How to Optimize Lead Generation

Optimize Lead Generation with Effective
Business Tools and Processes

Lead volume and quality is down for many SMBs
due to our slow global economy and an uncertain
near term economic outlook. Even though
interest rates are low, many banks aren’t lending.
Unemployment remains high in many economies.
Surveys like the COSBOA reveal that only 23%
expect the economy to improve in 2012. These are
variables that business owners cannot control.

© Hoover’s, Inc. 2012. All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

i. Introduction 02

I. Lead Generation Begins by
Defining Your Target Market
03

Lead Generation Requires a

II. Comprehensive Commitment to
Enter the 24/7, Multi-Channel,
05
Multiplex Digital World

Create and Master the Lead
III. Conversion Funnel
07

Effective Tools and Tactics
IV. for Lead Generation
09

V. Getting the Most from Your
Lead Generation Efforts
11

VI. Resources 12

1

INTRODUCTION
If you’re a SMB owner you have to congratulate yourself – you’re still in business after the worst
financial crisis in a generation. The crisis taught you many things, including the value of key
customers, positive cash flow, and loyal employees.

For many SMBs you now have a new crisis – the crisis of a dwindling stream of qualified leads.

Lead volume and quality is down for many SMBs due to our slow global economy and an uncertain
near term economic outlook. Even though interest rates are low, many banks aren’t lending.
Unemployment remains high in many economies. Surveys like the COSBOA reveal that only 23%
expect the economy to improve in 2012. These are variables that business owners cannot control.

Lead Generation - The New Normal Now is the time to rethink your lead generation perspective
and discover a new vocabulary of lead generation - lead
Another reason for lower lead volume is within your
scoring, lead nurturing, email marketing campaigns,
control. It has to do with SBM trying to generate leads in
landing pages, white papers, the buying process of
ways that no longer work, ways that are no longer credible.
customers, social media strategies, the sales funnel, and
Single and discreet email campaigns are stand alone
more. Even slight changes in tools and processes can
and have limited impact. Also, relying on salespeople to
result in dramatic benefits to your business.
generate most leads is not a good use of your sales asset.
Marketing cannot be satisfied that its job is done once
leads are found and handed off to sales. Sales must follow Step by Step Guide to Lead Generation
through efficiently on qualified leads. A key to generating In this white paper you will learn the following about lead
and selling to leads more effectively is a new commitment generation:
to your lead generation strategy and to mastering new
technologies and tools. • Why defining your market as a first step increases the
payoff of any lead generation effort
This change in strategy is not as easy as it seems. Lead
generation can be a big challenge for many businesses. • Why having a conversion sales funnel that matches
The new normal of lead generation can seem like a maze the buying process is a key part of creating an
with unclear directions for getting the lead and the sale effective demand generation system
or an obstacle course with new technologies, tools and
concepts that you need to master. The process is dynamic • Why your lead generation strategy needs to adapt to
so just when you get it figured out it changes again. new best practices

To effectively take control of your lead generation efforts • The most effective tools available for lead generation
requires changing your perspective and strategy. This • How to maximize the return on your lead generation
starts by taking an honest assessment of the investments efforts
you make in lead generation, understanding how leads
are generated and knowing the effectiveness of those
strategies and tactics. With this new perspective, the role
of technologies and tools becomes clearer. Even more
fundamental is the need for the right perspective on the
strategic importance of generating leads.

2

I. LEAD GENERATION BEGINS BY DEFINING
YOUR TARGET MARKET
The more things change the more they stay the same. Getting the most from any lead generation
investment still has to begin by defining your target market.

If you’re a veteran marketer you probably learned this early in your career or while attending college.
If you’re in sales you might have learned it as the ‘ideal customer’ concept. Defining your target
market is a combination of identifying the companies you want to sell to and the people in those
companies that will make the decisions to buy your product or service.

For example, if you sell to the healthcare market which part of it is your focus? Is it the medical device
companies? Healthcare networks? Pharmaceutical companies? Biotech? Research facilities? If your
market is medical devices can you narrow it further? Some companies specialize in products such as
infusion pumps and drug delivery. Others specialize in devices used in an oncology setting like the safe
transfer of toxic chemotherapy drugs. Others specialize in devices used in the operating room arena
like surgical or anesthesia equipment, lighting and tables, or disposables used in surgical procedures.
The better you define the market the more effective you will be in the next part of this exercise – which
is identifying the stakeholders who participate in the buying process.

