job titles, and contact information of site visitors.

LeadForensics also analyses the engagement on your site. You will be able to see what was searched for, which pages were visited, and how many times they have visited your site.

Features:

  • Website & email tracking
  • Smartphone app for easy access
  • Lead manager for the organization
  • Upload your own data to track potential clients
  • Data insight
  • API
  • Lead scoring
  • Email notifications

Integrations: Salesforce, ZOHO, Microsoft Dynamics

Pricing: Flexible; Free trial + plan created based on your needs

Pros: Identifies leads in real-time, lead scoring based on multi-criteria system, customizable, provides integration options

Cons: Does not give a price plan upfront; fewer integration capabilities than competitors

3. Albacross

albacross

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Albacross brings together revenue teams to accelerate conversion rates. Their lead generation software works on identifying anonymous visitors, analyzing engagement, as well as segmenting and qualifying prospects. This platform allows integration with most major tools and CRMs for easy data access.

Features:

  • Website engagement tracking
  • Lead identifying and qualifying
  • CRM integration
  • API
  • Easy organization for captured leads
  • Automated email reports
  • Flexible filtering

Integrations: HubSpot, Sugar CRM, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Slack, Microsoft Dynamics, ZOHO, Base

Pricing: Flexible; Free trial; Pricing plans are discussed with Albacross to determine the best fit for your needs

Pros: Easy to use; integrates with most major CRMs and business tools, customizable

Cons: Lacking pipeline management feature, no upfront pricing

4. Leadfeeder

leadfeeder

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This platform focuses on bringing web intelligence to businesses. Leadfeeder wants to help integrate your sales and marketing team to create a smoother process and increase conversion rates. The software identifies anonymous web traffic, qualifies potential leads, provides important contact information, and syncs data with your CRM.

Features:

  • Website tracking
  • Contact insights
  • Automatic Lead Scoring
  • Personal email alerts
  • CRM integration
  • Unlimited users
  • Company search function
  • Versatile filtering

Integrations: Pipedrive, Mailchimp, Salesforce, Hubspot, ZOHO, Zapier, Microsoft Dynamics, Slack, Active Campaign, Google Hangouts Chat, Google Data Studio, Google Analytics

Pricing: Free trial; Free lite version; Plans start at $63/month

Pros: Strong integration system, lower cost than many competitors, allows as many users from your company as you would like

Cons: No in-depth data analysis, functions mostly as a “look-up” tool

5. KickFire

kickfire

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KickFire’s IP address intelligence translates IP addresses to companies and provides vital data for B2B organizations. KickFire enables access to this data across multiple channels including their LIVE Leads platform, API, and software integrations that best fit your company’s needs.

Features:

  • Website & email tracking
  • Real-time lead alerts
  • Lead management
  • Lead scoring
  • Live dashboard feature
  • API

Integrations: Adobe, Act On, Drift, Eloqua, Ensighten, Google Marketing Platform, Integrate, Intercom, LiveRamp, Marketo, Openprise, Segment, Sitecore, Slack, Tealium, Connectwise, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Sugar, ZOHO, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Active Campaign

Pricing: Free trial; Plans created based on your company’s needs

Pros: Large list of integration abilities, customizable software, ROI tracking, free lite version

Cons: Short 7-day trial window before purchasing

Getting Started with a Lead Generation Platform

Overall, lead generation software can be a complete game-changer for most companies.

For small and large companies alike, automation will speed up the sales process and result in higher conversions to sales. Important data insights are provided in real-time, so your team will never miss a hot lead again.

Having the right lead generation platform is crucial for encouraging productivity and can play a huge role in targeting sales efforts that lead to successful conversions. Take the leap for a more productive sales team, and get started with your free trial of LeadBoxer today!

creating urgency in sales scaled 1

Creating Sales Urgency

Lead Nurturing, Marketing, Sales / By

Marketing campaigns play a huge role in creating higher sales conversions. These tactics are the ways your company and brand are being introduced to potential customers. While effective marketing strategies can be based on multiple factors, focusing your messages on creating sales urgency within customers can help boost sales.

Jack Born, the technical founder of Deadline Funnel, speaks about how he developed a solution that nurtures leads and increases engagement. Through the implementation of a deadline strategy, Born helps companies understand the importance of authentic offers.

In a world of constant digital interaction and never-ending streams of promotional content, success comes from making a genuine human connection with leads. Tapping into universal human experiences, such as procrastination and the fear of missing out, sales urgency works to motivate prospects into action.

Increasing Sales Conversions Through Marketing Tactics

increasing sales conversions through marketing tactics

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Digital content has become the new normal for marketing. Customers have the ability to see constant advertisements through social media and email messaging. Because of these trends, successful marketing campaigns rely on calls to action to engage customers.

Email lead generation relies on participation to score and nurture leads. Once a prospective lead is identified through web traffic or other means, focus on introducing your product and providing tangible ways to interact with your brand.

Using persuasion in your messaging is a way to create urgency among potential clients. When your content only pertains to your product but doesn’t give clear steps for engagement, customers are likely to scroll past. Providing a reason to interact with your brand will persuade leads to learn more.

Your marketing team has the ability to convince customers to try your product through their communication. It’s human nature to hit snooze on products that provide future benefit when there isn’t messaging demonstrating ways your company can make a difference now. For example, providing special bonus offers or free trials are clear ways potential clients can engage with your content.

Another way to add sales urgency to your campaigns is to utilize deadlines. When potential leads are on the fence about your product, deadlines help push candidates towards a decision. These types of campaigns play a role in creating a steady sales funnel throughout the year, rather than just during promotional periods.

If you are constantly providing ways leads can interact with your brand now, they most likely will engage rather than putting it off until a later date.

The Importance of Reaching Your Target Audience

Creating content takes time and resources, but it is important to put in the effort to customize your campaigns for different audiences. Although you are promoting your unified brand, each of your clients may be at a different place in the cycle, with unique perspectives about your product.

The goal of your marketing tactics should be to reach as many customers as possible with the tailored messages. This means segmenting your email lists and utilizing different emails for each base. Targeted campaigns increase engagement because customers feel as if the content you’ve provided is valuable and specific to their needs.

It is crucial to understand your sales pipeline, as well as the customer journey, to successfully segment leads. Digging into the data your team has will help map out which customers need to hear certain messages. This will help direct your emails to the right inboxes at the correct time.

Creativity from your marketing team will fuel prospect engagement. Focus on producing dynamic content for each segment of leads. Make sure to create appropriate content based on the different stages for customers, which should provide tangible action items for prospects to engage with.

These emails can be as simple as having different versions of the same promotional incentives. Your marketing team can work to pinpoint the different customer personas of your clients, as well as their engagement patterns. This strategy will help each campaign reach its targeted demographic.

While customization can seem like a hefty undertaking, there are ways to do it without wasting time or resources.  Use automation to swap out images and copy text to tailor to specific customer data. Include automated pop-ups or recommendations on your website to provide valuable insight when prospects engage with certain pages.

Using Automation Effectively in Marketing Efforts

evergreen email sequence plus special offer

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Utilizing automation helps streamline your marketing communication with prospects. This allows you to focus on promoting your brand while allowing automation to do the heavy lifting. Taking advantage of this technology allows you to send automatic welcome emails, track engagement across platforms, and segment your prospects.

Effectively automating your marketing cycle means you are using platforms to help nurture leads, score leads, and walk clients through the customer journey. For example, automation can send follow-up messages when prospects interact with your website to help nurture the relationship.

Avoiding leakage from your sales pipeline helps increase your conversion rates. Automation ensures that consistent messaging is being sent to leads, so they don’t go cold. This is a huge help for businesses that want to continue establishing strong relationships with their customers.

Automation focuses on passive marketing, which allows prospects to hear about your brand in ways other than live launches. When your company doesn’t have any product updates to share, sales funnels may seem smaller than usual. Avoiding these dry times by implementing automated campaigns will help build out your pipelines.

An evergreen funnel works to gain your business passive profit through automated engagement. This works by enticing the lead to become a buyer through content-driven messaging at the beginning of their journey.

The goal of these tactics is not limited to an immediate conversion. Evergreen funnels may be a long game strategy, as they work hard to push for brand engagement that will eventually convert to sales.

Using the Deadline Tactic in Your Messaging

Furthering this marketing tactic, the deadline, or countdown, funnel is an add-on that leans into the idea of urgency. Prospective customers receive dozens of promotional emails per day. Capitalizing on your digital real estate within a lead’s inbox will allow for the successful implementation of a special offer.

This is where your call-to-action will start. Whether it’s a free download, promotional code, or even a limited-time discount, the key is having a real deadline in place. This allows you to create a timeline of communication that introduces your offer and entices prospects into engagement over a period of a few days.

Authentic deadlines should be created through the personalization of the unique customer journey. By using tracking points, your email campaigns will tailor to each lead and automatically generate content that relates to their place in the sales funnel.

Deadlines work to help your sales team avoid the stress of a lead going cold. Once a prospect is discovered by your team, this tactic will help illustrate the importance of swift action. The quicker a potential customer interacts with your brand, the quicker your sales team will be able to begin the lead nurturing process.

The 5-Day Sequence

One successful series of implementation can be found by trying the 5-day sequence. This campaign will consist of five or more emails spread across five days to nudge potential clients into engagement.

Your first two emails will be the beginning of brand awareness. These first contact points will aim to provide value to the recipient as well as insight into your product. The third email will be a hybrid of value and promotion, as it transitions into a call-to-action. This will serve as the first introduction to the offer and the deadline.

The final two emails work to sell the offer and convince your prospect to take the leap. Sales urgency remains a vital characteristic at this stage of marketing communications. By highlighting the impending deadline, scarcity is also shown to the prospect. This tactic helps motivate the lead to act, as they won’t want to miss out on the valuable deal.

Finding Balance Between Being Pushy & Creating Sales Urgency

Why do these tactics work? Human nature leans towards procrastination. Even the best workers can admit to being guilty of occasionally putting tasks off to a later date. By using incentivization, you are helping clients move along through their customer journey.

These strategies speak to the human need for timelines and the fear of missing an important offer. By giving a deadline, you can motivate prospective customers who may be facing hesitations to engage with your product, as well as rule out ones who aren’t worth your time.

Finding a balance between sales urgency and pushiness is a key component to successfully mastering this marketing strategy. One of the most common mistakes is emphasizing the deadline too soon.

When applied too early, the urgency created can come off as inauthentic or even gimmicky. Avoiding the desperate salesman look and focusing on tactfully introducing the timeline can help boost your credibility with leads.

Born recommends emphasizing the promotion deadline in the last 48 hours of the campaign. This can be done with three final emails to help nudge the prospect into action.

Discover the many ways LeadBoxer can help you increase the effectiveness of your efforts to create urgency in sales today.

old sales leads scaled 1

Strategies for Reviving Old Sales Leads

Lead Engagement, Lead Generation, Sales / By

Chasing a warm lead is the best way to expand your business and maximize your sales pipeline, but what do you do once the lead runs cold? While there are many reasons prospects may not work out, it is always possible to revive the relationship. If you plan on reviving old sales leads or creating urgency in sales, it is best to have a strategy before jumping back into the sales conversation. Understanding your lead cycle and focusing on trigger events can help determine when is the best time to reach back out to a prospective customer.

To learn more, read on or jump ahead to these sections:

What is the Sales Lead Life Cycle?

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Each prospect goes through the sales lead life cycle before your team is able to determine the customer’s status within your pipeline. Some leads may go through the cycle quicker than others. Understanding the process will help your marketing and sales team properly nurture these relationships.

Web Traffic and Subscribers

To create a lead, your business must come into contact with prospects. This can happen in many ways including cold outreach, website traffic, or email subscribers. Think of this as the first introduction to your brand.

During this stage, most customers are doing their research to determine if there is a product that will help solve the problems they are facing. To get these prospects to the next stage, your goal should be to provide light content that will create interest in interacting with your product.

Prospective Lead

In the next part of the cycle, your web traffic becomes prospective leads. This means the customer status has not been determined yet, but they have interacted with your brand. A customer can typically be moved to this stage once they have provided your team with additional contact information or filled out a website interest form.

Marketing Qualified Lead

Commonly referred to as MQLs, these are the customers that are readily engaged in your product. They have determined there is a need in their company, and your brand is on their list of solutions.

Your team should have determined trigger points for this stage. For example, if a customer visits your product page a certain amount of times in a week, requests a demo, or downloads a promotional offer.

Sales Qualified Lead

Once a prospect has become an MQL, the next stage will be determining if they are a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). These are the leads your sales team has decided are ready for direct follow-ups about your product.

