Every time you think you’re doing a good job generating sales leads, in marketing, you always seem to hear the phrase ‘I need more’ from your sales team.
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After 10 years in marketing I’ve realized there will never be ‘enough’ for sales teams and while it’s important to make sure they’re converting what you’re bringing them, it’s equally as important in B2B to continuously invest in new channels that generate high-quality leads.
If you’re looking for new ideas to support your lead generation strategy, these 20 tips are just for you. And remember, smart prospecting starts with accurate data. When looking to connect with the right brand and agency contacts at precisely the right time, Winmo is where I recommend starting your search.
- Live Chat
Communicate with your website visitors when they’re most likely to convert. Your future clients likely have questions as they are navigating throughout your site and depending where they fall in the buyer journey, could be hesitant to fill out a form to speak with a sales rep.Live chat is a great alternative to interact and ask questions, helping your visitors ‘warm up to the ‘idea’ of a trial. Our pick – check out Drift. - Invest in Sales Intelligence
At the core of any sales or marketing strategy is accurate contact data. Sales intelligence solutions do the work for you – sourcing and verifying thousands of records that can easily be manipulated into targeted prospect lists. Niche platforms like Winmo, drill into the media and advertising industry specifically, surfacing difficult-to-find agency/brand relationships and actionable sales predictions on national advertisers.
- Develop a Chrome Extension for Referrals
If you have the development resources to do so – create a Chrome extension for your product that can deliver referral leads for your business. A great example is Soapbox by Wistia. While Wistia is a paid video hosting and analytics platform, Soapbox is a free Chrome extension they created that allows businesses to record, edit and share high-quality videos. Extensions like this can attract qualified leads, create advocates and optimize conversion rates. - Host Your Own Virtual Event
Sometimes hosting or attending events can get costly. If you’re looking to generate sales leads and want a less risky route, try hosting your own virtual event. While it still requires some resources, hosting virtual events can allow you to reach even more prospects while also giving you a digital asset that drives referral traffic to your website over a long period of time following the event. Here’s one that we recently organized: Pacesetter: The Agency New Business Summit.
- Offer Different CTAs on Your Website
If you’re a SaaS platform, your main CTA is likely giving access to a demo of your platform. Consider incorporating other CTAs for visitors who aren’t quite ready to talk with a sales rep. An example could be gating a short 3-minute demo of your platform.This could be the appetizer before the main course (aka full demo with sales rep), but you’re still able to capture their information and nurture them accordingly. - Beat Your Competition with Sales Predictions
Predictive analytics tools for salespeople, like WinmoEdge, can significantly decrease the length of sales cycles by pointing you to B2B sales leads when they’re most likely to purchase. Platforms like this track new business triggers (i.e., decision-makers on the move, new funding, product launches, etc.) to pinpoint sales opportunities 3-18 months before they hit.
- Add Interactive Calculators to Your Website
If you clearly understand the value you provide the marketplace build a piece of interactive content, like a calculator, on your website. Calculators can answer your customer’s most pressing questions and significantly increase conversion rates. Fact: Interactivity enhances conversion to over 40-50%. Check out Winmo’s ROI calculator if you’re looking for a good example. - Email Cadence & Sales Engagement Software
Technology has evolved and sales teams no longer need to rely on their marketing departments to do email outreach. Using platforms like SalesLoft, salespeople can generate sales leads on their own by organizing their own 1-1 email cadences. The platform allows you to easily target specific prospects and engage them with no hassle.