Defining and Grouping Key Stakeholders by One thought leader who puts a high value on knowing
Understanding the Buying Process your target market is Brian Carroll, Executive Director of
Research at MECLABS and author of the gold standard
Defining the executives that are key stakeholders in the book “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale”. The cost
buying process for your products or services starts by first of deploying a sales team to work on low potential leads is
identifying the buying process itself. For example, the too high. Marketing has to continuously improve the quality
sales team for a manufacturer of an infusion pump system of the leads it hands off to sales and sales must continually
learned in selling to one hospital that the stakeholders in improve the conversion of those leads. Carroll says that
the buying process were divided into two groups. One this step is critical to getting a higher return on your lead
group of stakeholders was comprised of administrators generation investment. He says, “It’s better to spend $25
who were more interested in lowering costs. The other on a verified name than to have your salesperson call the
group was comprised of clinicians such as nurses and wrong people.”
doctors who were more interested in getting key features
and benefits that would improve usability or patient
outcome, even if the solution was more expensive. For a
Tailor Your Message to Each Call Point
company that considers the purchase of a CRM solution Finally, your message and approach needs to be tailored
(customer relationship management) the vice president to each call point. The CEO has a longer term perspective
of sales could be a key stakeholder if their sales team and wants to know the financial impact of any investment.
will be the primary users of the product. The CEO might He also needs to know how an investment fits with the
get involved in purchases where the dollar value of the strategy he has set forth with the team. On the other
investment is large. He or she might even need to get the hand, selling to the CEO’s directors might mean your
approval for the purchase from the board of directors. message should address concerns and issues at the
Knowing these buying process dynamics helps you target department level or virtual team. They want to know how
the right stakeholders. your solution will make the team more effective, sell more,

3

or help reduce cost. A CFO might be focused on return
on investment or getting favorable terms and conditions.
Stakeholders today are
A CIO is concerned about integration of processes and
capacity of his team. A nurse on the floor wants the
looking for signs that you
product to work reliably and accurately every time. know and understand
If you don’t tailor your message to the individual audience
you run the risk of coming across as lacking credibility
their business.
and not understanding their needs.
Since a complex sale has multiple stakeholders
Know the Problems You Can Solve with Your participating in the buying process, and they each have
a unique perspective on the situation you might think
Products and Services it’s impossible to create a customized message for each
The volume and quantity of leads you generate is person. Organizing the stakeholders into groups with
determined by how well you communicate your similar interests and perspectives simplifies this task.
understanding of customer needs and your capabilities
in solving them. When your messaging connects, the For example, many C-level executives invested in
audience believes you and finds you credible. That CRM solutions to improve productivity in their sales
credibility is always earned and continually tested each organizations. However, the return on these investments is
time a customer connects with you. sometimes missing. Regarding his six-figure investment
in a CRM system the CEO of one company in the credit
You might understand a market’s needs because you industry impatiently asked his executive staff “where’s my
already service and sell to customers in that market. As return?” If you go back to the point where he participated
you try to expand to other companies the stakeholders will in the purchase of this system you’ll find that he approved
be looking for signs that you understand their business. the purchase because he believed it would deliver return.
Some companies have used case studies to demonstrate
their understanding and capabilities. One common The CEO’s staff with lower titles might have a different
approach is to have a ‘Customers’ tab on the home page. perspective on the situation. For example, someone in IT
This lets prospective customers immediately see how might be more interested in security of the CRM and the
their peers and other companies have used your services support they get from the software vendor. They might
and how they might similarly benefit. A company in the want to know how they can generate reports faster or
consulting services business has organized its website with less effort, or both. A salesperson using the CRM is
by the problems it solves. This makes it very easy for interested in how easy it is to get into the system to enter
prospective customers to begin to engage in a digital data and run reports. A sales manager wants a system
conversation. that minimizes time out of the field for his sellers. He wants
them to be in front of customers and prospects as much
as possible.
Understand Needs for each
Stakeholder Group
You might have to learn about needs by doing research on
the industry. You might not need to know intimately about
each executive’s situation – that’s what questions and
sales calls are for – but you have to demonstrate quickly
that you know enough about the market they sell to, and
grasp the problems and obstacles that challenge their
success.

4

II. LEAD GENERATION REQUIRES A COMPREHENSIVE
COMMITMENT TO ENTER THE 24/7, MULTI-CHANNEL,
MULTIPLEXED DIGITAL WORLD
For many years reaching a target audience meant running an ad on television or radio or in print.
These were the primary and dominant channels for advertisers to connect with potential customers.
They launched stand alone, discreet campaigns where changes in the campaigns were mostly limited
to the copy or visual image of the product in use.

Reaching potential customers in today’s business-to-business marketplace is much more complex.
The range of channels for receiving information about products and services is enormous. People are
tweeting, emailing, texting, surfing the net, checking in on Facebook, getting RSS feeds, updating
their Linked In status, Skyping, reading blogs and ratings of products by their peers – and they might
be doing any of this while watching the nightly news or making dinner or attending a sporting event
or taking the train to work. Your lead generation effectiveness is determined by how well you plug into
this digital conversation on multiple channels.

