The surge in Internet usage and the overdose of digital information have brought about a huge transformation is the B2B selling process. It has been researched and found out that most buyers prefer to do their research about what they want to buy before reaching out to the company’s hotline.
It is important for sellers to also be informed about their prospect’s wishes. So, there is a need for sales teams to be aware of all the activities that the prospects are doing on the site.
Most company websites have online information filling forms. They know what to do when someone responds to an RFP, or fills up a Contact Us form. Companies are also potential prospects and are reaching out to marketers even if they are not choosing to identify themselves by filling out a form. Therefore, it is crucial to have a platform where both types of visitors are identified – those that choose to identify themselves and those that remain anonymous.
Most analytics tools (like Google Analytics) are more very useful to B2C audiences and hence the talk of summary metrics (number of visit to a page) and Goal completes (who is buying, where are they dropping out etc) which are not quite as relevant from a B2B standpoint. For a B2B environment the marketing automation software used has to be relevant to both Sales and Marketing teams.
When it comes to B2B selling, companies need lead data that is actionable and provides consistent information to all sales teams. This data should help to identify potential prospects, provide some background information to determine if they are qualified and in turn help in reaching out to them.
By using marketing automation solutions for lead generation, marketers can expect the following:
1. Trace Online Activity
Marketing automation tools help in tracking information such as visits made to important pages, downloading content, attending a Webinar, responding to an email sent out, copying content on the site, visiting site from a 3rd party review publisher site, etc. This can be very useful for B2B lead generation.
2. Identify Lead Background Information
Marketing automation solutions help B2B companies to identify the name of the company. Structured data like company size, location, industry can also be identified and be used to determine if the corporate visitor is in the target segment or not and help marketing teams to make a quick decision.
3. Choose Warm Leads Only
There is a lot of data that can be gathered from the interactions of the website visitors with the site. Users can set proactive alerts based on important criteria such as first time visitor from a company, a person from a named account visiting the pricing page, etc can be very useful to a B2B marketer.
4. Identify Target Segment Buyer
There are many people involved in the decision making process, information on their interaction should also be considered to track what the customers are doing. If the contacted person has delegated the responsibility then, it is important to be able to track both individuals and also the company behavior over time to gauge interest levels and qualify them.
Also read on - Lead management, Lead nurturing best practices
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