pay dividends to almost any business. However generating sales leads
online requires marketing support with content, whitepapers, case
studies and promotional offers not to mention sales tools. In terms of
sales time or effort, generating leads can account for almost 50 percent
of a sales force time and this part of the sales process can be often
underestimated when it comes to the cost,time and resources required. To
make a sales funnel successful the starting point is the process of
generating leads via activities like cold calling, inbound marketing,
social selling even trade-shows, then nurturing these leads where the
sales team turn suspects into prospects and prospects into sales. So
before any sales happens, a business needs a healthy and continuous
pipeline of new leads to sell nurture.
Lead generation is a constant challenge for many companies, in fact
research by Forbes Magazine showed that more than 60% of the marketer
and sales community polled stated that their greatest marketing
challenge was generating more sales leads for the sales teams, and
nearly two-thirds (63%) reported that their current marketing tactics
either does not meet the sales force demand or they are not sure of
whether their marketing mix is effective. Also as much as 40% of those
polled cited accurate lead measurement and the attribution of digital
marketing as their biggest challenge. Even though marketing executives
report that lead quality is one of the top priorities for lead
generation, it is also one of the biggest challenges facing marketers
today. In another study by IDG, 61% of marketers reported that
generating high quality leads was problematic for their organization.
Another remarkably fact is that over a quarter (26%) of respondents
said they do not track leads to any specific marketing program at all or
they only attribute leads to one program. The old saying about “They
know half their marketing spend works but not which half” seems to still
ring true more than ever.
While lead generation costs have reduced thanks to activities like
social selling, it still can be costly think CPC campaigns or outbound
sales, so sales management needs to constantly reinforce that without
lead generation activity there is no customer acquisition and probably
no sales. The challenge today with educated buyers and tight margins is
to empower everyone in a sales and marketing role a “lead generator” to
fill the sales pipeline. I suggest lead generation needs to be a two
pronged attack, one via inbound marketing (content, blogs,promotions,
white papers) and the second via the sales team (social selling,
utilizing social network contacts ) as lead generation needs to be a
joint effort between sales and marketing or Smarketing.
Too often lead generation effort has been relegated to doing some
half hearted activity on social media, maybe publish an article or two,
try some Google Adwords and see what happens. To have a real successful
lead generation process then a business needs to have a plan that
covers all customer acquisition strategies and channel development. The
really successful companies know how to build a lead generation machine
then fill the sales pipeline with qualified leads. Most small companies
cannot scale not because of their product or because they cannot sell
but because they cannot build a big enough sales pipeline in a
timely,cost effective way to drive revenue income. They run out of time
because the sales pipeline dried up.
Sales teams now have multiple lead generation sales tools and resources, when it comes to lead generation online there is Connectors Marketplace,
LinkedIn, Angel List, Crunchbase, Owler and other business listing
sites. To power online lead generation there are tools like Hubspot or
Marketo to social network communities like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
and Tumblr, all which can be worked to deliver sales lead volumes.
Finish reading the original article here: Lead Generation Online | Instant Lead Generation For Social Selling
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