February 11, 2019 Andrew Warren-Payne
Last week ON24 ran its latest Insight50 session on lead generation and pipeline wins – where we provide fellow Webinerds with 50 minutes of expert insight and answer the questions that are important to you.
The below is just a brief wrap up of insight from Isabel Montesdeoca at SiriusDecisions, Ryan Grable at Genesys – and of course, you the viewers! If you didn’t manage to see it, view it on-demand here.
The first month of the year is the time when targets are set, budgets are confirmed and everyone starts thinking about the year ahead.
For B2B marketers, that often comes down to figuring out how leads are going to be generated and pipeline built up. But given the constant change in the market, the approach from last year won’t necessarily work going forward.
So what should marketers focus on? Below are a few insights from our most recent session.
What’s critical for lead generation and pipeline in 2019?
In the first question for the session, Isabel Montesdeoca from SiriusDecisions stressed the fact that marketers now need “better focus and clarity on who you are targeting.”
Previously, lead generation efforts looked to cast a wide net, prioritizing quantity over quality in an attempt to keep up with the pressure to drive results – “a constant daily struggle that both marketing and sales need to deal with.”
But as the noise gets louder and inboxes get more crowded, getting through means doing your homework up front. This enables targeted messaging and helps to build a better understanding of the group buying dynamics. As Isabel added:
“If we’re not starting to look for and find those connections there as well, we’re missing part of the puzzle.”
Ryan Grable came back to some key marketing fundamentals.
“It’s about engaging with people – the right people, at the right time, through the right channel.”
Grable also stressed the importance of making sure that marketers customize their approach in the way prospects want:
“It’s not just about allowing email marketing to social to be the only types of channels you use. Use the channels that matter most to the people you want to engage with, so you can excite and engage their passion to learn more about your organization or more about your offer that you’re providing.”
How should marketers move from lead quality to lead quantity?
Many marketers now seem to be moving towards a model that emphasizes the quality of the engagement over the quantity of their leads.
For those attending live, the results of the poll showed that more than half described their organizations as either intermediate, advanced or cutting edge in their approach to lead generation and pipeline.
This is a picture recognized at SiriusDecisions. But there is a danger in falling back. So how can marketers either get away from the quantity trap – or stay ahead?
According to Isabel, the next steps involve both nurturing and bringing in other members of the buying group, both of which can affect overall conversion rates and how successful we are in getting to the revenue goal.
Both of these factors mean better leads and nurturing – not just filling up the top of the funnel.
For Ryan, it’s about making sure your organization doesn’t stay still – regardless of the level of maturity:
“No matter where you are in your journey, continuous improvement and growth in lead generation is good… I really see companies looking at the trust, recognizing quality over quantity, and gleaning from that the big shift of just getting the volume of leads, into the getting the right leads.”
How does data privacy impact lead generation efforts?
Data privacy regulations such as GDPR have caused marketers to rethink how they go about generating leads. But there’s also a business case – prospects that have given consent are more likely to buy.
Ryan summed up how they viewed this at Genesys:
“The reality is, if a person does not want to engage with you, or hear from you, what value does that bring to your organization? But if you go deeper into building trust, that I think is critical to an organization’s success. It enables you to move, engage and convert that account through the journey.”
Isabel added that marketing shouldn’t simply be viewed through the lens of what’s legal and what isn’t – but rather, how you treat your prospect:
“First of all, we need to be compliant, which means we need to understand and respect people’s need for privacy… but we need to understand it’s more than just respecting actual physical data. It’s about respecting a prospect’s desire for when to talk to us, when not to talk to us, how they want to engage, how relevant is every conversation, showing respect for our prospect’s time.”
On this note, technology can act as an enabler of this respect.
“Without some of the advances that technology is going to enable us to do, we probably won’t be able to get where we’re going… it starts with GDPR, it starts from being compliant and respectful, but then it will go into using things such as artificial intelligence to help us.”
Hear more on our Insight50 session
The quotes above are just a small sample of what was discussed and answered on January’s Insight50 session. Make sure to register to watch on-demand and strengthen your pipeline for the coming year.
How can you get more engagement from your webinars? Learn the tips, tricks and tactics that make webinars work at Webinar World 2019.