Lead Generation Demystified: Get More Valuable RFQs / Form Submissions

At GrowthHive, our vision is to “Make Marketing Count”. In our view and experience, marketing is a piece of the growth (business development) equation. To effectively grow, companies we work with understand that business development starts with strategy. Being “at the table” to shape decisions with leadership is paramount. Choosing where to play to win is critical.

A typical marketing campaign traditionally starts further down the path. We often are called to complete tasks that were given to us without having the right dose of substance or business context.

GrowthHive’s model starts with challenging the “Why?” with management. Offering another set of eyes and coming up with a “What?” that can be shared with sales and operations and has a much higher chance of success.

The hypothesis is that more focused and strategic campaigns will lead to fewer, but more valuable, RFQs and other forms submissions. We do not recommend focusing solely on typical KPIs such as Impressions, Open Rates or Click Rates as primary metrics. We recommend focusing on Valid Form Submissions (MQLs) and Close or Win Rates.

Tip 1 – Find Them…

Lead Generation is a broad topic. Most campaigns will simply focus on traditional lead generation from web/SEO, inbound campaigns, social media, advertising, trade shows… This works at first, but many are frustrated as traditional approaches run out of steam after a while and become less effective.

The discovery for us was understanding how to manage contact lists effectively to keep the above running at full steam.

We have 2 steps:

• Maintain Lists: Over time, people change jobs, retire, or simply dis-engage. Make sure your lists are kept fresh and as applicable as possible, make sure they are segmented by end markets, roles, geographies and any other qualifiers that make sense for your business: Customer, Prospect, Competitor, Influencer…

• Grow Lists: We recommend diving into your data to identify the personas that interact most with your brand. We also recommend that the sales and marketing teams identify target accounts (a.k.a ABM or account based marketing, which we will cover in another blog). Use your systems or find a partner to identify other contacts at those target accounts that meet those criteria. Lastly, make sure to onboard them using the appropriate tools that complies with GPDR or other privacy rules.

The goal is to grow lists over time to match your objectives for form submissions. Too many and you cannot handle effectively. Too little and you can’t reach your objectives. Modulation and moderation are key. Quality is paramount. 

Many systems or service providers focus on volume. The adage saying it’s a “numbers game” is getting older by the day. Some AI tools can be helpful, but again, it’s about quality of contacts, not quantity. With AI being hyper publicized these days, we have tested a myriad of tools for our clients. We recommend trying such tools first as a test, and then only scaling up with what works. Unfortunately, there’s no magic… (yet)

Tip 2 – Engage with “Top Engaged”…

Modern marketing automation tools allow you to monitor engagement of prospects during the nurturing phase. This is where you find gold. Traditional campaigns measure impressions and activities. That’s great, but we’re missing a potentially huge number of people “looking around” but not clicking or submitting forms.

Using a scoring system, you can determine when a prospect has reached a “top engaged” status. Usually after an email, a social post or any other outreach campaign has been sent. For 24-48 hours, we recommend monitoring scores and being proactive.

Many of us receive calls or emails after going on a website, looking around, uploading documents or watching videos. This practice is common in B2C.  

Marketing automation tools can help by funneling and nurturing leads, but in the end, you need a system that goes beyond that. That’s where integration with CRM is critical and a clear SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) or handoff is critical to beginning the sales process.

At that stage, marketing should take a back seat, and sales should take over with all the tools they need to convert top engaged prospects and close sales. We recommend developing these tools up-front with marketing working in partnership with the sales team while building the campaigns. 

We also recommend hosting workshops or sprints as soon as major campaign elements are delivered to make sure sales engages right away in hours, not weeks or months.  

As a business development agency, we help marketing managers set up, and frequently manage, that process in partnership with internal sales, distribution partners, regional sales, account managers and other stakeholders as needed.  

Speed is the key.

Tip 3 – Monitor and adjust…

For complex or lengthy sales cycles, or for large deals, the above process will take time and might not work 100% the first time, despite the best planning possible. Origination of deals is the key performance indicator for your campaigns. This should be your true north.

It might take weeks or months to get your first big win. We recommend building daily reports that rely on both the CRM and Marketing Automation tools and, in some cases, your quotation system or ERP to mesh what is often termed as ‘unstructured data’ to make sense of when and where the prospect got started. This is not easy and takes time to build and perfect.

Based upon those reports, accelerate what works and stop what does not.

Adjust quickly.

Conclusion

In closing, keep pushing to look at the whole business development equation. Marketing is only one part of it. Ask for support internally and externally. I would recommend starting with your IT department, your systems providers and/or a capable agency that understands and has experience working end-to end, from strategy to winning.

To learn more on powering up your marketing program: 4 Key Principles to Drive Marketing into Business Development.

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