For
B2B marketing companies the lead generation process is very crucial
since it helps to drive traffic to their websites. This process helps to
convert website visitors into prospective buyers by using the lead
contact information such as email id, phone no, company name,
demographic details etc. provided by the prospect when they register for
subscriptions.
Since
Internet is used for information research and gathering process, buyers
prefer to do their research in advance before approaching a company for
assistance. A B2B company can identify leads when they respond to an
RFP, or use the Contact Us online form. But, there may be leads that
wish to remain anonymous and hence do not perform any activity on the
webpage. This group of people is very crucial to the lead generation
process because there may be, among them, prospects who are genuinely
interested in the product or service that is offered but have not
registered any activity on the website for the marketer to identify
them.
Earlier,
B2B marketers used to conduct trade shows and other events for lead
generation. But, today, online lead generation activities like webinars,
blogs, and podcasts are used to engage and attract leads to the
website. Some B2B organizations even tie-up with 3rd party content sites
like TechCrunch, Technorati etc., to capture form-fill data. Marketing
automation tools can act as catalysts to the lead generation process by
capturing the visits of the anonymous visitors and tracking their
on-page activities.
Using marketing automation tools, B2B companies can:
- Identify the current buying stage of a prospect (awareness, research, trial or intent to buy).
- Execute automated and personalized nurturing campaigns with prospects that have shown a buying interest.
- Aid teams like inside sales, sales, marketing and web optimization to make the right offers at the right time.
- Track real time information on the decision maker or influencer of the purchasing decision, in a manner that can be leveraged by an organization to convert its website visitors into opportunities that can be nurtured into business deals, thus enabling sales to clinch deals faster.
- Create and run email campaigns with links to the company website based on their personalized lead scoring model results.
- Send out newsletters about industry developments and other interesting technology related news.
- Manage all contacts from one place through a centralized database, accessible to both marketing and sales teams.
- Reduce the time taken to establish contact with leads and hence hasten the lead conversion time in the marketing funnel.
Marketing automation systems can be leveraged effectively to drive results for B2B companies.
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