Oh my, how B2B lead generation has changed. And guess what? It has changed forever. The organizations that have been willing to pivot and adapt during COVID have seen success, while the ones that have been resistant to change are struggling big time. Moving forward, here is what it will take to win the day when it comes to B2B lead generation:
A Digital Event Plan
Webinars and virtual events have been here for a long time, but due to COVID they have obviously seen mass adoption over the last 13 months. In-person conferences and events will come back – they are starting to in certain parts of the world – but the in-person event experience won’t be the same for the foreseeable future. They will be less frequent and smaller in size for the most part, so it will be extremely important for businesses to continue to reach their audiences virtually. This will be done through virtual events, hybrid events (a mix of in-person and online, aka physical events with digital extensions), and webinars. We have a number of clients that have told us their user group conferences, symposiums, partner summits, products launches/showcases and roadshows will be done virtually moving forward because that is how their audience now prefers to engage and they’ve seen better event ROI by going the virtual route. We’re also seeing a significant increase in the number of webinars that businesses are executing on a monthly and yearly basis. Webinars simply offer a more cost-effective and measurable way to reach and engage your audience on a consistent basis. The key is producing webinars that actually bring value to your audience and not letting them become ‘just another webinar.’ If you’re wondering what it takes to execute world class virtual events of all kinds, watch our latest on-demand webinar – Decide, Plan, Execute: A Guide to Successful Virtual Events.
ABM and a More Targeted Approach
The lockdown has taught organizations that ABM and a more targeted approach isn’t just for large organizations anymore. It’s for businesses of all shapes and sizes. The spray and pray model is out and targeting industries, key accounts and specific personas is in. To effectively penetrate these accounts and get in front of your ideal buyer, competitive differentiation will be key and the best way to do that will be through persona-specific messaging and compelling content that speaks to where your prospects are in their buying journey. Think of content formats like webinars, targeted virtual events, videos, benchmark reports and eBooks that drive better engagement and provide more buyer intent data on the backend. Content is no longer king…QUALITY content is.
Enhanced Reliance on Outsourced Demand and Lead Generation Experts
Many B2B companies have relied on traditional sales-centric lead generation models for too long. Need to generate more leads and close more business? Just hire more salespeople. The pandemic has forced businesses to work remote and many of these businesses have plans to stay remote moving forward. Executives are finding that ramping up and expanding remote, internal inside sales and lead generation teams isn’t easy. They’ve had challenges with properly training new hires and, as a result, the time to value hasn’t been there and their pipeline has suffered (virtual training and onboarding environments are a great way to solve this challenge, but that’s a different blog for another day). Due to this, there has been an enhanced reliance on outsourced demand and lead generation partners that have industry expertise and teams that can be ramped up in weeks, compared to 6 months or longer for internal teams, and business leaders are seeing the value (and cost savings) that outsourced lead generation brings to the table. If this sounds like you, look for partners that can take a multi-pronged approach to lead generation and can engage your prospects a number of different ways – outbound, inbound and everything in between.
Jason Stegent is the Founder & President of Elastic Solutions. Email him @ jstegent@elasticroi.com