3 Steps to Effective, Scalable Lead Generation

Everyday potential customers are looking for your product or service. Having the ability to scale B2B lead generation effectively provides your business with a strategic advantage. It can also help you acquire customers and win a larger share of the market than competitors.

Scaling lead generation across your target market segments ensures that you get to customers that are ready to buy before your competitors. It also gives you an opportunity to develop relationships, plant seeds and educate potential customers that are not ready to make a buying decision.

Company Targeting

The first part of effective, scalable lead generation is targeting the right companies and decision-makers. Take the time to do your research, collect data from your CRM and sales team and, don’t be afraid to test new industries and roles to find the best opportunities available.

When selecting your targeting, make sure that you take into consideration how many companies exist for that given target segment. If you have really big deal sizes, smaller target segments are sufficient, but if you need to drive a volume of leads for your sales team it is critical to make sure they have enough companies for a sustained sales effort.

Another consideration when selecting segments to target is the projected customer lifetime value (CLV). Not all customers create the same lifetime value for your company. By understanding the CLT of companies in a given target segment, you will have an additional data point to help you focus your lead generation on the most profitable segments and sustainable segments.

Prospect Roles & Decision Makers

Once you have selected the company segments to target, you need to determine the prospects in the correct roles and decision-makers to reach out to. Review the data in your CRM, speak to your sales team and try to understand who is most receptive to your lead generation efforts. Look for roles that actively champion your product/service

Depending on the company the role you should target can vary. This might start with getting an end user for your product to champion it to management. Other times it might start with getting the executive team to refer you to the right contact in the company In most cases, you’ll have a couple target roles and decision-makers that will likely be receptive and become potential champions.

Sales Cycles vs Deal Size

Different company segments can have completely different sales cycles. This is especially true for larger enterprise deals that can take 6-12 months before a deal is ready to close. Look at the sales data you have to determine the right mix between sales cycle and deal size. Find a sweet spot that has a good combination of larger deal sizes, shorter sales cycles and a extensive segment of target companies.