Understand Marketing Nuances to Generate Highly Qualified Leads (HQLs)

The world of marketing is tangled and full of puzzles. Agree or not!

Since 19-something, when the concept of marketing incepted, till today, there has been a drastic change in the way people market their products and services. More so, methods and techniques that marketers practiced a few years back might not be ineffect today.

To be precise, there was a monopoly of manufacturers, and the marketing fundamental was simple – the product will sell automatically if the consumer really needs it. In fact, they used to sell at higher prices since the customers had very little choice.

To now, when you can find thousands of vendors for a single product type. With an advanced mindset and awareness, where people emphasize utility, quality, value for money items, the competition is tough. The theory is if the product is manufactured, keeping in mind the quality, environment, and social concerns, it is more likely to sell.

In addition to it, the efforts have to be in multiple directions today. It is only possible to reach the customers easily if the marketers ensure to lure the customers with marketing tactics such as install base campaigns, sales enablement services, HQL sales campaigns, content syndication marketing, and PBM solutions. However, the similarity is thatmarketers can still identify the potential leads and make strategies based on the target audience. They can still find out what entices the audience and strategize the marketing tactics revolving around it, which is more or less the same to the early years of marketing.

So, one thing is clear – the marketing hustle becomes easy when you have access to quality leads or highly qualified leads. The experts of this domain are demand generation and marketing qualified leads companies.

What are highly qualified leads for your business?

Do you work at or run a business that lives or dies by the number of qualified leads that come in. For those in the services business, especially B2B businesses, know the struggle. The b2b businesses are about getting more leads than they close into contracts. The second answer is “converting more leads into sales,” this happens after the business has figured top-of-the-funnel lead generation processes.

“The sales team owns the sales funnel. But as a B2B marketer, you feed the top of their funnel.” – Doug Kessler, Co-founder and Creative Director of Velocity

Meaning, the duties lie in the hands of B2B marketer to fill the top layer with qualified leads, including marketing qualified leads (MQL), sales qualified leads (SQL), and highly qualified leads (HQL).

These are the leaders that fulfillthe service level agreement (SLA) between marketing and sales. Someone who meets the ideal customer profile, has an interest in learning about the company, can answer some basic qualifying questions, expressed interest in talking to one of the sales executives can be termed as a highly qualified lead.

How to generate qualified leads?

Lead generation is a broad term consisting of various methods & techniques. Marketers either prefer the below techniquesof lead generation:

·         Content syndication

·         Outbound content promotion by phone or email

·         B2B appointment setting services

·         B2B demand generation services

·         Website chat

·         Event leads

OR

Ensure the inclusion of these steps in their marketing strategy:

Understand what makes a qualified lead

Whatmakes it look like a quality lead is when they find that lead sees a lot of value in your solution. Also, it is required for them to know your business purpose, credibility (years in business or success story), and solutions that define your business idea. It gets easier to convince someone to purchase if they have a good idea aboutyour business.

Establish buyer’s persona

It is also required to get inside the brain of the buyer as it provides a deeper level of insight like none other. Customer surveys, focus groups,and install base campaigns are all the tools for learning how to build the trust of target buyers and influencers.

Use the right data

After identifying the potential buyers for your business, you can find the tangible aspects of their desires and behaviors. It is not only the generation of data but also making the right use of the data to communicate with the buyers and develop methodologies for converting them. So, ensure that your plan has room for data solutions services too.

Building revenue model

HQL lead generation is about talking to the right people at the right time in their business stage. As quality comes into focus, it is required for you to emphasize less on more number of prospects but more on sales-ready leads. Though you will get a limited number of leads with marketing services such as PBM solutions and BANT campaign, all of those are sales qualified leads thathave a higher chance of a conversion.

Moreover, your efforts can also revolve around using long-tail keywords, referring to social media to build a relationship with customers, creating landing pages in the form of product demos, advanced webinars, and software trials. All of these practices will create a path toward sales qualified leads or highly qualified leads for a business.

And,

You might be doing this last practice, but, if not, give it a go. Actively connect with prospects in professional networks such as LinkedIn, AngelList, and F6S. These platforms help professionals, start-up founders, and decision-makers connect, which is ultimately positive for building a marketing base.

