Monthly Archives: March 2023

How can you tell what sort of lead generation will work for your business?

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The first question is, what actually is lead generation?  It is simply the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business’s products or services. The end goal of lead generation is to convert these potential customers, or leads, into paying customers.

Lead generation can involve a variety of strategies including many aspects of the work YBDT offer. Content marketing, email marketing, telemarketing and using platforms such as LinkedIn. These strategies are designed to attract potential customers towards a business where they can learn more about the products or services on offer and your business can build a relationship with them.

How can you tell what sort of lead generation will work for your business? There are some basic questions you need to answer to establish what is going to work for your business. The best lead generation strategy depends on your business’s unique context, industry, resources, and goals. That means it is crucial to keep learning, adapting, and innovating to stay ahead of the competition and meet the evolving needs of your audience.

  1. Do you know who your ideal client base is?  It is important to know who your ideal customer is and what their pain points and challenges are. Knowing who you are targeting will help you understand the most effective lead generation strategy to reach them. If your ideal clients are tradespeople who are on site all day then phoning them would be unlikely to work, but an email that they can read at their leisure may well do.

  2. Do you understand your industry and how it operates? Researching your market sector will also help you understand what strategies will connect with your potential clients. Knowing how your industry behaves will let you see what is, or is not, working for your competitors, and allow you to develop the marketing collateral that will speak to your prospects.

  3. Is there a pattern to how potential customers buy? This is probably the most critical question. If your potential clients are buying regularly, on subscription, or as an annual renewal then your lead generation process revolves around the data that lets you be in position to talk to them at the right time.

  4. What are the key drivers to a buying decision? Another vital question for companies whose purchases are less predictable. Almost as important is where they buy. Is it direct from the manufacturer or through a distribution channel. That answer can affect who your lead generation efforts are aimed at and how you develop relationships.

  5. How often do they buy? If your product is a repeat purchase or consumable item then the lead generation process also includes keeping in touch with existing customers and distributors to ensure you are in their minds when it comes time to buy.

Remember that lead generation is an ongoing process, so it’s important to continually test and optimize your approach to ensure that you are generating high-quality leads for your business. It is important to be open to testing different approaches and measuring their effectiveness. As we mentioned in a blog recently, there is no fairy dust to be waved over the lead generation process. It is a careful process of building knowledge and understanding about the most effective strategies for each business we work with. After 15 years of building sustainable effective marketing for our clients we have a toolbox of techniques and insights into market sectors and prospect behaviour that make YBDT the ideal choice to support your lead generation. Get in touch to book a discovery call that is the first step to your business growth.

Playing The Long Game

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Successful lead generation and nurturing takes time. We looked in a recent blog at the planning which is needed to build a sustainable strategy for growth. That growth is not something that can be achieved overnight, so it’s important to set realistic expectations and be patient. There are many different tactics you can use to generate leads, the most important part of any strategy is discovering the most suitable ones for your business, and the markets you operate in.

A lead generation strategy will identify potential customers who are interested in your products or services and reaching out to them to start a process of understanding and engagement. By building relationships with them, providing information, answering their questions, and addressing their concerns you will be in an ideal position to act when they are ready to buy. Nurturing leads takes time because you need to establish trust and credibility with potential clients before they are willing to make a purchase. It’s important to provide them with relevant information and solutions that address their specific needs and pain points. This process can take weeks, months, or even longer depending on the complexity of your product or service.

My favourite lead nurturing statistic is Wanda Allan’s ‘80% of sales are made between the 5th and 12th contact yet, 90% of sales people make 3 contacts or less’. This stat says more about the reality of time poor salespeople than about their willingness or ability to follow up leads.

This is where YBDT’s sales enablement service comes into its own. Using our extensive experience of lead generation and sales we have put together a three-step process aimed at improving your sales success.

  1. Gap analysis – Our unique gap analysis system identifies bottle necks and other blocks in your sales process.
  2. Tailored sales process – We help you create a winning sales process that is based on your operation and becomes the blueprint to your sales success
  3. Bespoke sales training – With these steps in place we can deliver training and mentoring individually designed to support your team as they adopt the new process.

With time always at a premium for your sales team, lead nurturing service may be the solution to making sure the follow ups are maintained consistently for as long as required, rather than risking the effort of acquiring the lead being lost as priorities within the business shift. The beauty of what we offer is that we can help you with both, providing a full sales support service, from lead generation through nurturing to improving your internal sales mechanism.

Successful lead generation and nurturing requires a long-term commitment to building relationships with potential customers. It takes time to establish trust and credibility, but the rewards are worth it in the form of loyal customers who are more likely to make repeat purchases and refer others to your business. YBDT has built a successful business over the last 8 years by applying the principles of sustainable relationship building to ourselves. And we can help you achieve the same long-term success. Get in touch to book a discovery call that is the first step to your business growth in 2023.