2010
It’s time we all started using profiles for web lead generation
snapshot B2B lead generation survey
A recent survey of 1,800 marketers (SilverPop Survey: Exploring the Difference and Similarities of B2C and B2B Marketing tactics) confirms what we have come across many times in our B2B projects with customers. When it comes to profiling and scoring prospective customers, the B2B world is clearly very different from B2C.
The diagram shows that the three most important criteria points for B2B marketers in ranking prospects is by:
1. Industry
2. Expressed time to make a purchase
3. Their corporate revenue (or company size).
These are actually the same criteria we use to create PROFILES as part of our lead generation process. We can go even go further that this and include other characteristics such as the prospect’s title, department, location, returning visitor status etc.
I believe the survey supports one of the key characteristics of our approach, and explains why it is so important to use PROFILES in B2B lead generation.
In the websites we monitor, just over 75% of visitors coming to a landing page through an online advert are not from “target” businesses who meet our customer’s PROFILE of being in the right industry, nor the right company size. The good news is that 5% to 25% of the visitors DO meet the target profile, and are the ideal prospects to follow-up on.
The bad news is that many companies are ignoring these ideal prospects since they are unable to identify the visitors who fit their ideal customer profile. Instead, marketers focus on other activities such as buying email lists of people who probably have never heard of your company or your products.
Isn’t this a little crazy? If you were a shop owner, which one would you focus on:
• The visitors in your shop
• Or the people out on the street who are by chance walking by?
Surely it makes more sense to pay attention to those in your shop (who even fit your ideal customer profile) than the people walking by.
Now consider the impact of focusing on these people in your store. Consider how your sales could benefit if these prospective buyers could be turned into leads.
So, it is clear that it’s important to focus on your most important visitors who meet your ideal customer profile. It sounds obvious, so why are so few of us doing it? It’s all about using PROFILES to help you identify and focus on the web visitors who are most likely to buy. For more on PROFILES and why they are so important, please read our “The Benefits of Post-Click Marketing Whitepaper” – I think you will find it useful in improving your lead generation results.
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