Best Practices For A Successful Lead Generation Follow Up

B2B Business is not only about lead generation but about closing deals. As you know the B2B sales cycle is lengthy and time-consuming. Therefore it is important to keep your B2B leads engaged and maintain constant contact with them. Here, the lead generation and conversion system come into play. A good lead generation follow-up strategy increases the chances of closing deals. There are many practices that you can use for successful B2B lead generation strategies. Read the blog till the end as we will reveal the best practices for robust lead generation follow-up.

One thing to understand is that it is not always about follow up but how you follow up with your B2B leads that’s important. You should consider different factors such as the pain points, need, and the buying stage of the leads for follow-up. Some of the best practices for the lead generation process are as follows:

The time when the B2B Marketers used a similar sort of messaging for all is gone. Nowadays, people only want to invest their time in something that’s relevant to them. To grab the attention of your potential customers it is vital that you understand their needs and pain points. Then, only you can target them accordingly.

Each lead requires a different type of messaging based on the buying journey stage at which they are in. The best way to do this is by organizing your leads in different categories: hot, warm and cold. You can divide your sales funnel B2B leads based on the lead score. The leads that have just entered the funnel and have a lead score between 0-50 should be considered cold leads. The leads that have 50 and above lead scores should be considered as warm leads. The leads with 100 and above scores should be considered as sales-ready.

There are various software and programs available that can help you to do the lead scoring. The lead point values are assigned based on their activities and actions.

Nowadays people have got many options to choose from and they don’t mind switching up quickly. Therefore, it is very important that you respond to them as soon as they reach out to you. You have to make your customers believe that you care about their problems and needs. Once a customer signs up you can send them a thank you or a welcome email within 12-24 hours. You should try to answer their questions, queries and doubts as soon as possible with an understandable explanation.

Personalization plays an important role when it comes to grabbing the attention of your potential customers. According to a report, “Personalized emails deliver 6X higher transaction rates.” You can personalize emails not just by name but by sending information based on the pages that prospects visited on your website. You can personalize the email message content based on the preferences and what your potential customers are looking for. Personalizing your communication makes your prospects relate to it easily.

As a B2B Marketer, your focus should not only be on promoting your services but also on adding value. To nurture your B2B leads in the right manner and to lead them to the end of the funnel it is vital that you give them relevant information. You can do that by creating educational, informational, and value content. By putting forward relevant blog posts, infographics, statistics, client testimonials, and e-guides, you can warm up your leads.

Once a lead has entered your sales funnel, you cannot be sure about them closing a deal with you. But you can try to turn them into a customer by focusing and nurturing them in the right way. Remember that just one interaction with your prospect isn’t enough to convince them. You have to persistently remind them how you can be useful to them through meaningful content posts.

Nowadays people use different communication channels as per their convenience and need. Therefore, you cannot pinpoint one channel to target your leads more effectively. However, you can ensure that you reach out to the maximum of your leads by utilizing different communication channels. You can use social media, email, phone calls, digital marketing to connect with your potential customers.

It’s not necessary that you reach out to your prospect using each of the communication tools. But you can make sure that you respond from every communication channel through which prospects engage with you. For example, try to respond to social media messages quickly, answer phone calls and check your inbox frequently.

If you want to carry out a successful lead generation campaign, then it is necessary that you plan out things. You can make a follow-up schedule that will help your sales and marketing team to coordinate. A schedule will make sure that you remain consistent with your lead follow-up and prevent them from slipping. While making a communication follow-up calendar try not to go extreme with it as it can annoy the prospects. For example, your follow up schedule calendar can look like this:

• Email: Once a week
• Phone calls: Twice per month
• Face to face: Once per quarter

Keeping up with the lead generation process data isn’t as easy as it might seem. It is quite difficult to keep track of all the communications and the results of it together. However, you can do it easily by using a Customer Relationship Management tool. A CRM tool allows you to keep a record of all the customer interactions at one place. You can utilize a good CRM tool to keep your customer outreach and communications record. This will help your sales and marketing team to understand what’s working and what’s not working for you.

Having a lead qualification process is important so as to save up the time and efforts of your marketing team. Qualifying B2B leads helps you to filter out the leads which are not going to close a deal with you anyway. For qualifying leads, you can consider certain key factors such as:

• Do they have the budget to take up your service?
• Are they really interested or did they land up on your page mistakenly?
• Do they have the power to make a decision?

If they don’t get qualified by these factors then you can keep them on the backburner. Later you can create a campaign to follow up with these leads. It might happen that they change their mind or get interested afterward. As a professional marketer, you wouldn’t want to lose a single chance of closing a deal.

B2B lead generation follow-up is all about remaining in front of your prospects. You cannot expect a lead to close a deal immediately with you. You have to take them in confidence and make them believe that they are making the right decision by choosing you. Your goal is to show them how you can be beneficial to them. You can do that by creating meaningful and value content posts. We have mentioned some of the best lead generation follow-up practices above that you can implement in your strategy.