When a prospect is in the MQL stage, your marketing team should be directly introducing your product as a viable solution. Once the lead is handed to your sales team, it should be ready for warm contact from a salesperson.

Customer

After an SQL has been identified, the lead becomes a customer once the product has been purchased. The goal of your sales life cycle is to have high conversion rates from traffic to customer. Not every lead will make it to the customer stage, but this will help you determine which old prospects in your pipeline can be recycled and potentially revived.

Determining the Status of a Lead

Accurately deciding where a lead falls in your pipeline is crucial to a successful sales cycle. The status of a lead plays a huge role in your sales and marketing efforts. To ensure time and resources aren’t being wasted, you’ll want a smooth process for qualifying leads.

Known commonly as lead scoring, the beginning of this process will help your team decide which prospects are sales-ready. With this strategy, points are assigned based on a list of factors. These include the buyer profile, company information, and online behavior.

By using these traits to score your leads, your team will have an accurate understanding of each prospect. This helps to gauge interest in your brand, so your sales team knows where their efforts are best directed.

Teleprospecting Old Leads

Before jumping into the importance of this strategy, let’s define the role of teleprospecting in the sales cycle. Typically done by an inside sales rep, teleprospecting engages with leads through cold and warm contact to determine their status in your pipeline.

As discussed earlier, not every lead will complete your sales cycle. This means your company may have a list of old leads with the potential to be revisited. Your team won’t want to waste their resources on leads that cannot benefit from your product, so this is where teleprospecting can help.

If a prospect has gone cold but is already aware of your brand, the relationship may be revived when the time is right. Businesses are constantly changing, and telepropsectors can help determine when a lead is ready for contact again.

Teleprospecting should be done when an old lead goes through major changes as a company, or if they have requested you reach out at a later date. Your teleprospecting efforts should keep track of any leads that mention future interest, so you can circle back at the right time.

When employing this strategy, it is important to avoid overwhelming a potential customer. Your teleprospectors should approach each conversation as a check-in, rather than a sales opportunity. This will help accurately determine where the customer is in dealing with their issue without seeming too pushy.

The Importance of Lead Recycling

the importance of lead recycling

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Ideally, your sales team will want to have the highest conversion rate possible, with very little leakage from the pipeline. However, every salesperson knows how much effort goes into the early stages of the cycle just for the leads to drop off throughout the cycle.

Rather than casting aside and giving up on leads gone cold, your business can reuse leads to optimize the pipeline and increase the conversion numbers. Recycling leads can play a huge role in the success of your sales team.

The best way to start the recycling process is to continue to send relevant content to passive leads. Avoid filling their inbox with useless clutter, but make sure to share occasional emails about your product. The lead was originally in your pipeline because they had a problem and your product offered a solution, so continued communication can help nurture the relationship.

Pay attention to engagement from these leads. Are they opening your emails, engaging with your website, or filling out website forms? If so, try to use teleprospecting efforts to determine their interest.

Once your team identifies whether a lead is ready to re-engage, add them back into your pipeline and continue with them through the sales process. By recycling these leads, your sales conversion rate may increase and you will begin to see a higher return on investment (ROI) on your pipeline.

Reviving Old Sales Leads

One way to approach initiating outreach to old leads is following company trigger events. These occur when a potential customer goes through big changes, which means they may be ready to utilize your product now.

Timing is crucial when it comes to completing a sale, so understanding what your leads are experiencing can help your sales team maximize their efforts. A trigger event is an event that provides an opening for a sales opportunity.

The key to reviving old sales leads after a trigger event is knowing when the event occurred and reaching out during the right timeline. Tracking major trigger events in potential customers can help you restart the conversation around your product.

For example, pay attention to when new executives get added to your old leads. Typically, new leadership will want to maximize efficiency without concern for company tradition, so discovering new solutions will be on the table. You can keep tabs on these types of changes through LinkedIn or press releases.

Another trigger event could be company expansion or a merger. If a prospect is growing, problems may become more apparent within their workflow, so you’ll want to reach out with the solution.

Additional Strategies For Re-engaging Leads

In addition to trigger events, there are many other strategies for reconnecting with past leads. As the business world continues to dive deeper into the digital realm, social media has become an invaluable tool for sales teams.

Utilizing LinkedIn and other social media can help your teams reviving old sales leads, as well as provide the opportunity to reignite the conversation. If you see major changes happening within a prospect on LinkedIn, use it to your advantage and reach out. Use the conversation as an opportunity to provide a solution to problems the business may be facing.

Rekindle warm leads through your content. If you feel like your product may be a good fit for a lead, send them a guide or invite them to a webinar. This helps your team demonstrate the value of your product without seeming overly pushy.

Make sure to keep past conversations in mind. One mistake to avoid is approaching re-engagement as a new lead. These prospects are familiar with your brand, and you should treat the conversation as such. Remind them of your past interactions, and if needed, show the ways your product has improved.

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Lead Types: How to Determine Your Sales Lead Temperature

Sales, Warm Leads / By

Learn how to properly identify the different lead types and determine your sales lead temperature in this ultimate guide.

Have you ever played a game where you hide something and give clues like “getting hotter” or “getting colder” until the person eventually finds it? Working with and nurturing leads is kind of like that.

  • The warmer a lead, the closer they are to buying.
  • If a prospect is cold, it means you need to keep providing the lead with information until they are ready to buy.
  • It isn’t always easy to recognize the signs indicating which lead type you’re dealing with, which is why we created this guide.

Keep reading to learn how to rate each sales lead temperature and how the right lead scoring system helps you correctly categorize all of your leads.

You can also choose to “jump ahead” to the following subtopics:

cold, warm and hot leads

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What Are the Different Sales Lead Temperature?

A sales lead is someone who is in the market for your service or product. This person fits your criteria for being an ideal client and would benefit from what your company offers.

These lead types are segmented into three major categories:

  1. Cold lead
  2. Warm lead
  3. Hot Lead

The ability to recognize sales lead temperature is essential for establishing where leads are in the funnel. This information aids in finding the sweet sales spot to ensure successful conversions.

Cold Lead Definition

Cold leads are those who ft your target audience but haven’t yet interacted with your company or brand. These leads are the farthest from converting and need to be educated about your company’s mission, exactly what you offer, and why your product/service is the right solution for meeting their specific needs.

This lead is not ready to buy in any capacity. If you try to make the sale at this stage, you may alienate and lose them altogether. Instead, focus on warming the potential client up through high-level, informational content.

Warm Lead Definition

Warm leads are closer to converting because they have shown some interest in your product or service. They may have searched a business on Google that offers a comparable product or service or even visited your website. A warm lead may have also engaged with one of your social media posts or clicked a link in an email.

These types of leads are categorized as warm because they’ve already had some interaction with your product or service so they are at least acquainted with what your business offers. This means they are actively researching solutions and are looking to buy in the near future.

Hot Lead Definition

A hot lead often referred to as a qualified lead, is a lead that is very interested in what your company does and is ready to buy. This person has been to multiple sites, talked to people about their solutions, and has likely eliminated the competition.

It’s essential to recognize the buying signals for each lead type, so you’re prepared to move them along the customer journey.

Buying Signals for Lead Types

There are surefire buying signals you need to be keenly aware of to be an effective salesperson. Typically cold leads aren’t going to emit any buying signs, but there are ways to identify when a lead is cold.

How to Tell if You Have a Cold Lead

If you see a new lead on your dashboard and have nothing more than a name or an email, that’s a cold lead. These leads haven’t interacted with your company and don’t know about you or your service/product.

How to Tell if Your Lead Is Warming Up

You’ll start to notice a lead is warming up when you see them interact with your brand more. Maybe they fill out a form to download a PDF, or they sign up for a free trial of your software. At this point, they’re familiarizing themselves with your brand and deciding if you’re the right solution for them.

If you’re going to reach out to this person, it shouldn’t be to convince them to buy, but rather, to offer additional support if needed. As a sales representative, you need to show them that your company cares about how they use your services and wants to be the helping hand they need when they have questions.

At this point in the sales cycle, you still may not be sure whether the lead is qualified or not. Thankfully, there are questions you can ask to help determine where they are in the buying process.

How to Tell If My Lead Is Hot?

Only when a lead comes to you and asks about pricing, signing a contract, or getting started should you try and close them. You can nudge them in the right direction by asking them how their free trial went once it’s over,  but a lead isn’t truly a hot lead until they ask for concrete steps to move forward.

If you think you have a hot lead but aren’t sure, try a soft close. An example of this would be letting them know you have a deal going on but not asking them to purchase. Let them tell you they want to buy.

The Importance of Sales Lead Management

Sales lead management is the overall lead qualification process for a business. The flow a lead generally goes through is:

  1. Identified: A lead is recognized.
  2. Educated: A lead learns about your brand.
  3. Engaged: The lead has performed an action with your company.
  4. Qualified: The lead is qualified and is ready to purchase.
  5. Passed On To Sales: Sales has the lead and is closing it.

As a sales manager, you need to be clear about the sales process and determine the parameters for a lead’s temperature. Without setting clear guidelines and expectations, your sales team won’t know how to move a prospect through the temperatures and turn them into a hot lead.

By creating a winning lead strategy, you can expect to see your team more confident in their sales. They will also be more capable of closing deals and building long-lasting relationships with your new clients.

It is tough to look at those five stages and manually move leads around to serve them best. That’s why lead management software is a great choice to help classify a sales lead temperature.

Why You Should Use a Lead Management Software to Determine Sales Lead Temperature

A CRM can boost your sales by up to 29% and has proven to increase productivity by 34%. Getting the right lead management software helps you to warm leads up and increases the amount of time your sales team is selling rather than prospecting.

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Automatic Lead Tagging

A lead management software will automatically tag and filter your leads to show you the ones that need interaction with you. After setting up the parameters for a cold, warm, and hot lead, your sales team will save time by only focusing on the closest to-converting prospects.

Built-in Integrations

Lead management software is typically built with numerous integrations to make your daily life easier. These integrations can help warm up your leads by sending them relevant emails to inform and encourage them to keep interacting with your brand.

built-in integrations

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Superior Tracking Abilities

When it comes to understanding a lead’s temperature, don’t underestimate the importance of tracking your prospect’s actions. IP tracking will tell you when a prospect comes to your site, opens your emails, and what they end up doing with that information.

Knowing what they interact with and what they ignore will help you tailor your sales pitch to meet their unique needs.

Advanced Segmenting

Using filters helps to remove clutter in your dashboard. Filters and segments enable you to focus your efforts on leads that are inside your target audience.

You can filter data such as a company’s name, the business’s size, where their head office is, and how they initially found your business. From there, your lead management software will be able to automatically send targeted messages to help move prospects through the funnel.

Lead Qualification

Good lead management software helps you segment your leads and enables you to qualify leads. Knowing how to qualify a lead is a skill that all salespeople and marketers are constantly working to perfect. Don’t try to do it all yourself; allow the software to help make the process easier and more efficient.

Notifications

When you use the right lead system, you’ll automatically be notified when someone interacts with your site, indicating they are ready to buy. You no longer have to rely solely on identifying the signals yourself. You can trust your software to alert you of critical actions your prospects are taking.

To begin using an automated lead generating and nurturing system, request your free LeadBoxer trial today!

determining ideal client profile

The Importance of Determining Your Ideal Client Profile

Lead Generation, lead hacking, Sales / By

You’ve generated a new lead, now what? Conversions happen when your pipeline is filled with quality prospects that are in the market for your product. Determining which leads will turn into active accounts is an important first step in the sales cycle. Lead generation focuses on gathering potential customer contact information. Sales prospecting takes it a step further to convert leads into revenue. Setting aside time and other resources for these processes will help improve your sales conversion rates. The best way to start your customer pipeline is by outlining the ideal client profile as a way to guide your sales and marketing efforts.

Read on or “jump” ahead to these sections to learn more:

What Is an Ideal Client Profile?

Before you can begin planning, you need to understand what an ideal client looks like for your company. A client profile is a strategy that helps determine which prospects are most likely to convert. This information allows you to personalize marketing tactics and use appropriate resources to create conversions.

Your client profile is a fictional representation of your best sales leads based on research, past experiences, current leads, and your team’s resources. The goal of this outline is to help discover what your target audience should be.

This strategy is crucial for successful lead generation and sales prospecting efforts. The ideal client profile illustrates that not all generated leads align with your company goals.

