Seven Critical Success Factors for Sucessful B2B Lead Generation Campaigns

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Seven Critical Success Factors for Successful B2B Lead Generation Campaigns

by Mary Gospe

Companies often engage an outsourced telemarketing provider to generate leads before they have developed an overall marketing strategy, honed in on a clear value proposition or created essential sales tools and processes. The following tips can serve as a pre-campaign checklist to help you increase the success rate of your calling program, whether outsourced or conducted in-house.

1. Focus on a specific target market
You will greatly increase your success rate by focusing your calling campaign on a single target market, preferably by vertical industry or job function. With this singular focus, you can thoroughly understand the problem that your product or service solves, speak in the industry jargon and tailor your message to address your audience. It also makes it easier to obtain a list, create sales tools and train your sales development reps (SDRs).

2. Develop a clear positioning statement and messages
It is vital to have a clear position of your product or service with respect to competitive offerings. Even if your product has no direct competition, your prospects are solving the problem some how, or using their budget for other solutions. Taking time up front to analyze your competition and craft a strong value proposition for your prospects will pay off greatly.

3. Build and execute an integrated direct marketing strategy
What is your mix of direct mail, email, web, events and telephone-based lead generation programs? Using multiple tactics increases your chances of reaching your target audience and reinforcing your message. Make sure your website reflects the positioning and messaging you are using in your calling campaign. Integrating telephone follow-up with direct mail or email campaigns can increase response rates from 2 to 15% over direct marketing alone. (Source: Ernan Roman)

4. Design a campaign with a compelling offer
For a successful direct marketing campaign, you must have an attractive offer. Cold calling to set up an appointment for a sales rep is difficult, time-consuming and expensive. Offer a Webinar, white paper, free trial or gift to entice prospects to learn more about your product or service.

5. Create sales tools and provide ongoing training
Develop a Call Guide with the following components:
campaign objectives, background on industry pain point and your solution, functional contacts, elevator pitch (phone and email), probing questions, objection-handling tips, competitive positioning, features & benefits, offer, closing techniques, follow-up procedures, and lead qualification criteria.

Thoroughly train the agents and do role-playing to reinforce the material. Frequent monitoring and coaching is essential to success. Motivate agents with incentives for achieving or exceeding their individual goals. Make it a fun, team-oriented campaign.

6. Establish Sales Processes
Set achievable goals for your initial calling campaign, including desired number of appointments, seminar registrations, or completed surveys. Develop qualification criteria that is aligned with field sales expectations. Involve the recipients of the leads (inside, field or channel sales) in the process. Determine your lead tracking and dissemination system. Use an SFA or CRM system and configure it for your business process and lead qualification criteria.

7. Analyze results and make adjustments
In the initial phase of a new calling campaign, it is imperative that a marketing or sales manager from the client be available to monitor results, listen in on calls and provide feedback. Be willing and ready to tweak the calling objectives, call guide material and/or offer to improve your success rate.

KickStart Alliance is a well-experienced marketing and sales SWAT team with expertise in sales development, integrated lead generation, field-readiness, product launches and product and service positioning. We assist Fortune 500 as well as startup companies plan and execute successful in-house and outsourced telemarketing programs.

For more information, contact Mary Gospe at 650.941.8970.