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High-quality leads and how to generate them

Posted by David Quigley on May 6, 2013

A recent marketing benchmark survey revealed that 78% of business-to-business marketers say generating high-quality leads is the top priority this year. Quantity of leads came in a distant second.

That brings up the all-important questions:

What is a “high quality” lead?

Is it based on the readiness to purchase?

Is it defined by the type of contact (decision maker) or type of company?

Or is it the dollar amount or size?

All seem like fair measurements. Depending on whom you ask (sales or marketing), you could wind up with very different answers.

The truth is most B2B marketers would consider a prospect that is ready to purchase a high-quality lead. But there has to be more to it than that, doesn’t there?

Many B2B marketers make the mistake of not having an evaluation and qualification system in place to properly assign a value to their leads. When assigning a value to a lead, certain factors need to be assessed: where it originated from, who it is with, what type of lead it is, how much it is worth and many more considerations.

Once a value is assigned to designate the lead quality, a decision must also be made to pass the lead along to sales or keep it within marketing a bit longer for nurturing purposes.

What can you do to obtain more high-quality leads? Today it’s a combination of push and pull media that generate leads. Multichannel communication approaches tend to produce higher results than just using one tactic. Email is the cornerstone of most effective B2B strategies.

Transforming B2B social media into a lead machine workshop. Reserve space.

Here are few stats that underscore the point.

59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel in generating revenue. Email allows for efficient targeting and personalization. In addition, email is one of the most measurable mediums. Learnings can be quickly accessed and applied to future efforts. Email typically works best as part of a multichannel strategy.

57% of B2B marketers say delivering highly relevant email content is a priority. Analytics and insights are essential inputs to creating an understanding of differences among groups and aligning content appropriately. Tailoring B2B messaging is typically done by decision-maker titles, industry, behavior (information viewed or downloaded) or other self-reported information such as business problems or barriers.

42% of B2B marketers say growing opt-in lists is a priority. Purchased acquisition lists tend to underperform house lists. Techniques such as downloadable white papers and e-books via landing pages can help build your prospect lists. Tactics such as direct mail and search engine marketing should be leveraged to get prospects to landing pages to grow a prospect opt-in list.

40% of B2B marketers say social media helps improve search results. Social media is becoming an increasingly important part of the marketing communications mix, but it works most effectively as part of a multichannel strategy. Social media can also help generate inbound traffic and leads when supported by content development, direct mail, email and landing pages.

These are just a few areas to consider for generating high-quality leads. 

Also make sure that your marketing communications are mobile-optimized wherever applicable. See our blog articles on Responsive design for mobile and Mobile ROI to learn more.

In my next article, I’ll share some important learnings on lead nurturing.

To learn more about generating high-quality leads, download J&C's B2B best practices ebook.

Topics: B2B

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