Creating an Ideal Client Profile

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Creating an ideal client profile is an important step in taking your business development cycle to the next level. This requires research, time, and resources to properly determine your target prospects. Allowing your collected data to drive this process and maintaining flexibility are key factors in building an accurate client profile.

Conduct Research Based on Current Clients

Whether you have a developed sales pipeline or are just starting out, research is the most crucial step in the creation of this profile.

If your company is already well-established with a substantial customer database, start by identifying your top clients. Research and compile answers to the following questions:

  • What makes this account profitable?
  • How long has the account been active with your business?
  • Does this client provide constructive feedback on your services?
  • Do you provide a high return on investment (ROI) on the requested services for this account?

Next, analyze the data surrounding these businesses and their interactions with your company. Pay attention to the ways these customers are responding to your digital marketing tactics. Focus on their social media presence, website traffic, and responses to email campaigns.

After gaining an initial understanding of their role within your pipeline, set aside time to conduct client interviews. This will allow you to dig deeper into their actions while strengthening your relationship with these accounts.

Make sure to focus on gathering insight into the following:

  • The decision-making process for business transactions
  • Company data such as industry, budget, and location
  • Company goals and current challenges to their mission
  • Purchasing decisions for your product

Using these research tactics will help you gain a better understanding of the role your company plays in each customer’s continued success. This gives you tangible evidence of how your product is being used while enabling you to examine the various ways companies interact with your brand.

Research Prospects and Industry Trends

While analysis of your current customer relationships provides valuable insight as to how your services are used by existing customers, it’s equally important to gather data on prospects within your industry. This allows you to explore new brands and discover leads in your target audience.

Use sites like LinkedIn to investigate what experts are saying about your industry. Join social media groups and listen to webinars to keep up with current trends. Knowing the market and tracking how potential clients use social media helps you tailor your marketing tactics to effectively communicate with prospects.

Compile Your Data

The next step in creating the ideal client profile is compiling data and resources to build out the profile. This information will come from market trends, current customer data, and research on potential clients.

Use the following categories for your profile’s outline, and fill in the information based on your research:

  • Background and demographic information
  • Communication style
  • Company goals
  • Potential challenges your clients may face
  • Decision making and purchasing processes

This profile should be reviewed by your sales, marketing, and customer service departments. Consistent communication about the ideal client profile across internal departments will allow your sales team to stay focused on high-quality prospects.

Remaining Flexible With Ideal Client Profiles

Of course, you want to reach out to potential accounts that fit your ideal client profile. But you also want to remain open to going after prospects with minor differences.

The point of determining your ideal client is to help your teams engage with target audiences, and then convert that customer engagement into sales.

This tactic is extremely helpful in determining which leads are worth your time and those that don’t match your company’s goals. An examination of industry leads that don’t precisely fit your ideal client profile may inform your sales team and aid your attempts to expand the reach of your brand.

Ideal Client Profile vs. Customer Persona

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An ideal client profile shows your model sales prospects, while a customer persona is the representation of that ideal buyer based on research and data.

The two terms sound similar but serve different functions in the process. A customer persona is a detailed analysis of the employees who make sales decisions, not the company itself. This encompasses the different buying patterns seen in the profile of your ideal client.

Companies may have multiple personas. While there are specific roles you will interact with to land a sale, each employee will have a different personality. This varies depending on who your sales team interacts with and the challenges each of these employees face in their day-to-day work.

These personas help your business interact more effectively with leads. Your marketing tactics can be tailored to fit the different roles each of these personas encompass.

For example, you may interact with a “by the book” salesperson, rather than someone who is open to nontraditional pitches.  Doing this allows you to shift messaging across departments as needed to show how your product can be beneficial for a range of account types.

The Links Between Ideal Client Profile and Customer Persona

A solid client profile and a well-defined customer persona can work together to inform your decisions on which leads and prospects you should pursue. Your ideal client profile focuses on identifying prime targets, and your customer persona helps find the best points for communication.

Think of it as your ideal client profile doing the front-end of the cycle by identifying qualified leads and generating prospects. Then, the customer persona continues the process by targeting messaging and communication efforts to the right audience.

Ideal Client Profiles and Account Based Marketing

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Account based marketing is a strategy that allows sales and marketing teams to collaborate to target potential accounts for high conversion rates. This allows companies to spend resources on the leads that are most likely to generate revenue.

Your ideal client profile plays a major role in account-based marketing strategies. If you understand your target audience, you’ll be able to successfully communicate the ways in which your product can specifically help each prospect.

Account based marketing strays away from the one-size-fits-all messaging. Instead, it allows businesses to emphasize the parts of their services that will benefit individual companies.

Using the description detailed in your profile, your sales team gains a deep understanding of which leads will most likely be interested in your product. From there, your marketing team will be able to research and target the correct audience.

With a firm understanding of the role, your company plays in your ideal client profile’s business model, account based marketing strategies allow for personalized messaging. Potential customers will be shown the benefits of your product through multiple channels.

Using Your Ideal Client Profile

There is a large amount of work that goes into creating a completed profile. To maximize the return on your efforts, proper implementation of the profile goes a long way.

Target leads with high conversion potential. This profile gives an outline of the ideal client that will be most interested in becoming a buyer. Your sales team should use this data for lead generation and prospect cultivation.

Use the information from your profile to guide the content coming from your marketing team. Develop keywords that highlight the main aspects of the ideal client profile. Use consistent themes that speak to a company’s needs.

Make adjustments to your outlines as the market changes or your business grows. The best part about this strategy is the opportunity for growth as your company discovers new leads.

Continuously research current and potential clients, keep up with industry trends, and tailor your ideal client profile as needed. Also you can learn about creating sales urgency to help.

By devoting time to reach out to potential customers who fit this profile, your conversion rates will improve.

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A Complete Guide to Thought Leadership + 6 Ways to Drive Sales Using It

Lead Engagement, Lead Generation, Sales / By

What ultimately determines whether a customer buys from you or a competitor? Is it the price of your product or service, its features, or your return policy? While all those things factor into a person’s decision, studies show that your brand’s thought leadership is just as important.

In this guide, we’ll discuss what thought leadership is and why it drives sales. We’ll also dig into actionable, data-backed strategies for how you can cultivate thought leadership. As a result, you’ll be able to attract and qualify a constant stream of leads for your sales team.

Read on or jump ahead to these topics:

What is Thought Leadership?

A person or brand is said to possess thought leadership when they are seen as an expert in their field. However, a thought leader isn’t just knowledgeable about their industry—they are also the figures who blaze new trails. Research that determines more effective industry techniques and solutions often comes from such experts.

Consider these thought leadership examples:

  • If you are looking for the latest search engine optimization tactics, your first impulse might be to check the blog of Neil Patel, an online marketing guru.
  • Top-tier copywriters looking to brush up their skills would likely read the Copyhackers blog or buy a course from them.
  • Hikers and campers looking to purchase a new mattress pad might consult a comparison guide on REI’s blog before hitting the “add to cart” button.

By disseminating high-quality advice free of charge, these thought leaders engender a feeling of trust in their audience. That confidence increases the likelihood that a potential customer will purchase a product or service from them instead of a competitor.

There’s plenty of data to back this up. The 2019 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study found that 55% of decision-makers use thought leadership as a way to vet potential vendors before agreeing to work with them.

The same study found that interest in thought leadership is growing. Between 2018 and 2019, the percent of decision-makers who spend an hour or more a week reading thought leadership content grew by eight points.

It is clear that thought leadership is a crucial element of any marketing and sales strategy. Fortunately, cultivating it is relatively low-tech and relies on knowledge and skills you likely already have.

6 Ways to Increase Sales with Thought Leadership

For best results, employ all of these strategies to become a thought leader and leverage your status.

  • Create Educational Content for Ideal Customers

Thought leadership is often synonymous with content creation. For example, the three experts highlighted in the previous section—Neil Patel, Copyhackers, and REI—all have a robust blog where much of their advice lives.

However, these leaders don’t just publish what they think is most important to talk about in their field. They anticipate potential customers’ questions and answer them. This shows that you are in tune with prospects’ needs and are capable of supplying the solution on demand.

Creating content not only fosters thought leadership but also doubles as a way to qualify leads for your sales team. Once you have a repository of content, you can then track the behavior of people visiting your site. This data will help you zero in on the most promising prospects.

LeadBoxer is a tool that identifies visitors to your site and analyzes the actions they take while there. You can see what content they’re engaging with, the duration of their engagement, and the frequency of actions.

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In addition to showing your sales team who they should get in touch with, this information reveals what problems a potential customer needs to solve. This allows sales reps to prepare answers to possible questions that might arise during outreach.

Creating thought leadership content that anticipates and answers questions for ideal customers both drives sales and makes your sales reps’ jobs easier. Prospects will be more informed about your industry and product or service, while reps will know who to reach out to and what talking points to use.

  • Conduct Research or Publish Case Studies

When it comes to creating content, thought leaders don’t just rehash what others have already said. They put out studies and research that create new viewpoints for their industry.

You don’t need to have a huge budget or poll thousands of people to accomplish this. In fact, case studies about your existing clients are a solid way to build thought leadership.

Consider Copyhackers, a brand that provides education about copywriting. The company’s blog features case studies that use data to back up claims about the effectiveness of certain techniques. For instance, take a look at the opening of this article:

case studies from Copyhackers

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By claiming a 108% lift in revenue, Copyhackers-founder Joanna Wiebe instills confidence in the three featured copywriting principles. Results like that sell your brand without you having to make a more obvious pitch.

  • Contribute Content to Media Outlets

In addition to putting out your own blog posts, try to create content for other sites. This helps build awareness for your brand and shows potential customers that other industry leaders value your insight.

There are two different types of media outlets you can write for. The first is a mainstream outlet, such as Forbes, Business Insider, or Fast Company. Prospects will immediately know and trust these high-profile sites and magazines.

The second type you can contribute to is a niche outlet. Research which brands are the leading publishers of content in your field. For example, companies looking to increase their clout in the field of digital marketing might try to write for the HubSpot Marketing Blog or the Moz Blog.

  • Give Talks About Your Field

Like writing for media outlets, being involved in digital or in-person events can raise your brand’s profile. This could be something as simple as leading a free webinar or participating in a conference.

  • Turn Your Sales Reps Into Experts

Thought leadership content is often written or delivered by your company’s C-level executives. This helps potential customers connect to the human side of your brand. However, it’s vital that all of your employees are just as knowledgeable about your product and industry as your C-level executives. After all, customers will spend most if not all of their time working with your sales and customer service teams.

Picture these two different scenarios:

  • A prospective customer asks a sales rep a question about your product, and the rep refers them to a piece of content in your knowledge base.
  • A prospect asks a question, and the rep is able to easily answer it in real-time (though perhaps sending them content for future reference).

Which would you rather experience as a potential customer? Chances are, you would be more likely to buy from a company where the reps can answer your questions right off the bat. This knowledgeability demonstrates a company-wide passion for quality.

  • Be Strategic in Your Self-Plugs

While thought leadership content is a sales tool, it should be able to stand on its own as a free service. Cluttering articles with plugs for your brand is a quick way to turn off potential customers. People instinctively know when they are being sold to, and might tune out anything that comes after.

However, that doesn’t mean you should never pitch your product or service. The key is to be intentional about how you do it.

For example, readers of a long-form piece of content likely won’t mind one or two natural segues into a description of how you can help. Those who are actively searching for a product to solve a problem will be even more appreciative of the information.

Case studies are great because they organically tout your brand without you ever having to make a pitch. Readers should reach the end of the piece impressed with your results, so much so that reaching out to you with their problems is a no-brainer.

Get More Sales with Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is simply the process of putting your expertise on display. This is critical for building trust with your prospective customers and ensuring they choose you over your competitors. The majority of decision-makers consult thought leadership content when determining who to give their business to.

Publishing guides or case studies and participating in public conversations are all ways of demonstrating your knowledge. Combining this content with a tool like LeadBoxer lets you qualify leads on autopilot.

Perhaps most important to remember is that the best thought leaders are passionate about education. They find joy and value in creating informative content that, on its own, can make peoples’ lives better. Potential customers can sense that dedication and will feel endeared by it.

Already have plenty of thought leadership content and looking for a way to make it work harder for you? Take LeadBoxer for a spin and see how it can transform your blog into a lead generation tool. Get a free two-week trial and try out LeadBoxer today.

how to use intent data to drive sales

How to Use Intent Data to Drive Sales

Lead Generation, Sales / By

If your sales team isn’t leveraging intent data when researching prospects, then you can assume there’s a huge leak in your pipeline. When it comes to identifying accounts with the highest likelihood of doing business with your company, intent data is the most important tool at your disposal. It also gives you a head start on your competitors.

