Lead generation challenges for small IT B2B businesses – Part 2

In the last post I spoke about how, by identifying a Single Target Market, Small B2B technology businesses can become better at generating leads. I even spoke about how marketing and sales have to incorporate psychology more than plain analysis to attract the desired audiences.

So in this part, we will look at how we can help get our message better addressed to our audience , so that they connect with us, respond to us etc.

There are typically two methods for getting leads – the “pull” method or the “push” method. By its very nature, the word push means that you are pushing something against a resistance. While in the pull method, the person is being “pulled’ or “attracted” with what you say or do and wants to interact with you and therefore responds to you. There is now right or wrong method. Both have to be used to get leads. However with the “pull” method or also called the marketing driven leads, the advantage is that the prospect has shown interest in what you offer and therefore has reached out to you.

For marketing however, the biggest challenge is to be able to convince someone, with the messaging, so that they can comprehend the message and then respond back with an inquiry.

But even before you can convince someone, you have to be able to reach that person. This is where by targeting a “Single Target Market” ,at a time (which we covered in our earlier posts, can be seen here), you reach a focused audience.

The analytical aspects of reaching out and convincing are related to the number of people being targeted, the number of mails that reached, the CTR, etc.

Now come to the psychological aspect of marketing and how you can utilise this aspect.

Humans have 5 senses – smell, see, feel, hear and taste. If you use one medium – say email with text, then the other side will only read it. So they will only use one of their senses – viz “see”. On a podcast, they can only “hear”. In a video or film , they can hear and see. By utilising the 2 senses together, your message can have a better impact.

As per Cisco, by the year 2022, more than 82% of all Internet traffic would account for with video. People recognise the power of audio+visual since ages. Films have impacted us so much – whether it was Ben-Hur or Star Wars . This does not mean that there won’t be people who would like to read or would like to listen. Different people have different preferences, but as a marketer, when you are trying to make an impact video/films have a larger impact because they utilise the power of the human brain.

Watch the video here

When you use videos to showcase how you have helped others, how you have solved problems for others, similar to themselves, then it creates more trust. Since the brain comprehends better with the use of two senses, if the customer is facing a problem, similar to what you have solved, then they are able to immediately apply it to their scenario and think – “we should check them out”. That gets them to reach out to you – a “pull” lead. The more “pain” in the problem that you show in the video and it is relatable to others in the same industry, the higher the chance that you will be able to get someone to say “tell me more”. This is where the psychology comes into play.

Even though the customer has replied back to you of his own volition, it doesn’t mean that he is ready to buy from you. In most B2B scenarios, there is an elongated buying cycle which starts with someone being told to first do the research on different options, then figure the budget etc. This cycle doesn’t apply in case there is a disaster and someone needs something “right now”. As an example, if you have had your roof destroyed in a cyclone or tornado, you need to figure out a solution now and will not go through your usual buying process. Similarly in organisations if say there is flooding in a data centre, then they need to figure out, how to keep the systems running, NOW.

Other than the disaster scenarios, B2B buying is process driven and you need to nurture the lead over the process. We will take this up in the coming posts.

Till then .

Carpe Diem!!!

Testing for your lead generation engine -3

campaign, lead generation, Marketing, media, Testing

In this sequence of blog posts, I am actually taking you step by step through a real life campaign showing the testing I am doing, the failures and successes , as they happen.

In life in general and in marketing in particular “one” is a dangerous term. Some of you who follow my blog regularly will point at the contradiction. I am also the one who says focus. So to all those people who got this thought in your mind, I will still say FOCUS on one thing at a time, but never be too dependent on any one thing.

Having only one sales person, only one medium, only one partner are all situations which can lead to disaster.

So today I started working on creating the lead magnet using a different medium. Since I focus on B2B, my typical mediums are Google, LinkedIn and YouTube for posting advertisements. I have not yet understood the Facebook mechanism, so I don’t experiment with it when I am advising someone.

So today I have helped create the advertisement to be put on YouTube. We will test it against the revised ads we had put on Google yesterday to see which medium is performing better. Will keep you posted on this as well.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Testing for your lead generation engine – 2

campaign, constraints, lead generation, Marketing, single target market, Testing

Yesterday I wrote about why testing is important for me, inspite of having worked on this for so many years. One is the theoretical part and I shared that yesterday. Next is the practical part and why I insist on testing.

I was advising someone, who does video production, for how their Google Adwords should look, the kind of phrases they should have etc. I had also advised them on the audience they need to cater to and the kind of headlines and lead magnet they need to look at.

After launching the advertisement, there were no clicks, no one was clicking on their ads and giving their emails. As usual, my first target to deduce was the market, so I got them to check for the market they were targeting, checked if they had the single target market defined clearly. Then added a couple of geographies, just in case the market we initially identified was too small, still no response.

Then we changed the keyword phrases of when the advertisement should show up. Still no response.

Till now I was giving them ideas from a distance and they were executing. I understand I can make errors, but not getting any response is extremely low for my ego. So today I actually sat down with them to understand when the advertisement gets shown, how does it look. That’s when I started seeing a horror movie.

The way the ads were getting shown because of the limits on the headlines and content lines, the whole advertisement was gibberish. It was not making sense. No wonder, no one was responding. The medium has its constraints and you have to live with it. But if you know the constraints, then you can always find ways to solve.

Luckily we were playing at a low scale to test for the lead generation and hence the impact was not very high. Testing at a small scale to figure out the “gotchas” is a God send. Even with the best of intentions and capabilities, its absolutely critical in marketing to test every element of your campaign.

Now we are getting a new set of ads getting launched. I will keep you posted on how the new things progress and the impact the changes had on the campaign.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Testing for your lead generation engine

education, lead generation, Marketing, single target market, Testing

One of the best assets for your long term business, is getting a person’s email id. Once you have that you can keep educating them, to someday come to test your products or services.

However as time has passed, people have become more and more reluctant to give away their email. So while sending emails is cheap, the costly part is that people have become “blind” to emails being thrown at them. In that manner, email marketing has become more expensive because it’s lost its ability to immediately get you attention.

Which means people have become resistant to the idea of giving away their emails. So until you have isolated your audience very clearly – the single target market – and created something which that specific audience desires, you won’t get people wanting it. And if people don’t want it, they won’t give their email ids.

So understanding the conversation which could go on in the mind of your prospect, due to which she may want to look at what you are talking about, becomes critical. And you can only get this by testing. While I have written so many blog posts on this topic, at the end of the day, until I test and see a response, I am not sure if what I have built will generate leads ( or get email ids) Sometimes what I think the customer may be looking at bombs completely. This is primarily because marketing is 50% psychology and you cannot always get the psychology of your audience right the first time.

Once something starts generating results, then you can go out and and invest your complete budget into the campaign, to get the emails, but till then, test with limited exposure and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Till next time then….keep testing.

Carpe Diem!!!