B2B Lead Generation | Mid Sized Companies

Did you know that the content from this blog and Find New Customers is taught at two top business schools - Stanford and the University of Notre Dame? That proves our superb knowledge of B2B lead generation.

Last week Find New Customers reviewed results of a survey by Act-On Software, which found large companies (500 employees or more) struggling with B2B demand generation. Now we wish to examine mid-sized companies to see if the data differs.

The survey showed that the vast majority of large companies were doing only “Top of Funnel” activities, like email campaigns and events - which drive raw, unqualified leads. Few were doing lead nurturing and almost none were doing lead scoring.

Now I’d like to go down a bit in size - 250 to 500 employees - where Act-On has more data. Would they do better?

We see our results and the answer is No. Medium sized companies also struggle with B2B lead generation.

The workhorse tactic for most companies is email marketing. (How many times can we really email prospects without them opting out? I get hundreds of emails every day.) Email is easy, cheap and quick, but so is it for all your competitors. Add up all the emails your prospects receive and you quickly exhaust your audience. They read emails with their finger poised over the Delete key.

(If you wish to improve the effectiveness of your email marketing, we invite you to download the free white paper at Find New Customers, Moving from Transactional to Conversational Email Marketing.)

We also have top of funnel activities like trade shows and advertising. The result: More raw, unqualified “leads” passed to Sales.

Bottom line: By not focusing on mid=funnel activities, companies are leaving huge amounts of revenue on the table.

David Applebaum, CMO of Act-On Software told me “Jeff, we’ve been doing these surveys since last December and the data never changes, except more are doing social media. But they’re STILL not doing important mid-funnel activities like lead nurturing and scoring.”

Why does this problem persist - despite the extremely compelling revenue opportunity?

I think you’ll find the answer is in this post “The Problem with Over-Reliance on Junior Marketing Folks.” The failure of companies to invest in senior marketing leadership is hurting them badly.

Young and inexperienced marketing managers can blast out emails and create product brochures. But they lack the sophisticated knowledge and skills to craft Problem to Solution stories (Lead Nurturing) or identify buying behaviors (Lead Scoring).

What happens when you leave out mid-funnel activities?

When companies don’t have the kind of activities that turn raw leads into qualified sales opportunities, like lead nurturing and scoring.The data (from SiriusDecisions) is ugly:

• Only 16% of raw leads turn out to be sales opportunities
• Sales only follows up with about 1 out of 5 - because they quickly grow frustrated talking to unqualified opportunities.
• But 8 of 10 of those they didn’t contact buy within 2 years (from competitors)

The clear take-away here is this:

If more companies embraced lead nurturing and scoring, companies could dramatically improve revenue results.

Want to learn about lead nurturing? Then play the presentation below. And check out the Find New Customers Lead Nurturing and Scoring service.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.