This guide covers what intent data is, why it’s more valuable than other types of business-to-business (B2B) data, and step-by-step instructions for how to use it in your business. In no time, you can shore up your sales pipeline and maximize your output while minimizing your effort.

Read on or jump ahead to these topics:

What is Intent Data?

Intent data tells you whether or not an individual or account is actively seeking the kind of solution your company provides. It’s derived from things like:

  • Recently searched topics or keywords
  • Ads clicked on
  • How prospects are using social media
  • News about the company such as job changes, new investors, or new owners

Vendors gather intent data by tracking cookies and IP addresses. With intent data at your fingertips, you can figure out who might benefit from your product before they come across your brand. This can give you a head start over competitors when identifying accounts worth reaching out to.

We previously published a detailed guide on the different types of intent data and the best software for finding it. Check it out here.

Why Intent Data is More Valuable Than Other Types of Data

In addition to intent data, sales teams often rely on a few other types of B2B data during the sales process:

  • Firmographic Data: Firmographics are for companies as demographics are for people. This data describes a business’s name, how many employees it has, its location, revenue, etc.
  • Contact Data: These are the details that help you reach a particular individual within a company, like their name, phone number, email address, social media profiles, and job title.
  • Technographic Data: This tells you what software a business is already using, but it can’t necessarily tell you how often employees use it or how long the company has had a particular tool.
  • Engagement Data: Engagement describes things like how often an account is visiting your website, what links they’re clicking in your email marketing, and how long they stay on a particular page.
  • Prioritization Data: This is when you analyze all the data described above—usually with the help of artificial intelligence—and rank prospects according to how likely they are to buy. A lead score is a common example of prioritization data.

All of this data is useful. But without intent data, you’re not getting an accurate picture of which accounts are most worth your time. It’s like finishing a puzzle but missing the most important piece.

For example, your lead intelligence software might highlight an account that fits your ideal customer profile and has high engagement with your brand. What it’s not seeing is that the individual visiting your site is researching market trends or thinking about making a career change in your industry.

What Intent Data Shows

Intent data shows whether that account is actually interested in buying your product or if they’re just passing through. This prevents sales reps from wasting their time on uninterested contacts.

Intent data is also more valuable because it brings your brand to someone’s attention earlier in their buyer journey.

Your sales team might not start collecting other types of data—especially engagement data—until after someone visits your website for the first time. However, that prospect may have been researching your competitors long before ever coming across your brand. Intent data finds your ideal customers even if they don’t know who you are yet so your reps can contact them first.

How to Leverage Intent Data to Drive Sales

  • Use a Third-Party Intent Data Vendor

A third-party intent data vendor lets you see what topics and keywords accounts are searching for across thousands of sites. This gives your sales reps insight into who is potentially looking for a product or service you provide before they ever land on your page.

Popular third-party intent data vendors include Bombora and Aberdeen. With Aberdeen, you can integrate the software with Salesforce so companies expressing intent appear on the dashboard.

aberdeen intent for salesforce

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According to research from Insights For Professionals, 99 percent of businesses are using some form of intent data, so it’s crucial that your sales reps have every advantage when reaching out to accounts. Aberdeen’s alerts give them that edge.

There are some downsides to using third-party intent data. Vendors are limited by the number of sites and topics they monitor. They also can’t give context for someone’s searches.

If you aren’t using an automated pop-up as the one Aberdeen provides, there’s the chance that the data you find will be too old to act on.

  • Track Anonymous First-Party Behavior

Anonymous visitors to your site are also prospects who are early in their buyer journey. They haven’t yet filled out a lead generation form or signed up for your email list, but they are viewing pages and consuming your brand’s content.

You can identify some of these accounts for free by digging into your Google Analytics. Simply access the Network Report within the dashboard, assuming you already have Google Analytics connected to your site.

google site visitors tracking

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To access the report, begin by logging into your Google Analytics account. Click ‘Technology’ under the ‘Audience’ header, then click ‘Network’.

Adjust the data range as needed. This will show you some of the major ISPs visiting your site.

However, software like LeadBoxer takes this a step further and identifies individuals and their contact info, not just their ISP—all without requiring them to fill out a lead generation form.

leadboxer 360 view identification

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With this info, a rep can ring up a prospect and start chatting with them about some of the topics they might be interested in.

  • Analyze Context

It’s important for reps to know whether a company is undergoing job changes, gaining investors, or being bought by another business. All this news provides crucial context that can add or take away weight from your intent data.

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LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great source for some of this context. It sends you alerts about what’s going on at a company, like job changes. At a starting price of $65 per month, it’s accessible for most professionals.

EverString is another tool that gives you a 360-view of a prospect’s current situation. Not only does it track news about companies, but it also monitors 20,000 different intent signals. With a starting price of $820 per month, this solution is better for enterprise-level businesses.

  • Prioritize Accounts

Intent data on its own can’t tell you who is most worth your reps’ time. You need to analyze the data along with the company’s firmographics and other details. The software can make sense of all this data and create a ranking system or visual that makes it easy for sales pros to select their next contact.

LeadBoxer’s solution is its lead scoring tool. You decide which factors are most important when determining a lead score, then LeadBoxer crunches the numbers to calculate it.

LeadBoxer’s leadscoring tool to score intent

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A result is a number up to 100 that illustrates how likely a prospect is to buy. The higher the number, the more likely you can close a deal with them.

Reps know at a glance exactly who they need to get in contact with. This saves them time so they can devote more individualized attention to qualified prospects.

  • Personalize Your Messaging

If you’ve used the right tools and done your job well, you know what products or solutions prospects are looking for and if they’re the right fit for your business. Using all the data at your disposal, sales pros should reach out to contacts with content tailored to their needs and interests.

Nothing beats the human touch. When you use intent data to zero in on the most qualified accounts, sales reps have more time and energy to speak with contacts directly instead of sending them a templated email. Your prospects are sure to notice the difference.

Exceed Your Sales Goals With Intent Data

Leveraging intent data isn’t just about increasing the speed and efficiency of your sales team. It’s also essential for providing the highest quality experience to your potential customers. With intent data, you can anticipate their questions and provide customized content, which helps build confidence in your business.

With 99% of survey respondents claiming they already use intent data, you can’t afford to sleep on this sales strategy. If your competitors aren’t already using it in some way, they will be soon. Fortunately, several solutions work seamlessly with your existing software.

Looking for an all-in-one tool that gathers intent data as well as other types of B2B data, then analyzes it to generate a lead score? That’s where LeadBoxer can help.

LeadBoxer works out of the box and is intuitive enough that your team can test it out without much training. Get started today with a free trial.

customer journey map scaled 1

B2B Lead Generation: Customer Journey Map

Lead Generation / By

Business to business lead generation is one of the most essential parts of the sales cycle. Utilizing all resources at your disposal will help generate and convert your leads into sales. A crucial part of successful lead generation is the customer journey map.

Not only will customer journey mapping help contribute to successful lead management, but it will also help to improve your overall customer experience. B2B companies rely on customer experience for conversion rates. These strategies will help increase these rates, as well as contribute to customer satisfaction.

Overall, the successful implementation of these strategies and maps will create strong relationships with customers. This will also improve your marketing focus and accomplish your business goals. This article will cover the best practices for B2B lead generation.

Read on or jump ahead to these topics:

Distinguishing Between B2B and B2C Customers

b2b vs b2c: marketing and sales comparison

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There are two major types of business models, Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C). While both of these are centered around sales, each includes different customer journey stages.

In short, B2C companies sell directly to consumers, while B2B companies sell to other businesses. While it seems like B2C would involve more direct interaction with people, B2B sales often involve multiple people throughout the sales cycle. It is important to remember you are not selling to the company, but rather the people who work there.

Because of these differences, the customer journey maps for B2B and B2C businesses follow separate outlines. For B2B companies, the buying cycle can take 1-3 months and 80% of these cycles include up to six people.

The Basics of a Customer Journey Map

A customer journey map is a visual representation of the customer cycle from start to finish. This strategy takes into account the entirety of a customer, including pains, emotional needs, and actions. By mapping out all of these factors, B2B companies are able to better understand their target demographic and create meaningful relationships with their leads.

The ideal customer journey map looks at the complete lifecycle from the introduction to any post-sale support services, including the engagement that occurs in between. While each one will look different for unique leads, there are a few customer journey mapping tools all will include based on universal experiences.

Common Elements for Customer Journey Maps

  • Persona: A profile of the brand and its client groups.
  • Touchpoints: All possible client interactions with your brand. These may include advertising, social media, direct communication, and purchases.
  • Moments of truth: Information regarding which touchpoints impact a customer.
  • Performance Indicators: Anything that evaluates how customers are responding to touchpoints.
  • Visuals: Typically, this is either a linear or cyclical illustration of the customer cycle.

Creating The Customer Journey Map

Once you understand the concept of the map, you can begin creating for each of your customers. Begin with the prep work and go through the process one step at a time. These maps won’t seem like a huge undertaking if you have a plan of attack.

Set your objective. Determine what you want to get out of the map to make sure you are including the correct information. Clear objectives will guarantee that the map is beneficial to your sales process.

Next, define the persona and determine the touchpoints. These parts will be crucial in generating your B2B leads. Finish mapping by identifying the performance indicators. Choose ways to best identify how the customer is interacting with your brand and learn about creating sales urgency.

What is Lead Management?

Before you can start successfully using your customer journey maps, understanding lead management will ensure the conversion of leads to sales. Simply put, lead management is the process of managing throughout the buying journey.

The Lead Management Cycle

Lead management goes through five major steps to help create conversions.

  • The Lead capture: determining leads and preparing them for the cycle
  • Lead qualification: scoring the lead to find out how sales-ready it is
  • The Lead nurturing: helping push leads from expressing interest to purchasing
  • Lead routing: handing off the leads that are sales-ready
  • Lead reporting: closing the gap between marketing and sales

Important Elements of B2B Lead Management

B2B sales involve a lot of moving parts. It is important to keep track of everything in the beginning stages to have a high conversion rate later on in the cycle.

Lead management involves identifying the people in the process, including your internal team and the contacts of your leads. Determine your internal processes as well. Make sure to decide upon a centralized lead qualification process, as well as have passive marketing content ready for the early stages.

Avoid the common mistakes where lead management can fall short. For example, don’t pass off qualified leads unless they meet all of the agreed-upon criteria. Use cross-marketing for all of your lead nurturing. Make sure to view your lead management through the customer lens.

Using Your Customer Journey Maps

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Creating the map is the first step to making the most out of this sales strategy. Ideally, you will have a customer journey map for each lead. The main objective of this strategy is to properly nurture your leads to convert into sales, as well as improve the overall customer experience.

These should help with introductions, creating brand awareness, and successful education of your product to leads.

Introduction to Your Lead and Starting a Conversation

Using your gathered information, plan the introduction of your brand to the lead. This is the first part of your customer’s journey with your brand, and first impressions really matter. Determine the best first touch and be sure to document all of the following interactions.

From this point, the goal will be to build your relationship while allowing passive content (social media and paid advertising) to further educate the lead about your product.

This tactic successfully combines your customer journey map with your brand’s marketing strategy. It’s been found that laying out this plan can increase marketing to sales conversions by 25%.

Getting to Know Your Lead

Once the conversation has begun, the customer journey map plays a role in better understanding the target customer. The data collected by your map provides crucial insights into how your customer behaves and the motivations behind their actions.

To move from a lead to a qualified lead, multiple touches must happen. By being able to place these touchpoints into a specific section on the map, you can begin to see underlying needs and patterns within the customer.

This data is important for providing an excellent customer service experience. Imagine, you’re able to have an in-depth understanding of your lead’s actions. This allows you to predict their movements, choose the best times to reach out, and provide solutions to problems for them.

Customer satisfaction is key to having repeat purchases. Being able to identify the needs of a lead and provide solutions with your product will help create a meaningful relationship that benefits both sides.

Collecting Data and Measuring Conversions

collecting data and measuring conversions

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Customer journey maps do more than just provide the framework for your actions. These plans allow you to collect data and analyze it to continually improve your sales process.

These maps allow you to track the channels incoming leads originate in. By having this information, your company is able to see which tactics are worth focusing on and which areas need improvement to create engagement.

Data also allows you to trace the path each lead took before converting to a qualified lead. You will be able to see if they responded to a LinkedIn message, interacted with an Instagram post, or visited your website through a search.

