By Mark Osborne, Modern Revenue Strategies
That would be part of the 1% of B2B sales that actually close!
That’s a crazy statistic from a Boston Consulting Group B2B study from 2021, and it’s a sad state of affairs.
Misguided marketing teams are often generating a high quantity of low quality MQLs with no system for nurturing these leads till they’re mature.
Successful businesses don’t send leads straight to sales just because they downloaded a whitepaper, they use qualification and education systems to develop prospects before calling them leads.
Systems and tools like these:
- Data: If you aren’t using Intent and ID data to de-anonymize website visitors, you’re behind the curve. Intent data helps you recognize if the target company is actively researching solutions or if it’s just one individual reading an article. IP info data will help you recognize the companies of anonymous site visitors. Bringing these two together creates focus for follow-up.
- Ideal Customer Profiles: If you get a nibble from a Tier 1 prospect – ring the bell and sound the alarm – it’s all hands-on deck to make sure they get all the attention they deserve, but you can’t do this for everyone that visits your website. Tiered Ideal Customer Profiles that prioritize your A, B and C prospects make this easy to filter.
- Customer Journey Maps: If you’ve mapped out your Customer’s Journey from Awareness of the Problem, through Solution Evaluation, to Provider Evaluation, you know what content aligns to what stage. If the prospect is still building their understanding of the problem, they may not be ready for sales. Timing outreach to align with their journey will maximize impact.
- Nurture: Just because someone downloaded a whitepaper, doesn’t mean they want you to call them the same day. Where in the journey are they based on the content? Try sending them more content that moves them to the next stage. Add value to their process, build credibility, and deepen trust before following up with a call-to-action.
- Remove Friction: Why not put a scheduling link on download “thank you” page? If they’re ready to talk, they can reach out directly. Why make Tier 1 prospects be interviewed by a junior business development rep? Have your best people make the first contact when it’s worth it.
How effective are your current systems at converting leads to customers?
Book an Octain Discovery Day and find out what working and what isn’t and how to execute on the recommendations we have here.