To say that marketing has undergone a colossal shift in the last decade is an understatement. Markets have become more competitive, and customers have acquired more buying power thanks to the internet and wealth of information it provides. As such, marketers have had to find new lead generation tactics to adjust to this new status quo. Holistic lead generation services that bring together lead generation strategies as diverse as inbound marketing, data and telemarketing offer marketers a more bespoke approach to generating leads. In this blog, we chat to our Inbound Campaign Manager James Crowder about where he thinks lead generation in the UK is heading.
GCL started as specialists in telemarketing and data – how do you think these channels have changed?
Even though telemarketing and data have been our tried and tested lead generation channels since we began over 25 years ago, they’re still delivering great results for our clients. As technology becomes more advanced, we’re able to leverage more data, and more precise data, meaning that these channels have become more effective and relevant to our clients’ businesses.
Telemarketing, for example, works well as part of a holistic lead generation approach, especially when it comes to turn around time and building strong relationships with prospective clients. The big challenge is ensuring the right touch points are used at the right time for maximum impact. For example to use it for research, lead nurturing and appointment setting.
The power of data in the lead generation mix can’t be understated. With the right data about prospects, their pain points and challenges, you can apply highly targeted and personalised marketing campaigns, like account based marketing and inbound marketing. You can deliver the right marketing messages, at the right time, and be sure that they’re the right fit for your business.
How do you see the role of integrated lead generation now that you also offer inbound marketing services?
Our goal is to be lead generation agnostic. Rather than offering one size fits all lead generationsolutions, we want to use channels according to what each client needs at the time. Sometimes this is telemarketing, other times it’s inbound. Sometimes a mixture of the two. We see ourselves using a combination of all our services throughout the entire buying funnel in one integrated approach. The important thing is to ensure a seamless transition between outbound and inbound lead generation tactics, so leads can be passed between the two in any one campaign.
We developed our holistic lead generation services from the experience we’ve accumulated of the channels that work best for which industries. Some businesses don’t respond well to email marketing as an example, so telemarketing is used. Others might respond better to an inbound approach to attract and nurture leads consistently over a longer time.
Marketing also plays a much more prevalent role in the sales funnel than it did 10 years ago, looking after leads for much longer into the funnel before passing them across to sales. This phenomenon has been facilitated by integrated lead generation channels, and is also due to the fact marketing campaigns take the entire process into account – not just the awareness and consideration steps.
How do you expect research into target markets to change?
Marketing tactics like account based marketing (ABM) has created a shift from a ‘spray and pray’ approach to research, to one that researches and targets individual accounts. We’ve already adopted this approach with email marketing data for job titles, and are now moving towards targeting specific accounts. More businesses are moving to target accounts, data and segmentation is vital in this. Armed with information about the company and its size (small businesses have different pain points to enterprise organisations), key decision makers, and threats to the industry, you can identify its unique challenges that your business can solve. But this all hinges on the quality of your data – without it you can’t deliver the highly targeted and personalised marketing to the account.
Why is the integration of sales and marketing so important in the future of UK lead generation?
Sales and marketing integration has always been an aim for lead generation agencies like us. Two way communication between sales and marketing means that agencies can get the best insights from the sales team about a client’s pain points (after all, they deal with them on a daily basis). Integration also means that marketers can hand over leads to sales with as much information about those leads as possible, so that sales know exactly how to sell to those leads (after all, marketing has spent time getting to know those leads throughout the lead nurturing process). If both sales and marketing are integrated and speaking the same language, the buying process for the customer will be more seamless and they’ll be able to deliver a better experience overall.
What B2B lead generation tactics do you think will be most effective going forward in 2017?
The individual tactics are not as important as focusing on a tailored approach that delivers strong ROI and that lets you track data in the same format in a centralised CRM. This lets you compare apples with apples and carry out A/B testing so that you can see whether your tactics are performing. Some industries will work better with data and telemarketing, but not inbound/email or vice versa. The exact mix will depend on reporting and optimisation, and be adjusted where necessary. The practice of capturing and analysing data can be used for client retention too, as you can cross and upsell to different accounts based on the information you gather.
For more information about how holistic lead generation can vastly improve ROI and keep your lead pipeline topped up, download the guide:
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