By including these paths as they occur in your map, you can begin to understand the customer and utilize this information to best generate new leads. Keeping track of this data allows you to keep an eye on changing trends, so you can shift your focus to channels that provide the most engagement.

Generating New Leads and Discovering Generation Channels

A completed customer journey map provides a clear view of all the possible generation channels. Usually, undiscovered generation channels may get passed over or lumped together with existing ones. By having this map, you won’t miss any opportunities to generate leads.

Along with discovering new channels, these maps may help you generate new leads by providing new touches. All of this can be measured through your data, so you can fully understand what is the best way to create conversions and grow your customer base.

The Importance of the Customer Journey Map

Overall, this strategy should play a prominent role in B2B sales, account based selling, and marketing strategy. From the initial prep work and research of a lead to closing the deal, this map will be there to guide and collect data.

Start as soon as you capture a lead, and continue using the map throughout the customer journey stages. This will ensure that your leads are following the path to conversion.

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Using Lead Nurturing Email Content to Boost the Buyer’s Journey

Email, Lead Engagement, Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing / By

This article will discuss how the buying cycle and content mapping can guide your lead nurturing strategies to ensure that the customer journey is effortless. This article also includes a few examples of email nurturing content that can help boost the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, convert leads into sales, and help your company understand the impact of content on the buying journey.

Read on or “jump” ahead to these sections to learn more:

Content Mapping and the Buyer’s Journey Guide Lead Nurturing Strategy

Creating lead nurturing campaigns has become one of the most successful ways to transform leads into sales. Both B2B and B2C companies are familiar with the strategy. And 35% of marketers have some sort of strategy currently in place. More than that 50% of companies who have one or more successful lead nurturing campaigns have created more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost than those without lead nurturing strategies.

lead nurturing strategy

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Over 55% of marketers have said that email campaigns drive the highest ROI of any of their other lead nurturing platforms. As such, email marketing remains one of the most powerful tools for converting leads to sales, advertising, and leveraging insights to boost the customer journey experience. Using lead nurturing email content can help your brand convert leads into sales, ensuring that customers have the most personalized and helpful customer journey content.

the buying cycle diagram

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  • The Buyer’s Journey

The Buying Cycle makes up the broad stages of a customer journey. Personalizing your lead nurturing content to a given customer means ensuring that they are targeted with the most useful product or service options. The Buyer’s Journey represents each step in the process of a potential customer becoming a repeat buyer. The buyer’s journey, also known as the customer journey, is comprised of three core steps that a potential buyer may follow:

  1.  Awareness
  2.  Evaluation or Consideration
  3.  Purchase

As the buyer moves through these three steps, your brand must also supplement the buyer’s journey with email nurturing content. This kind of content is crucial for the success and follow-through of a sale from a particular buyer. And therefore, requires careful consideration and planning. Leadboxer’s platform offers a variety of tools that can aid in lead generation, and gather insights so that your company can create the most effective content for each lead.

  • Content Mapping

Content Mapping is one strategy that ensures that your brand is creating the most relevant, effective content for your target audience. The kind of content that is created for a particular content map relies on the sales cycle of your own company, as well as that of your industry. It is also crucial to create buyer personas so that your strategy is well-informed of what your clients needs.

creating buyer personas

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Defining and redefining your target audience, and aligning this audience with the correct buyer persona is crucial to ensure a successful email nurturing campaign. Creating a variety of content assets that differs from competitive brands is one sure-fire way to stand out among current and potential customers. Fostering a customer-driven mentality throughout the brand exhibits consistency and trust with customers who feel they have derived value from your brand’s content and relationship.

Aligning an Email Nurturing Campaign with the Buyer’s Journey

Targeted, customizable, and valuable email campaigns provide a high return on investment (ROI) for inbound marketing tactics. The ultimate goal of email nurturing or lead nurturing through email campaigns is to build trust with customers.

The benefits of email lead nurturing campaigns from a logistical standpoint are that while they do require planning and prepared execution, these kinds of campaigns are ultra-targeted, automated, and timely. Creating unique content for each stage of the buyer’s journey is an email campaign strategy to carry out lead nurturing that converts prospective buyers into customers.

  • Stage One: Customer Awareness of Your Brand

During the awareness stage, the focus of your lead nurturing content should be on providing information about the customer’s problems, not on your brand’s solution to those problems. Providing information that educates a potential buyer about their problem begins to foster trust in the customer and sends the message that your brand is not just simply looking for another source of business.

Certain kinds of informational content are most appropriate for this stage in the buyer’s journey, and once a client has expressed awareness and interest in learning more, your brand can begin its lead nurturing email campaign. Below is a list of some potential types of content that are appropriate for the awareness stage:

  • Informational emails: These emails serve to give customers more information about the brand. They should provide information about certain potential problems that a customer might have, based on buyer personas, and other demographics.
  • Demo Videos, social media, and tip sheets or checklists: Visual cues are crucial for any kind of marketing campaign, and can be especially useful for giving information to customers who are previewing many different products or services. Quick informational facts and product information can be compiled into a comprehensive video, infographic, or social media post.

  • Stage Two: Evaluation, Deeper Exploration, and Consideration

At this stage, a customer has identified their interest in your brand. And has possibly reached out to the sales team, marketing team, or has otherwise expressed a deeper interest in exploring your product offerings. This is the time to begin advertising your brand’s products and services. But most importantly, specifying how your products can address that customer’s pain points.

Creating lead nurturing content at this stage of the buying cycle is crucial. Because it can determine whether a customer will follow through and convert into a sale, or take their business elsewhere. The goal of this kind of content is to highlight the usefulness of your brand’s products and offerings. The more that a customer values their relationship with their brand, the better the customer journey, encouraging sales conversions from prospective leads.

Having compiled various types of content now is the time to offer more in-depth content that provides a comprehensive look at how your products or services would solve the customer’s pain points. Some appropriate content might include:

  • Educational Webinars, e-Books, and blog posts: In-depth and long-form content are effective for providing information about how your brand’s products or services can solve the customer’s pain points. Webinars provide space for customers to take in your products and services at their own pace and reach out with questions. While e-books and blog articles can offer more tailored information about specific topics, customer testimonials, and your brand’s insight into various industry problems.
  • Case studies and Whitepapers: Case studies and whitepapers are effective forms of content for customers who are looking for more data-driven and technical information about your brand’s services and products. Case studies can act as in-depth testimonials and consistently rank as one of the most effective marketing strategies. Using case studies as a unique pillar page to tie in other kinds of content builds customer trust and education.

  • Stage Three: Purchase and Sale Conversion

During the final stage in the buyer’s journey, customers are ready to take the next step and commit to a brand’s offerings and products to aid in solving their pain points. The content that is most effective at this stage requires the lead to take action and your brand should have already provided information about the lead’s problem. And how your company can best solve that issue.

That being said, there is still a variety of content that can solidify a sale in this final stage. Effective content at this stage can include:

  • A free Trial or Live Demo: Providing these kinds of interactive content is crucial to showing the customer that your product or service is going to solve their problem. Showing the lead that your brand is the best fit for them is important. A customer is more likely to invest long term when they know a product works well for them.
  • Consultation or Estimate: Gives the lead an idea of how your services would fit into their budget and company overall and should be used to educate the customer to the fullest about their situation. And help them come to a decision.
  • Coupon or Product Reviews: Past product reviews can act as “recommendations” from past customers who have experienced similar issues and may provide the lead with the needed proof that your company is the solution to their problems. Coupons or a discount on a certain product or service are another way to demonstrate to the customer that your brand cares about helping them with their problem, rather than just treating them as another sale.

All of these different types of content can and should be used in your lead nurturing email campaigns. By providing potential clients with a variety of content at each stage of the buying cycle, a qualified lead is nurtured from beginning to end and is more likely to lead to a sale.

Making sure that the right kind of content is reaching customers at the right time is important to ensure that customers don’t feel overwhelmed or spammed with content that is not useful. LeadBoxer’s platform can help you create the most effective content for boosting the buyer’s journey. For additional information, contact LeadBoxer for a free demo.

B2B lead strategy scaled 1

B2B Lead Strategy and Marketing Alignment

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Business-to-business (B2B) sales involve companies selling products and services to other businesses. B2B companies either sell items to another company so they can make their own products or meet a specific need.

The Purpose of a Good B2B Lead Strategy

In B2B sales, you’re likely to deal with several decision-makers within one company. In fact, salespeople engaged in B2B sales will need to work with an average of seven decision-makers. These people include CEOs, sales representatives, board members, and those in the financial and legal departments.

Selling to a group of people is different than pitching to an individual as in business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. The need to successfully make a pitch to individuals with varying perspectives differentiates B2B lead strategy from that required for B2C sales.

bidfood

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Elements of an Effective B2B Lead Strategy

Relationship building is essential to both B2B and B2C lead strategies but takes on increased importance in the B2B arena. Here are some elements of a successful business-to-business lead sales and marketing strategy:

  • Know Your Prospects

Researching those you’re selling your product or service to will improve your chance of a successful transaction. Keep in mind, not every business prospect is a good fit. If you know this beforehand, you’ll avoid wasting time and energy that could be spent on quality leads.

  • Focus on Building Relationships

Typically, the B2B sales and relationship-building processes take more time in comparison to B2C. In B2B, businesses lose 45-50% of their clients over five years, which is significant and must be addressed.

To avoid losing B2B prospects, building and maintaining long-term relationships through a strong lead nurturing strategy is encouraged. B2B sales bring in more revenue than B2C sales as you’re dealing with companies, not individual consumers. When a B2B client is lost, thousands, not hundreds of dollars can disappear.

  • Build an Effective Website

Most B2B leads will do thorough research before making a purchasing decision. They will examine your website and social media profiles. Make sure these look professional, and that your website is easy to navigate and clearly states your company mission, background, and includes testimonials from satisfied clients.

  • Establish a Social Media Presence

Having a powerful social media presence is beneficial in many ways. It can offer your sales and marketing departments the following advantages:

  • Insight into your competitors and prospects
  • An avenue to establish credibility
  • A means for building trust with leads and buyers
  • Opportunities to reach out to prospects and buyers
  •  Allows social selling
  • Helps share content

  • Use Email Marketing

According to Marketing Sherpa, 64% of respondents believe email marketing delivers the best return on investment. Email marketing is effective in cultivating relationships with business prospects and in nurturing them through the sales funnel.

email marketing ROI

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The Importance of Sales and Marketing Alignment

As mentioned previously, relationships are a crucial element in B2B sales. Everything in your B2B strategy should revolve around building long-term relationships with business prospects. A strong business-to-business leads strategy will involve both the sales and marketing teams.

Your organization will appear more credible and trustworthy when the marketing and sales teams work together. Companies with a B2B strategy that features sales and marketing alignment are more successful in nurturing prospects into buyers.

Throughout the marketing and sales processes, both departments work together to provide a cohesive, smooth experience for prospects. Marketing produces valuable content at each stage of the funnel while sales provides personal and prompt lead follow-up. Both sales and marketing must do all they can to serve, nurture, and build relationships with each lead.

Market Alignment Goals

Your marketing message plays a big role in the success of your company’s B2B sales. Market alignment is defined as “the process of creating a marketing message that is appropriately aligned, or in sync, with the target audience the message is intended to persuade.” The goal of your market alignment is to deliver the right message at the right time to the right prospects.

This is achieved when you focus on the buyer’s needs rather than on emphasizing how good your company,  products, and services are. Knowing your prospects, their pain points, and how your services and products can help, builds trust and a rapport. The early relationship-building formed by market alignment messaging improves the chances of a sale.

To fully understand which prospects your marketing department should be targeting, regular collaboration with the sales team is required. When marketing and sales are properly aligned, customer-centric messaging is incorporated into each sales funnel stage. Marketing can introduce market alignment messaging into content and sales can include it in lead follow-up and nurturing initiatives.

market alignment success

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Sales and Marketing Misalignment Issues

When sales and marketing aren’t on the same page problems ensue. Beyond the miscommunication and contradictory messaging issues that are bound to occur, misalignment can negatively affect the buyer’s journey. This lack of cohesiveness makes it more difficult to convert B2B leads into paying customers.

  • Issue #1: Poor Marketing Qualified Leads

A common marketing and sales misalignment issue is the failure to produce marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales. As a result, the sales team is stuck with poor prospects that do not respond to lead nurturing efforts. In turn, these leads fail to convert into paying customers.

  • Issue #2: Lack of Lead Follow-Up and Nurturing

Whether prospects are qualified or not, marketers can get frustrated at sales for not following up and nurturing the leads they are given. Once the marketing department hands off prospects to sales,  its nurturing endeavors may end.

