Three B2B Lead Gen Mistakes to?Avoid

As B2B marketers, we use conversions daily to define campaign goals and to ultimately lead to improved marketing ROI and closed deals. But how do we use just the right mix of data and science to improve conversions? This topic is bigger than just one question or even several answers. It requires a deep discussion, perhaps even a one day conference. I’ve been personally exploring this topic for quite a while now and the great news is that marketing and data science are moving forward more cohesively than ever before. Most progressive marketing teams are now employing data scientists and/or analysts.

We’ve partnered with one of our clients, Cup of Data, to bring together B2B marketing and sales professionals and data scientists to hold sessions at the Conversion Data Pop Up in Atlanta on May 22nd. We’ve lined up the most prominent experts in the B2B sales and marketing space to share use cases, techniques and most importantly insights on how they are using machine learning and AI to improve their conversions.

We asked the same experts What are the biggest mistakes that marketing and sales professionals are making in 2018? Three common threads immediately stood out in their feedback.

1. Not Defining Your Strategy

Without a solid marketing and sales strategy, we might as well be throwing darts in the dark. Rebecca Croucher, VP Sales, Marketing and Data Science Solutions of Bombora shared, “For lead generation, the biggest issue I see is that companies don’t have a strategy to consistently feed the funnel daily. They try something then stop, or do something for a month and then end it.”

A solid lead generation strategy is to run multiple segments and tests at all times with consistency so that you constantly have fresh leads coming thru the funnel. From a strategy perspective, the issue tends to be that most companies don’t really have a defined strategy or a roadmap of how they are going to drive revenue. Companies also often have a lack of measurement and without knowing your ROI it’s extremely difficult to get additional marketing dollars to grow your efforts.

Don’t rush, set clear goals and KPIs before diving into any sales/marketing projects.

2. Missing Your Potential Leads

There’s more data and information out there than ever before. This means that your audience is more savvy and educated than they were ever before and that you’re fighting for their attention now more than ever. It’s important for us as marketers to understand how people engage with technology and information in new and unique ways. We constantly have to think about how we can get our message in front of our customers in the right places at just at the right times, and the message has to be more relevant now than ever. “Having a crystal-clear understanding of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is very important to sort through all this noise,” said Keith Fletcher, the President of FLETCH.

John Donlon, the Senior Research Director at SiriusDecisions mentioned that “the popularity of ABM highlights the value of focus, and there’s even more to be explored beyond that; the advent of the Demand Unit allows organizations to consider not just the highest propensity accounts, but the buying groups within those accounts that have the greatest need for your services.” Defining focus is key, and that focus is driven by great data that’s now available.

Before diving into all this data it’s a good idea to put together your: TAM, SAM, SOM. TAM= Total Addressable Market (which is the whole market, the potential market), SAM= Serviceable Addressable Market (the reachable market), and SOM= Share of Market (your Sales divided by your Serviceable Addressable Market). “When companies don’t plan who to target, they will target everyone and that results in expensive wasted energy with little return,” mentioned Lindsey Nelson, former VP Sales and Marketing at Careerbuilder. She also added, “not to mention diminished belief in solutions capabilities. Guardrails are real and welcomed in the science of sales to keep the artists in their lanes.”

Make sure to avoid substituting quality for quantity and please don’t buy lists. As someone who has done sales in the past, this wastes more time than it saves. The best thing to do is to choose targeted accounts and put in some sweat and tears to find the best personas to reach out to. If you truly understand your ideal customer profile (ICP), it makes more sense to create a targeted list of companies rather than a random list of people. Even though it may be a challenge to get started at first, if you stay consistent the results pay off. 

? 3. Not Collecting Enough Relevant Data

Data! Data! Data! How do we sort through it, store it all and figure out what the heck is relevant? Let’s go back to your goals and KPIs to get you started. You don’t need all of this data, only those data points relevant to your customers.

Having sufficient and accurate data on target accounts and prospects is definitely challenging. Aligning the data between sales and marketing teams is an even a bigger challenge. In surveying sales and marketing leaders, InsideView has found that marketing leaders are recognizing this as a growing problem. In just the last two years, this challenge has rocketed from the bottom half of the survey to the top in terms of what these leaders view as blockers to success. According to Kevin Matsushita, Director Global Alliances and Account Management at Inside View, “The reason this topic should be top of minds is better alignment leads to some remarkable results — 38% higher sales win rates, 36% higher customer retention, 10% more reps hitting quota. Also, companies that exceed their revenue goals are 2.3x more likely to report high levels of alignment.”

Make sure to be intentional, look at the data, apply your “wins” to what looks like your Wins and scale your success for faster larger wins, and learn where and how to pivot. Too many companies do a Win/Loss analysis too late when the losses immediately surface “bad fit” which could have been avoided with some effort from the beginning.

While the marketing and sales fields are constantly evolving, it’s best to make sure that you better focus your lead funnels, come up with and commit to a solid sales and marketing strategy and that you collect and use your customer data to complement the other two.

If you’d like to meet these experts and hear more about conversions, B2B marketing and sales practices join us in Atlanta on May 22nd at Conversion Data Pop Up.