The speed of information about how products and services are used is lightening fast. When you post
a status update that says “I’m headed to Singapore on business Thursday” it is instantly received by
anyone in your network. When someone has an unpleasant experience at a restaurant and they post it
on their Facebook page it is instant damage for the restaurant. Customers are exposed to a constant
barrage of multiple digital opinions that collectively form a fluid conversation in the customer’s head
and that ultimately influences their purchasing behavior.

To some extent marketers and sellers have less control over message and positioning than they did in
a single channel, discreet campaign type of world. If someone wants to give your service a 3 star out of
5 star rating you cannot stop them. Ironically, having more control today is about letting go and letting
your community of users, customers and followers become your voice for positioning and messaging.

Ways You Can Plug Into the you can use the customer by name and even reference
Digital Conversation an executive in the case study it adds to your credibility.
A software company in Kansas City videotaped their
Having a website might sound like old advice but it’s often customers using their product and used the footage as a
a good place for small businesses to start because it’s promotional piece.
one of the first places a potential customer will visit to
learn more about your offering. Using key words to make it Twitter is one example of how people digitally
easier for potential customers to find your site is important. communicate. In the six years of Twitter’s existence it
Once you attract someone to the website you’ll want to has created an entirely new form of communicating for
continue the digital conversation for as long as you can personal and business purposes. Today there are 350
by engaging the visitor with offers like free white papers, million tweets per day. Even the US president Barack
articles of interest, links to other resources, and more. Obama has a Twitter account. He has the most followers
of any person in the world.
Using case studies to tell your story on the website lets
your prospects learn not only what you do but what Savvy marketers are using Twitter to do more than just
results you were able to deliver for your customers. When broadcast content to their target market. For example,

5

according to “Smart Blog” on social media a graduate
student and doctoral student at The University of Texas It’s tempting to jump right
uses a game format to engage Twitter users to predict box
office sales for movies. In her report, “137 Twitter Tips: into the digital world, but
How Small Businesses Get the Most from Twitter”, Anita
Campbell says that small business owners who take the
it’s essential that you have
time to have a strategy for how they will use Twitter are
more likely to achieve their objectives.
a strategic plan that’s right
For many of Facebook’s 500 million users it is the central for your business. Lead
point of activity for communicating and staying connected.
The ease with which information about products and
generation must become a
services is passed and commented on makes Facebook a
powerhouse of influence. Getting the ‘Like’ endorsement
core competency for your
is today’s version of a seal of approval. Facebook’s Places
feature lets users tell friends where they are. If you’re a
organization.
marketer think of how valuable that would be. You could
send a coupon for a special drink at a café or recommend Strategy and Perspective
a point of interest in the area. Facebook has recently It is easy to be intimidated and overwhelmed by the
expanded its location service by letting users add where complexity of choices, speed of information, and multiple
they have been, where they are, and where they are going. channels that characterize reaching new customers in
The opportunities are limitless. today’s selling environment. While it is complex there are
tools and resources available that can simplify the task.
The Value of Blogging to Become a We’ll cover those later in the white paper.
Thought Leader
One thing is certain: lead generation must become a core
Simply plugging into the digital conversation doesn’t competency for any small and medium sized business. You
guarantee a successful result. One of the main themes for must have a strategic and long term perspective on it. You
gathering more influence in this multichannel, digital arena need a ‘trial and error’ perspective because of the many
is to be seen as a thought leader. Blogging is one way to channel and technology options available and options that
build thought leader status. are increasing in number all the time. You need to measure
the impact of any campaign otherwise you risk making
According to Technorati, there are over a hundred million
repeated investments in campaigns that aren’t paying off.
blogs indexed since 2002. Blogging is largely about
expressing opinions and the online community still can’t
get enough of that. You can invite people to subscribe to
your blog and they are notified every time you have a new
post. You can tweet a blog post. You can post it in your
Linked In account or Facebook page. However, if you try
to sell on your blog, or in any other digital medium where
the reader is expecting to be educated, you’ll immediately
lose credibility. If you continue the practice you’ll lose your
community of followers.

6

III. CREATE AND MASTER THE LEAD
CONVERSION FUNNEL
Once you begin to engage the individual executives in your target market you’ll want to create a
system for converting the leads you generate. That system can be designed using one of the oldest,
most valuable tools in sales – the sales funnel.