  • Issue #3: Poor Marketing to Sales Handoff

When the sales and marketing teams use different lead qualification requirements, the prospect handoff can cause problems. When prospective buyers are handed off from marketing to sales, mixed messaging can occur. Leads are quick to notice the inconsistency and may be hesitant to move forward along the sales funnel.

  • Issue #4: Lack of ROI Attributed to Marketing

In some cases, marketers don’t know how their lead generation impacts the company’s return on investment (ROI). This can alienate the marketing team and lower the incentive and motivation for your marketers to aggressively seek the new leads your company needs.

Strategies for Meeting Your Marketing Goals

Common B2B marketing goals include producing qualified leads for your sales team, creating valuable, targeted content, and building relationships with buyers. Successfully completing these tasks plays an essential role in bringing awareness to your brand, products, and services. These goals are more attainable when they are S.M.A.R.T goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely).

Here are some B2B marketing goal strategies to try:

  • Establish MQLs Criteria: Work with your sales team to create uniform marketing qualified leads criteria. Only prospects that meet all of these established conditions should be referred to sales for nurturing.
  • Track Marketing ROI Contribution: Inform your marketers of how their lead generation efforts have directly contributed to the company’s ROI.
  • Involve Marketers in the Sales Process: Create opportunities for your marketers to sit in on sales calls and learn the overall selling process.
  • Utilize Marketing Automation Tools: Synchronize your company’s email and scheduling software between sales and marketing. Using the same program, a singular marketing message can be carried through in follow-ups by the sales team.
  • Create Unique Content for Each Step of the Buyer’s Journey: Marketers can create targeted content using buyer data, marketing goals, buyer personas, and lead generation strategies. The diversity of content is geared toward prospects in each stage of the sales funnel.

smart goals template

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  • Marketing Content

The foundation of your content marketing strategy should be centered around your buyers’ pain points and your company’s unique selling proposition. B2B leads will be more trusting of a company that demonstrates how it is focused on them and the ways it can help them to succeed. Referencing your company’s unique value proposition will make you stand out from your competitors.

Successful marketers build long-term relationships with B2B prospects, generate qualified leads, and help convert those leads into paying buyers. Throughout the buyer’s journey, there are opportunities to meet these marketing goals through content. Your content needs to build prospect trust, establish and reinforce brand authority, and resolve lead queries and concerns.

Your marketing content should provide valuable information to the right prospects, at the right time. The alignment of your marketing message should be adopted by your sales team when they interact with leads. Knowledge of the sales process will help form marketing content for each stage of the sales funnel.

Here are things to keep in mind when building relationships with B2B leads through content marketing:

  • Create a content library to guide prospects through the buyer journey
  • Share the content library with your sales department
  • Use gated content
  • Your content is for informing and educating, not selling
  • Keep the buyer at the center of your messaging
  • Use a variety of content pieces

To attract buyers, there must be sales and marketing alignment. Your market alignment messaging needs to be buyer-centered. There are many opportunities throughout the sales funnel to effectively use content marketing to reach prospects along the buyer’s journey.

Without a cohesive B2B lead strategy and sales and marketing alignment, you risk losing prospects. When your messaging is off, you may get unqualified leads.

LeadBoxer’s sales lead scoring platform enables you to correctly identify the best business-to-business buyers.

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What is IPv6 and Why Does it Matter?

Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing / By

Don’t be scared of the technical jargon surrounding Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). If lead generation is a major component of your company’s marketing plan, then learning about the latest version of the Internet is a must.

Once you understand what IPv6 is, why it’s important to your business, and how to leverage it, you’ll be able to identify and nurture prospects more effectively and responsibly than you currently do. To learn more, read on or jump ahead to these sections:

What is IPv6?

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IP), which is the system for identifying and connecting devices across the Internet. In essence, your device’s IP address is a series of numbers that tell the Internet where to send emails, articles or other content you want to access.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) started developing IPv6 in 1998 in preparation for the inevitable exhaustion of IP addresses provided by Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). Under IPv4, IP addresses are only 32 bits. A typical IPv4 address looks like this:

typical IPv4 address

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There are only about 4 billion possible 32-bit IP addresses available, a limit the world has long since hit. To accommodate the growing number of devices connecting to the Internet, IP addresses created by IPv6 are 128 bits. A typical IPv6 address looks like this:

typical IPv6 address

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With IPv6, there are approximately 3.4×1038 addresses available, or 340 undecillion addresses. Simply put, the world will never run out of IP addresses under IPv6.

Pros and Cons of IPv6 for Your Business

Hypothetically, IPv6 addresses can make it easier for marketing and sales teams to track and nurture leads. In reality, there are a few technical factors that complicate matters.

  • Pro: Better At Identifying Individual Devices

IPv6 addresses are potentially capable of acting as an identifier for each connected device on the planet, which would allow marketers to refine their targeting.

With IPv4, addresses typically describe a group of devices that share a network. For example, a laptop, tablet, mobile phone, and connected TV that belong to a family might be assigned a single IPv4 address. If there are multiple people within that household, marketers are limited in how well they can target a particular individual across devices.

With IPv6, the nearly infinite number of addresses theoretically makes it possible to assign a unique address to each device. Marketers could then associate an address with an individual as opposed to a household, thus making it easier to target that person whether they’re on their phone or laptop. Not only could this help increase conversion rates and customer experiences, but it could also make analytics more accurate.

While this sounds great in theory, there are a few considerations.

  • Con: Less Stable Tracking Technique

Not every device currently uses IPv6. In fact, IPv4 and IPv6 will likely be in use simultaneously for many years.

As of January 2021, only about 33% of people around the world who access Google have an IPv6 address. In the U.S., IPv6 adoption is just above 44%.

IPv6 adoption stats in USA

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This can create confusion for marketers. For example, a tablet within a household might have an IPv6 address while other devices connected to the same network might share an IPv4 address. To marketers, this would make it appear as though those devices came from two different households.

  • Con: Privacy Issues

Since IPv6 addresses can describe a unique device, you could make the argument that they can identify an individual better than IPv4 addresses. This would classify IPv6 addresses as personal information under privacy laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

IP addresses were never meant to be a tool for marketers or advertisers, which is why the GDPR regulates how companies can use them. However, as you’ll later see, there are ways to leverage IPv6’s benefits while respecting your customers’ privacy.

How to Take Advantage of IPv6 in Your Business

Don’t let IPv6’s shortcomings prevent you from leveraging this new technology. With the right software and strategies, you can identify individual leads and determine how likely they are to buy from your business.

  • Use an IPv6 Tracker

There are countless tools out there that help you gather data about leads so you can better target and nurture them. For example, you could collect info about prospects through a sign-up form like this one:

sign-up form to collect info about prospects

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The data would then be sent to your lead intelligence software or customer relationship management (CRM) tool for your marketing and sales teams to review. With this knowledge in hand, employees have a better idea of who might be interested in your company’s product or service.

But what if a visitor to your site doesn’t fill out a form? This doesn’t mean they aren’t a good lead for your business. It also doesn’t prevent you from figuring out who are they or how to contact them.

Lead intelligence software like LeadBoxer can track and do reverse lookups on IPv6 addresses. You can see who is visiting your site, what company they work for, and even what their contact info is, all based on their IP address.

track IPv6 addresses with Leadboxer

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Best of all, this capability works right out of the box, so you can start capturing lead data on autopilot.

  • Create Personalized Customer Experiences

Want to make a stellar first impression? Tailor your website so that it’s even more relevant to prospective customers. You can do this by optimizing pages with content that automatically adjusts based on a visitor’s IP address.

This doesn’t require a ton of leg work or crafting personalized pages from scratch. Consider this example from Quicksprout:

Quicksprout personalized pages

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A single element within the copy changes depending upon the visitor’s geographic location. In this case, it’s Corpus Christi. This small detail instantly catches the user’s eye and increases the likelihood that they’ll answer the call to action.

  • Assess “Hot” Prospects

Leadscoring is the process of assigning a prospect a number between one and 100. The number reflects how likely the lead is to buy from your company. The higher the number, the better the prospect. This saves your sales team time by showing them who they should focus their attention on.

Tracking leads via IP addresses can increase the accuracy of a lead score. When you track a particular address, it’s easy to know which pages a prospect has visited or how much time they’ve spent on your site, which is essential for calculating a lead score.

LeadBoxer’s leadscoring tool

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LeadBoxer’s leadscoring tool is completely customizable. You decide which factors are most relevant to your team and how much weight they carry.

  • Update Your Privacy Statement

If you intend to use IP addresses in your lead generation efforts, there are a few legal considerations to keep in mind. In order to be GDPR compliant, companies must include a privacy policy on their website that states:

  • What type of information the site collects
  • Why this data is collected
  • How it’s processed, like where it’s stored and for how long
  • What steps you take to keep the info secure

There should also be clear, easy-to-follow instructions for visitors who want their personal information removed or not collected in the first place.

If you use lead intelligence software like LeadBoxer, you’ll need to add a disclosure about the product. Click here for paragraphs that you can copy and paste into your privacy policy.

For a more in-depth look at how to be GDPR compliant, check out this guide.

  • Mask IP Addresses

If you don’t want to disclose the use of LeadBoxer in your privacy policy, you can always enable IP address masking within the software. This feature keeps IPv4 and IPv6 addresses anonymous in the sense that the software won’t record the addresses onto a disk and store them. However, LeadBoxer can continue to identify companies, geographic locations, and other generic data points and be GDPR compliant.

IP masking with LeadBoxer is easy. Simply go to the datasets overview, click the settings icon, then tick the box labeled Enable Ip Masking.

IP address masking with Leadboxer

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IP masking with LeadBoxer

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Final Thoughts: Start Leveraging IPv6 Now

Of all the technological advancements that affect marketing and sales teams, IPv6 is perhaps the most important one to understand and prepare for. Adoption is ongoing and IPv6 will likely never be surpassed in our lifetime. In other words, resistance is futile.

Fortunately, there are several advantages to using IP addresses in your business. Tracking IPv6 addresses can give you a detailed picture of who is visiting your site and how engaged they are as a prospect. There are also several lead intelligence tools, such as LeadBoxer, that are already equipped with IPv6 address-monitoring capabilities.

There are some downsides to IPv6, such as privacy infringement. LeadBoxer has an answer for that, too. The IP masking feature makes it easy to stay GDPR-compliant, all without sacrificing any of the benefits of address-tracking, like identifying companies or geographic location.

Want to see for yourself? Get in touch with LeadBoxer and start a free trial today.

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Outlook Email Tracking Plugin: Customer Data Integration (CDI)

Email, Tools / By

Tracking the online behavior of customers and prospects is becoming increasingly important. This helps to understand who’s visiting a website, why they’re there, and how the organization can contact them. While understanding website behavior is vital, tracking emails is also essential. That is where an email tracking plugin comes into play. These tools can attach to a user’s email provider and track who opens a message, when they do so, and much more. LeadBoxer is happy to introduce their new, sophisticated Outlook email tracking plugin. Before giving it a try, it is important to understand how it works and the benefits it provides for organizations.

Keep reading, or use the following links to “jump” ahead:

How Does the Outlook Email Tracking Add-In Work?

The LeadBoxer Outlook plugin is a feature that gives organizations better control of their email management process.

LeadBoxer outlook plugin

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The picture above is an example of how the tracking details appear in an Outlook account. The user can clearly see what email was opened, the time it was seen, and how many people viewed it.

This advanced tool can easily be downloaded to an Outlook account, giving instant access for improving lead generation efforts. That is not all; this sophisticated plugin also provides the following:

  • Link Tracking

Aside from tracking who opens emails and when the LeadBoxer Outlook plugin also tracks link behavior. The tool understands what links are clicked on, allowing a business to learn more about its customers or prospects.

When an email link is clicked, users of the plugin are able to see which exact link was chosen. This may help to paint a clearer picture of the customer’s needs.

  • Auto-On or Off Capabilities

Users may wish to employ the Outlook email tracking plugin only at certain times. Luckily, this advanced tool allows teams to do this with ease.

Users can simply switch the plugin on or off, giving them complete control. Users can also schedule the add-in feature to automatically turn on or off at set times. This customization is very convenient and can make an organization much more efficient.

  • Automatic Lead Scoring

While the Outlook plugin brings many benefits, it also effectively integrates with Leadboxer’s other valuable tools. When a customer or prospect opens an email, LeadBoxer will determine if that user is a qualified lead. If they are, LeadBoxer will give them a lead score.

