Top Lead Generation Tactics in 2012
Raise your hand if you'd like to know what the competition is doing to make money!
Is your hand raised? No one is watching, it's safe, go ahead. Other people will mock you, but they'll probably use their inside voice so it's all good. For many CEOs, Marketers, and Sales Reps, lead generation is a large part of their daily work. Knowing what other B2B companies are doing to generate leads is interesting to say the least. Even if there are no surprises in the chart below, it's good to compare your tactics to see if there are glaring gaps in your current strategy.
Research firm, Marketing Sherpa, has put together a great summary of top tactics for lead generation.
I have to admit I was shocked at how many of the top tactics were PULL type... meaning methods of pulling prospective customers in who are already looking for your product/services vs. the PUSH type of tactics which are more intrusive and often less wanted. Over the last 8-10 years, I have watched this paradigm shift take place. Modern advertising is so extremely un-ad like, if you know what I mean. People have so much control over information pathways in and out of their eyes and ears. Customers have power. They seek, and as marketers, our job has largely become allowing our brands to be found. Be found first. Be found quickly. Capture the lead. Woo the Google monster. Woo the client. Build a relationship.
What about good ol' PUSH tactics?
What about direct mail, email, and print ads? There's definitely still a place for these more invasive methods, but since your prospective customer probably isn't looking for your exact product/service, you better go the extra mile and make the ad stand out somehow. If your message is bang on, your graphics are nice looking, your info is not all fluff, and your call to action is obvious (you spell out the next action to take). Then maybe you have a chance of your PUSH tactics working for you!
At Twin Creek Media, most B2B (businesses that sell to other businesses) companies we work with use a combination of the PUSH and PULL methods...
Our clients use some or all of the tactics listed in the chart - although the order of which is most effective certainly varies on an individual client basis. Once we do the industry research, nail down who the target audience is exactly, and what motivates them, we put together an integrated marketing plan that is our best guess for what will generate the most leads. We believe a great plan is still only a best guess. Executing "the plan" is a lot like saying "running the experiment". Only when we run the experiment and measure the results can we tweak and nudge the formula into an ROI generating lean machine.
Looking for more leads? Looking for a better return on your marketing investment? We're here to help if you fit our profile (Twin Creek Media fits well with 5 to 50 person companies and marketing budgets of $5,000 to $75,000). Give us a call at 250-762-4001 or use our Quick Quote form here.