- Nurture your database
Talk about low hanging fruit. Sometimes as sales and marketing teams we’re so focused on bringing in more leads that we forget we’ve already mined a lot of great prospects – and they likely need help getting across the finish line.Audit your CRM to find prospects that were recently lost or haven’t converted yet. Next, find out why and hit them with targeted content that helps answer their concerns. - Scope Out Your Competitors
Here’s a relatively easy trick- take a look on your competitor’s websites to see who they’re promoting as clients. You’ll often see this displayed as logos, testimonials or even case studies. While these are often their power users or advocates, if prospected the appropriate way you might have a chance to steal away an account. - Get Active on Third-Party Review Sites
Unbiased reviews on third-party sites can significantly help you generate sales leads. If you’re a SaaS platform, I highly recommend building a company profile on G2Crowd or TrustRadius to help bring in more B2B sales leads.While you’ll need a strategy to entice your customers to review your product, once you’ve collected a few this is a great referral source your sales team can use while prospecting. And, another bonus – it’s an additional page for your brand name to get indexed on! - Add CTA to Email Signature
Salespeople on average send out xx many emails a day. Talk about an opportunity! Leverage your company’s email signature as a micro ad for content and relevant news. Use tools like Wise Stamp to easily manage this across your entire organization. - Website Popups
If done right, website popups can drastically help increase engagement on your website, and generate more sales leads. WordPress plugins like OptInMonster and SumoMe allow you to serve up customized messages based on unique actions taken on your website pages. Choose from even more here: https://www.sitepoint.com/wordpress-popup-plugins/. - Try Video for Email Marketing
When I talk to my fellow CMO’s (who get bombarded with emails and calls on a daily basis) I often ask them ‘what stands out’ for them? Two things seem to catch their eye: when they’re given something tangible (everybody likes swag) and video email marketing. So, if you’re a salesperson trying to get your email cadence to stand out, try recording a video. Our sales team has recently been experimenting with Wistia’s Soapbox plugin. Pro Tip: Seven in 10 B2B buyers watch a video sometime during their buying process. Use that to your advantage when generating more B2B sales leads, and send them a customized video.
- Add Pricing Form to Website
For some businesses sharing pricing details can be complicated. Perhaps because you offer a variety of customized packages, or because you want to show prospects the platform first via a demo before they write you off due to a number. If that’s the case consider adding a pricing form to your website to bring in more B2B sales leads. Rather than allowing someone to bounce off of your website because you didn’t mention pricing, this will provide another channel to start a conversation with a potential lead. - Host Your Own Event; Invite Your Clients
While events can take time and money to plan, if done right you can easily generate business leads from them. If you’re trying to keep it easy plan an event in your hometown, or perhaps a happy hour in a city where you’re already planning to be for a tradeshow. Pro tip: don’t just invite prospects to these events; make sure customers are welcomed as well. There’s no better form of advocacy than straight from the lips of your customers. - Collect & Leverage More Client Referrals
Third-party advocacy is an important factor when generating more leads. Put a plan in place to ask your power users for referrals; entice them with an incentive if need be. You’ll find that your referral leads will close faster and cost way less than your other sales and marketing channels. Did you know? After a positive experience, 83% of customers would be happy to provide a referral. But salespeople aren’t asking — just 29% of customers end up giving a referral. - Time to Leverage Your Advocacy
If you did a good job on #11 and #17 you should have an archive of really great bottom-of-funnel content your sales and marketing team can leverage. Take the testimonials/referrals and weave them into your website, add to email signatures, create one-sheeters and more.
- Social Remarketing
Get really good at knowing where your leads are spending time, and hit them with targeted display ads on social. Even better use contact targeting on platforms like LinkedIn to specifically drill into your pipeline and target prospects at different phases in their buyer journey. Leverage this tactic to increase pipeline velocity and your close rates. - Market Yourself
While your marketing team is spending time marketing your company, dedicate time to start marketing yourself! Yes, it will take time away from selling but if done right you’ll eventually see more referrals come your way, and an even faster sales cycles from it. How? Well, start with identifying what you’re an ‘expert’ in. Then start creating content that showcases that expertise. The easiest way for you to host this content will be on LinkedIn Pulse – think of it as your own mini-blog. Other outlets can include working with your marketing team to arrange guest blogs with other influencers in your space. Soon enough you’ll see more people specifically asking for you vs other sales reps, and the content you create can easily be leveraged in your 1-1 prospecting conversations – helping to position yourself as an expert not just a salesperson.