This Outlook email tracking add-in helps sales teams understand more about their customers and where they are in the sales funnel. It can help organizations learn more about the user’s interests, making it possible to strategically target prospects for further engagement.

  • Website Activity

Those who integrate this plugin also have the ability to see the website behavior of their email users. When someone clicks on an email link, it will take them to the organization’s website. This advanced tool then tracks everything the user does on the site, providing many valuable insights.

What is even more beneficial is that LeadBoxer will remember the website and email behavior over long periods of time.

For example, let’s say someone clicks on an email link and looks at a few site pages. Years later, they go to that same website for more browsing. LeadBoxer will remember every detail of the online behavior from both instances.

The lead generation platform will then use those valuable insights to determine qualified leads and understand more about customers. If a user ever returns back to the same website, LeadBoxer will track every move. This can provide extremely valuable analytics to help power lead generation efforts.

Email Tracking Pixel

This Outlook plugin solution is all made possible thanks to something called an email tracking pixel. To learn more about how these can help lead generation efforts, read this post from LeadBoxer: How to Use an Email Tracking Pixel to Identify Sales Leads.

A tracking pixel usually comes in the form of a 1 pixel-by-1 pixel transparent image. This is then placed in the header, body, or footer of an email. When an email that contains the image is opened, the tracking pixel will load.

After the email has been seen, a message is sent to the server that indicates the action taken by the recipient. This is exactly how the process works for the LeadBoxer Outlook add-in. When the plugin is integrated, these tracking pixels are placed in every single email sent to customers.

how email open tracking works

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Benefits of Email Tracking

While estimates show there are currently 3.9 billion daily email users worldwide, having an effective email marketing strategy is imperative. As technology has advanced greatly over the years, email tracking services are becoming more popular.

Here are a few benefits of utilizing an email tracking solution:

  • Provides Context

Email tracking provides users with many insights regarding their customers and prospects. These can be used to boost outreach efforts and cater to the specific needs of the user. Learning which emails are opened, what’s clicked on, and how the user maneuvers around a site can provide tons of useful insights.

One example of this involves a customer that opens up an email multiple times in one day. In this case, the organization may reach out to this user to see if they need any assistance. Chances are, they may be highly interested in buying a product or learning more.

  • Saves Time

Some email users get annoyed if a business continues to send them emails, even if they have never opened up a single one. Email tracking allows organizations to better understand how successful their emails really are.

If a recipient did not open up the first, chances are they will not view the follow-up emails. When email tracking is used, businesses can make smarter decisions about who should be on their email list. These details can also help businesses determine if changes should be made in their email development process.

  • Team Benefits

The LeadBoxer Outlook plugin allows teams to work smarter than they ever have before. Instead of blindly sending emails to potential customers, this tool helps specify the best prospects to target.

A team within an organization may spend countless resources trying to reach potential customers. When they are unsuccessful, it can be difficult to understand the best course of action moving forward.

When email tracking software is integrated within a team, it provides more clarity on the success or failure of the group’s email strategy. If there is room for improvement, changes can be made to gain better results.

How Email Tracking Impacts Lead Generation

Lead generation is a hot topic for businesses around the globe. However, many businesses struggle to have the right strategy in place. That’s when leads drop and profits shrink.

Email tracking is geared towards powering lead generation efforts. It does this by providing valuable data for organizations to make faster and smarter decisions.

The LeadBoxer Outlook plugin offers a wide variety of details once a customer or prospect opens up an email.

detailed metrics of leadboxer outlook plugin

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Once a user opens up an email, details will then be displayed, similar to the graphic shown above. The information populated may include:

With all of this data at the fingertips of the user, targeting customers or prospects becomes that much easier. Businesses can use these detailed metrics to build ads, adjust marketing campaigns, and execute lead generation strategies.

  • Unlimited Emails

While some email tracking solutions limit the number of emails that can be tracked, that is not the case with LeadBoxer. Its Outlook plugin enables users to utilize this feature on each and every email they send. This means ample opportunities to gain more leads.

  • Unlimited Users

LeadBoxer’s email tracking Outlook solution provides users with an unlimited number of accounts. Whether an organization has two employees or two hundred, each and every person can utilize this plugin. This feature can also help drive more leads.

Installing the Outlook Plugin

LeadBoxer has made it extremely easy to integrate their email tracking plugin into an Outlook account.

To take advantage of this feature, be sure to follow these steps:

  1. Open Outlook, then download and install the add-in
  2. Restart the Outlook app, then click on the setting symbol
  3. Find your LeadBoxer dataset ID, then copy and paste it into the field that populates

Note: This number can be found in your signup email

how to integrate email tracking plugin into outlook

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Next, compose an email as you normally would, then click on the track email icon located near the top of the screen.

how to enable email tracking in outlook

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While LeadBoxer offers an exceptional email tracking plugin, they also provide many other incredible tools to help organizations succeed. Schedule a demo with LeadBoxer today to find the high-quality leads that drive business growth.

Customer Engagement Strategies for Millennials

Lead Engagement, Lead Nurturing / By

Most organizations strive to engage with their customers at a high level. However, engagement with the right audience at the right time can be difficult to achieve. When assessing who to target in your lead generation efforts, it’s important to find the right demographic best suited for your offerings. While an organization may target a wide variety of people, Millennials are currently a common demographic to approach. In order to effectively develop and cultivate leads, it’s best to understand a few key customer engagement strategies for Millennials.

Keep reading or use the following links to “jump” ahead:

Customer Engagement Strategies for Millennials

When comparing millennials to other generations like Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z, there are many differences to consider.

Millennials operate very differently when making purchase decisions. For example, a Baby Boomer may call a retailer while a Millennial would rather surf the web before calling. Due to the constant changes in how this demographic operates, it’s vital to stay updated on the following customer engagement strategies to boost engagement and generate leads.

Complete a Marketplace Analysis

To effectively target Millennials, it’s important to understand how this audience behaves. The first step in learning more about this demographic involves completing a marketplace analysis.

  • What is Marketplace Analysis?

A marketplace analysis dives deeper into the behaviors and patterns of a target audience. Additionally, it involves an assessment of the industry, competitors, and other market variables. The process involves the following three elements:

  • Customer Analysis: Understanding more about the needs and wants of the customer in order to provide relevant offerings.
  • Competitors Analysis: Reviewing competitors to see how your organization can improve.
  • Partner Analysis: Understanding how partners or suppliers help to achieve goals.

As the visual below demonstrates, there are several factors used to complete an effective marketplace analysis. The process involves both internal and external elements.

effective marketplace analysis

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By completing a marketplace analysis, organizations can better understand the buyer landscape for Millennials. However, effectual customer engagement strategies for Millennials rely on the ability to appeal to this generation by understanding the typical buyer journey of this audience.

Understand the Modern B2B Buyer Journey

It turns out that more and more Millennials are making key B2B buying decisions. In fact, a 2018 survey showed that 13% of Millennials are decision-makers in B2B purchasing. The same survey showed that 28% of them help to influence purchasing decisions within their organizations.

As these numbers are relatively low, we expect those percentages to continue to grow. We learned in 2015 that Millennials are now considered the largest generation in the workforce, passing Boomers.

So, what’s the best forward-thinking approach to increase engagement with Millennials and create more leads? It involves understanding more about the modern B2B buyer journey.

The Millennial buyer journey looks different compared to other generations. According to HIPB2B, 86% of millennials prefer to not engage with sales until the middle of the buying process. Additionally, 67% of the buyer’s journey is now completed in a digital format.

Those statistics show that Millennials will review your website and content before making a purchase decision. Other generations may make a decision much sooner in the process.

  • Privacy

As Millennials enjoy browsing through a website until they decide to make a purchase decision, they don’t like to be pressured. If they open your emails or download something on your site, experts suggest not calling them right away.

While calling them may sound like the most practical decision for your lead generation efforts, it can make them feel pressured. Millennials prefer to stay behind a screen. It’s best to be patient and focus on a lead-nurturing approach.

cell phone habits graphic

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As the graphic demonstrates, Millennials are far more inclined to text rather than call. As you’re looking to increase customer engagement with this demographic, these findings are important to consider.

  • Sending Nurture Messages

Instead of pressing this generation into a phone call, sending lead nurturing messages is encouraged. Some common types of nurture messages include:

  • An introduction or greeting
  • Information about a product or service
  • Directions
  • Call-to-action
  • Availability hours

While GenXers and Boomers may prefer to speak with a sales agent about a product or service, Millennials prefer doing research on their own before making a call.

Know Where Millennials Go for Information

Another customer engagement strategy for millennials involves finding where they get their information. It’s vital to understand how they operate online and what information they use to make purchase decisions.

Millennials use some of the less traditional B2B sources to find their info. According to MarketingSherpa, 38% of Millennials rely on industry analysis when making decisions about what B2B products/services to purchase or recommend to others. 36% rely on in-person meetings with vendors, while 33% of Millennials gather information from a vendor’s website.

  • Building Trust

Why do you think Millennials rely on an industry analysis when making B2B purchase decisions? For the most part, it involves trust.

Industry-analysis content gives your brand third-party validation that creates trust in the eyes of the buyer. If a Millennial is able to see that you’re a reputable brand in the industry, they are more likely to become a high-quality lead.

Provide a Bargain

As every adult today has lived through some type of great recession or depression, we all understand the value of a dollar. In fact, the majority of generations are still experiencing the impact of the 2008 recession.

That could point to the fact that Millennials are constantly looking for a good deal. According to MediaPost, 48% of Millennials used online coupons in 2016. That was more than both Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

While Millennials may not be using their own budget when buying something, these B2B buyers are still bargain shoppers.

To cultivate as many leads as possible, it’s encouraged to send out coupons to your entire audience. As everyone enjoys saving money, providing coupons can be a driving force for increasing conversion for your Millennial shoppers.

Properly Segment Content

Another smart tactic is to ensure your content is segmented effectively. Content segmentation involves positioning your website to effectively convert visitors into buyers. Due to how differently Millennials operate online, it’s important to know which content segmentation strategies work best for this demographic.

The process starts by first assessing what you see working for each age group. Through A/B testing and optimization, organizations can determine what types of content these audiences enjoy. Following that step, you’ll then want to target those generational demographics based on your findings.

As the graphic below indicates, four key areas must be understood to properly segment content. Given how different age groups are more responsive to specific types of content, understanding the proper segmentation process can allow you to make smarter, more relevant decisions with your messaging.

market segmentation graphic

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Develop Personalized Mobile Messaging

According to The Future of Customer Engagement and Experience, personalized mobile messaging is what drives conversions. These messages are more relevant when received via text, and these messages receive higher open rates compared to other mobile marketing tactics. Furthermore, mobile messaging boosts customer loyalty.

While mobile messaging is a driving force for millennials, it also provides these benefits for retailers:

  • SMS works on any device and any network
  • Requires no apps to download
  • Relatively inexpensive
  • Easy to implement
  • Safe and secure
  • A simple source of communication
  • Cost-effective

With the abundance of digital services available today, it’s easy for retailers to start mobile engagement strategies to boost lead generation. Areas such as shipping and account alerts are easy places to start. From there, an organization may choose to promote personalized marketing offers or even a loyalty program.

Another part of your personalized mobile engagement strategy could include two-way communications with customer service, personalized shopping assistance, and surveys and polls that operate in real-time.

  • Intelligent Notification Platforms

Organizations may choose to utilize intelligent notification platforms in their mobile messaging strategy. These are used to improve service quality for the customer. Without it, users may receive the wrong messages on the wrong devices.

These platforms help to ensure the following:

  • Messages reach the right user on the right device
  • Messages align with objectives
  • Interactions are private, safe, and secure
  • Messaging is reliable
  • Interactions build customer loyalty
  • Messaging increases engagement

Utilize Data Resources

Understanding more about Millennials involves understanding more about the data at your disposal. Luckily, there are many avenues to find valuable data insights regarding how the Millennial audience behaves online.

Today, it’s even possible to get near-real-time anonymized mobile data aggregated from millions of mobile users from across the world.

To provide the most relevant and timely messaging, you should leverage internal and external data sources and intelligent notification platforms as well as account based selling if it fits. This can ensure your organization has the most relevant, valuable data to drive your lead cultivation efforts. It can also ensure the right content is delivered to the right audience at the right time.

Boosting customer engagement with Millennials involves utilizing high-quality lead management software. Contact LeadBoxer today to learn more about its sophisticated lead and customer data platform.