To sum up

In a business environment, where buyers are making decisions about what companies to engage with using interactive tools, the quality of leads has become an essential thing to consider. A key feature of the change is that there will be concentration toward fewer but more profitable deals.

Fortunately, there is a clear roadmap for HQL lead generation now. It is not a single factor or method that leads to highly qualified leads ready to convert. Several techniques and marketing strategiescome together in the right manner for final conversion. The above article involves a list of methods and techniques, when implemented,will draw positive sales results.

Note: These are not all in all tactics for the generation of highly qualified leads; you might come across several other ways.

Understand what works best for your business and put it into practice! 

What is Stopping You from Making Sales-Driven Revenues?

The world is going gaga over the ‘digital’ buzzword. The technology tempest has everyone in its grips. Both the techie and non-techie in the B2B sales & marketing world is battling with that one question- How do I raise the bar and sell my goods online? Worry not! Even amid this pandemic, there are loads of strategies and campaigns that can be undertaken while sitting in the ramparts of your home and simultaneously fight Corona.

It is safe to assume that the lockdown period gave the sales industry a lot to ponder upon and define some moves that would come in handy to deal with the new age consumer effectively.

If you belong to the sales industry, I am sure you would not have missed the terms ‘sales enablement services,’ ‘content syndication marketing,’  and  ‘B2B demand generation services.’ These are a part of one’s regular lingo when you work in the B2B technology sector. These help push the sales agenda and make a quick buck. A bunch of technicalities is involved while implementing these services, but, by and large, they are doable. If you are getting good money in return, what’s the harm?

Sales-specific strategies

These days a lot of companies offer sales enablement services. These services primarily comprise sales content, training, support, and tracking metrics to boost sales and make a significant difference in the ROI.  

Remember, when a salesperson is fully equipped with the relevant data and necessary training to deal with even the toughest consumer, the deal is very likely to be cracked immediately. As they say, ‘fortune favors the prepared mind.’  

The next step to support sales enablement is content syndication marketing. Many CRM software are used by the sales teams to track a buyer’s journey. Often companies leverage powerful content syndication strategies to bring a consumer’s attention to the seller’s website and enjoy benefits such as improved website traffic, improved time spent on the website, and better user engagement. 

As a part of the implementation of the content syndication strategy, sellers upload relevant product/service information on a lot of websites via whitepapers, blogs, and articles. The content is also marketed, propagated, and promoted through a network of social media and various search engines to bring the targeted audience to one’s website. When your prospective consumer is reached via any of the websites tapped, the deal becomes sweeter. Therefore, content syndication marketing has multiple benefits. It not only helps forward a company’s lead generation strategy but also generates the right kind of demand from, obviously, the right target audience.

Both—be it an amateur or an experienced professional—in the sales industry make strategic use of BANT and install base campaigns. The seller just needs to have the right lead nurturing attitude and apply the BANT approach. Install base campaigns are somewhat subtly similar to the guerrilla and ambush marketing techniques in their approach to competition.  The updated install base information—one that gives an accurate measure of the number of units of a product or service that are actually in use—definitely gives the foresight to see where the competition is heading, make appropriate changes to sales strategy, and explore some of the tactics that no one has experimented with before.

Why BANT?

BANT, in the sales terminology, stands for Budget - Authority - Need - Timeline. It is a time-tested sales technique that sifts the hot leads from the non-buyers and time wasters. 

BANT contains a series of questions. These questions let the salesperson know whether the prospective buyer has the required Budget to buy, Authority- has a say in the buying matter, Need- whether the prospect has an immediate or a long-term need of the product, and Timeline- whether the buyer plans to implement the product/service in his business immediately or has some other plans. A smart salesperson would effectively use the BANT technique to navigate his will with the consumer.

Seller’s journey

A seller’s journey is nearly equal or even longer than a buyer’s. Although in this day and age, he has the digital tools at his behest, he is donning multiple hats and replicating a host of strategies to bring that cheeky consumer to his product. If the buyer is becoming smarter by the day, the seller is not left behind in his quest to entice and convert the qualified lead. By applying a multitude of strategies and services pertaining to customer data, most demand generation companies are making hay while the lockdown-unlock sun shines.