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Customer Data Security: What You Need to Know and How LeadBoxer Does it Better

Data-Driven analysis, Tools / By

“We guarantee 100% privacy. Your information will not be shared.” All businesses pursuing leads through emails try to reassure their clients of the security of their email services. However, customer data security is not only different from data privacy. It’s also more complex as it involves the collection and processing of data along with its protection from unauthorized sources.

Read on to learn about data collection and customer data security, why they are necessary, and how LeadBoxer is helping you keep your customers’ data secure or “jump ahead” to the following subtopics:

data privacy vs securitySource

Lead Generation and Data Collection

Lead generation is an integral part of the sales process, and identifying quality leads is important. LeadBoxer has been using data-driven lead qualification for a number of years.

By collecting and analyzing tracking data from websites and emails, platforms such as LeadBoxer help you generate, identify, and follow up on promising leads by providing you with an individual lead score. This method of quantifying makes it much easier for you to evaluate the quality of leads.

Modern email marketing is automated with the help of tools that can be integrated with major platforms such as Gmail and Outlook. Tools such as a tracking pixel may be used to uncover data on who has opened your emails, or clicked on a link, or started drafting a reply.

email marketing statistics on customersSource

Some popular email tracking plugins compatible with Outlook include those provided by HubSpot, ContactMonkey, SalesHandy, and Bananatag. LeadBoxer has integrated a new Outlook email tracking add-in to further enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your lead generation process.

Data may also be collected via other means, such as social media profiles, particularly LinkedIn. Intent data, including topic data and context data, is a useful up-and-coming indicator of a potential lead. Leads generally respond favorably to the first ones to approach them in a timely manner. That’s why LeadBoxer’s data collection and analysis tools are built for speed.

While data is not infallible, it highlights major trends and subsets in your potential leads. It also showcases which parts of your service are being more frequently used, which calls to action (CTAs) are working well, and which marketing strategies are most productive. In the modern, data-driven world, lead generation is more reliant on data collection than ever before.

With highly detailed data being collected on an unprecedented scale, customer data security is more important now than ever before.

layers of protection from ADP

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What is Customer Data Security and Why is it Necessary?

Customer data security is the process of securing data against all forms of unauthorized access and corruption. This is done using a variety of techniques, including encryption, secure cloud storage, designated channels for data transfer, and more. In the case of email security, databases containing email tracking and other information are secured to prevent data breaches.

facts about cyber security and vulnerability

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When a client hears the word “tracking”’ or approves of their data being collected and used by a business, they worry that their sensitive information might fall into the wrong hands. That’s because data can be misused in many ways.

If email data is made public, phishing and spamming agencies will begin harassing clients. Potentially even widening the data breach. Multiple online accounts can be compromised, intellectual property can be stolen or misappropriated. Or worse, data can be sold to the darker sides of society.

In order to prevent a data breach—which would lead to these scenarios—data security is necessary.

When talking about the importance of customer data security, trust is another aspect to consider. The entire sales process is based on building brand awareness and trust. A breach of security would cause a breach of trust, greatly hampering your brand image. In a study conducted by IBM in 2018, 78% of respondents in the US said a company’s ability to keep their data private was “extremely important.” You can also read about brand persona more.

Lastly, leaked data may be used by competitors in order to steal your clients, reversing all your hard work. Needless to say, data security is critical to the success of a data-reliant lead generation system.

Where Do Businesses Go Wrong?

  • Not Keeping Track of Access Permissions

Instances of multiple access permissions can cause confusion within an organization. In cases where employee turnover is high, former employees may still have access to data. All databases should be strictly monitored to reconfirm who has access. Access redundancy should be eliminated.

  • Not Being Aware of Internal Threats

In many cases, internal stakeholders may “betray” the company by initiating a data leak. It is important for an organization to assess and monitor those potential threats to customer data security. It is also important to educate all internal stakeholders about safe operating procedures, ensuring the security of emails, and the importance of keeping company and client data secure.

  • Not Knowing How to Respond to a Data Breach

Many organizations do not have the knowledge or experience to effectively react to a data breach. This aggravates the issue: it leaves data compromised for a longer period of time. And encourages data thieves to expose much more data than would normally be possible, painting the organization in a poor light.

In the event of a data breach:

  • Identify the source and the extent of the breach. When you have a proper security log, this task and improving security for the future will become easier.
  • Alert your breach task force so they begin work on containing the breach.
  • Test to ensure that the temporary fix is completely secure, and implement the fix on any similarly vulnerable systems.
  • Inform all concerned authorities and affected customers of the breach. Make sure you have complied with all applicable laws in this regard.
  • Work to recover customer trust and reduce the economic impact of the breach.

  • Not Accounting for Physical Factors

Software is not the only risk factor for data security. Companies should make sure that all hardware is protected against risks such as side-channel and Trojan attacks. They should further ensure that hardware is protected against environmental and physical hazards, to prevent data loss and corruption.

  • Not Caring or Knowing Enough About Customer Data Security

Hackers and others with malicious intent often pick out “easy” targets for attacks. When an organization doesn’t put in proper safeguards to protect customer data security, there may be backdoors into your network. Remove them as soon as possible.

Organizations should routinely scan all systems for malware that may create such weaknesses, and remove them. They should also routinely check for improper configurations and corrupted files that may create weaknesses in your network. It is also important to educate employees so that user errors are kept to a minimum.

Organizations with poor data security make themselves more vulnerable to multiple/consecutive attacks. Because hackers are more aware of the weaknesses in the system, and how to exploit them.

What are Good Personal Data Security Practices?

  • Maintaining Strong Passwords

Weak passwords are hackable, providing those with malicious intent an entry into the system. A strong password should include lowercase and uppercase letters, at least one numeral, and at least one permissible special character. Take care not to repeat passwords (often). If you have a poor memory or too many passwords, use a password manager.

  • Educate Yourself (and Others)

Make sure to know the best customer data security practices, to use them. And to help others in your professional network, particularly colleagues, with the process. It will help you and your organization.

  • Be Conscientious

Integrate good data practices into your daily life! Use a virtual private network (VPN) when possible. Don’t share secure data without checking for HTTPS or a security certificate. Don’t share sensitive information over public networks. And don’t leave yourself logged in to online accounts.

How LeadBoxer is Keeping Client Data Secure

  • GDPR Compliance

LeadBoxer understands the potential risks of a data breach, and endeavors to keep your clients’ data secure. In accordance with this ideal, LeadBoxer’s lead generation process is fully GDPR compliant. GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, is a regulation agreed upon by the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission. It applies to all companies who market to—and therefore collect the data of—citizens of the European Union, irrespective of where the company is based.

GDPR infographic on one year of work

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The regulation is stringent, ensuring that companies are transparent in their data privacy policies, and do their best to maintain data security. According to a 2018 survey by DMA, 62% of UK respondents felt more comfortable sharing their data once these laws were in place. General public response to the regulation is positive, and LeadBoxer’s compliance reflects a commitment to data and email security.

  • Privacy Policy

LeadBoxer’s privacy policy is GDPR-compliant and highly transparent. Steps we take to ensure the security of all data, irrespective of origin, or function. While data security and privacy are not the same, LeadBoxer is striving to ensure that data security and data privacy are both ironclads.

LeadBoxer provides a digitally secure, automated solution for data-based lead generation. Security of emails ensures that you are getting genuine clients and that your clients are protected. Alongside providing a secure system for your sales team, LeadBoxer is committed to maintaining customer data security and email security for you and your prospects.

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How to Implement a Customer Engagement Strategy With Customer Engagement Trends

Lead Engagement, Lead Generation / By

When comparing interest in customer engagement over the last 15 years we see a steady increase in search volume. It’s no wonder, with software companies constantly looking for new ways to view and use data to improve customer engagement strategies and customer experience.

We want to help guide professionals through this ever-changing journey. That is why we put together these trends and strategy tips to help improve your company’s customer engagement strategy through the use of emerging technologies.

Read on or jump ahead to a section:

What Is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement is the process of interacting with your customers through the use of different channels and mediums. By connecting with your clients this way you’re strengthening and improving your relationship with them.

Most companies consider the starting point for the customer engagement process as the first interaction a potential customer has had with your business. The process continues even after you have made a sale.

Social media tends to be one of the most popular ways for brands to directly interact with their customers. When done right, it has great benefits. In fact, 71% of people who have a good experience with a brand on social media are likely to refer others to that business.

One way companies continue to create personalized engagement is through conversation in the comments section of social media ads and posts. Companies that do this offer a unique and engaging experience for their customer base, making them more likely to buy from them in the future.

The 4 Types of Customer Engagement Levels

There are four distinct types of customer engagement levels every company should be aware of before crafting their customer engagement strategy.

1. Contextual Engagement

When you do not have any context in your advertising efforts, any engagement you try ends up turning into noise customers tune out.

Contextual engagement means interacting with your customers at the optimal time in the way they want to be communicated with. We can do this through the use of analytic technology that assists your teams in understanding your customers’ behaviors.

A lead generation and management software can help you identify demographic information such as IP addresses, filled out forms, and other website engagements, giving you the context you need to interact with them effectively.

customer engagement
customer engagement

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For example, in this photo, we can see the engagement potential clients had with the site. From this, we can engage them with the content they are already interested in.

If LeadBoxer were a potential lead of ours, we would see Eddie engage with us on Twitter, but Wart likes to read our emails. To reach each of them effectively, we would send Eddie a direct message on Twitter and Wart an email.

These are examples of how we use contextual engagement to interact with our customers based on the information we have about them. By focusing on the individual client’s behaviors we can achieve a more personalized customer journey and offer an unmatched experience.

2. Engagement of Convenience

Engagement of convenience is any type of interaction that increases convenience for your customers and allows the company’s software to better understand each customer’s needs. Put simply, it’s when a customer can easily engage with your business through simple channels. Consumers engage with you because it’s easy for them to do so.

An example of this is Amazon’s  “one-click” purchase option where purchasing preferences such as payment and shipping address are pre-saved and speed up the purchasing process. Because of the convenience, more people shop with Amazon even if it ends up costing them more.

If you sell products online, implementing this level of customer engagement in your strategy could help you convert leads quicker and make it more likely for them to come back to you.

3. Emotional Engagement

With 95% of buyer decisions happening unconsciously, it is important to consider the emotional reaction of customers. Emotional connections have traditionally been marketed through brand color schemes or imaging. However, consumer awareness has evolved, making it necessary for companies to engage with consumers in a more personalized way.

Utilizing software that tracks an increasing number of data points means increased awareness of each customer’s ideal environment for making buying decisions such as when to buy and how often they should purchase.

By using an emotional engagement data manager, you can create more accurate buyer personas. You can even identify the point where leads are most likely to convert and become long-term customers.

Some of the more advanced software will send you emails when a lead is likely to convert so you can jump on it right away.

customer activities
customer activities

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4. Social Engagement

Social engagement is the real-time advocacy of your company.

And social media is where people go to get information, real-time reviews, and customer testimonials for your business. It is easy for your customers to leave reviews online for others to see.

You must make sure your customers have a good experience with your brand to avoid negative reviews. Being vigilant about your customer experience also helps you avoid losing customers due to a negative experience. It is also important to respond to customers in a  polite, helpful manner.

Having positive social engagement is essential for a business to be successful. When you have positive endorsements online, say from influencers, you’re more likely to have a positive online identity.

Understanding how the different types of customer engagement levels help your business will guide you to create an effective customer relationship marketing strategy.

The first must-use customer engagement marketing trend you need to be a part of is using a customer relations management platform (CRM) that profiles your customers. CRM software enables the profiling of your customers and provides an enhanced understanding of your customer engagement levels.

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A good CRM can even tell you how often a customer would like to be engaged and when they would like to be engaged, helping you do better with contextual engagement.

The second must-have in your marketing strategy is a strong mobile-first strategy. Almost half of all online shopping is done using a mobile device. You can’t get away with having a site that looks great on the desktop but does not work on mobile devices. It is imperative for you to have a well-functioning, mobile-friendly website.

The third customer engagement strategy you need to implement is becoming extremely personalized in your marketing messages. Use the potential customer’s name in the subject line or intro in your email campaigns. 82% of marketers have seen an increase in open rates when they use personalization in their campaigns.

It’s simple to set up personalization, especially with email campaigns, and there’s no reason not to include it. You can even extend personalization into any type of advertisement, such as tracking which products people look at on your site, and then serving ads to them later featuring those products.

The last customer engagement strategy you must include is SMS/text messaging. Text messaging open rates are at a whopping 98% compared to just 20% of email marketing. If you are not including an SMS strategy in your plan, you are missing out.

Now that you understand what the emerging trends for 2021 and beyond ar