The Sales Funnel The BuyCycle Funnel
The sales funnel is the ideal tool for lead conversion, The BuyCycle Funnel is effective by breaking up the buying
but not because it’s a metaphor for the sale. Rather, it’s process into customer milestones that indicate significant
a metaphor for how customers buy. Mark Sellers, sales commitments have been made toward the purchase of a
consultant and author of the thought leading book The product or service. Sales executives can be more efficient
Funnel Principle, and creator of The BuyCycle Funnel™ in their selling efforts by carefully choosing the right selling
has given a new perspective of the funnel by making it activities based on the commitments the customer has
a tool that is 100% about the customer buying process. made. For example, if a customer has not committed to
“Every company should take the time and use the proper an entry level type of business analysis of their issues
resources to define its customer buying process”, says or problems or needs, it’s not likely that they would
Sellers. This model becomes the filter for measuring, be ready to act on a proposal. If the customer has not
moving, tracking, and recording all sales efforts from lead made the commitment to engage in meaningful dialogue
generation to purchase.” with the supplier, then offering to do product or service
demonstrations could be premature.

Some companies have taken the concept of the BuyCycle
Funnel further to have marketing play a more valuable
role in lead generation. One company that specializes in
this area is Marketo, a marketing automation company
in California. Marketo Vice President of Sales Bill Binch
says in the sales 1.0 world marketing generated leads and
considered its job completed. Sales on the other hand
complained about the lack of quality or segmentation of
the leads. They followed up on some leads but others
went into a dormant file. For years marketing and sales
historically didn’t work efficiently as a unit.

Marketo
Marketo’s business model changes the marketing/
sales relationship with an underlying theme of focusing
both groups on the customer’s buying process. They tie
the marketing cycle with the sales cycle to create what
Binch calls a ‘revenue cycle’. The revenue cycle mirrors
the complete journey of a lead from discovery of their
problems and needs to the purchase.

7

In the revenue cycle marketing assumes responsibility for
more than creating awareness and generating leads for Marketing and sales must
sales. It begins with marketing creating awareness, but
continues through a steady, disciplined lead nurturing develop a strategy and then
role. For example, when some contacts engage early
but don’t advance quickly to another stage of the buying work in sync to reduce the
process Marketo keeps them engaged with appropriate
content and frequency. When these leads later become
risk of using the wrong
more serious about buying they’re likely to buy from the
company who maintained the relationship throughout the
sales approach at the
process. wrong part of the funnel.
These sales ready leads now get passed to salespeople
who understand much better the journey the prospect Binch says that using lists as a baseline to find new
has taken to get where they are today. Sales can be more customers is valuable. Marketo uses Hoovers because of
effective working the lead through the rest of the buying their high quality data.
process and eventually closing the sale.
Another way to generate new leads is by offering webinars.
Having a lead conversion funnel is of little value if you don’t Mark Sellers of The Funnel Principle conducts a monthly
generate a steady stream of leads onto your sales funnel. webinar series that focuses on opportunity management
There are several avenues to pursue to do this. and the sales funnel. “We give our audience multiple
opportunities to engage during the webinars. They can
Increase Your Internet Presence answer poll questions at the beginning, and they can
respond to direct promotional offers at the end. We also
Binch of Marketo says that you must have a presence on repurpose the webinar in blogs and even white papers.”
the internet so that people can find you.

• A website is a must. The more your site can engage Measuring Lead Generation Efforts
prospects the better. Finally, a conversion funnel is key to measuring the
effectiveness of your lead generation efforts. You can
• Publishing content is an effective way to engage your
determine if the leads you’re putting into your funnel are
sales propects.
high quality. You can track the velocity and volume of
• Offering white papers that can be downloaded gives those leads through the customer’s buying process. You
prospects another opportunity to engage. can know which selling and marketing activities are having
an impact on the customer which activities are not. And
• Offering newsletters lets prospects subscribe and you can make adjustments to your efforts.
receive a regular message from your company when a
newsletter is published.

8

IV. EFFECTIVE TOOLS AND TACTICS
FOR LEAD GENERATION
The emergence of new tools in sales 2.0 effectively
lets companies run their businesses as if they had The availability of so
larger budgets and staffs to do the work. The tools
help companies identify customers in their target
many effective tools for
market faster and more cost effectively. They help lead generation is the
measure investment returns on lead generation
campaigns. They save time on processing and reason why strategy is
handing off leads from one point in the process
to another. They help companies cost effectively so important.
nurture cool or warm leads.

The availability of so many effective tools for lead generation is the reason why strategy is so
important. Without a well defined strategy the tools could be underutilized. That said, without tools
companies would have a hard time executing on well defined strategies.

In the sales 1.0 world the tools of lead generation were mainly around trade shows, snail mailing
efforts, mass marketing campaigns, referrals, and relying on salespeople to find new leads. Some of
these tools are still relevant today but should be carefully deployed as part of a larger strategy that
includes new tools and approaches.

What is a standard set of tools for lead generation today?

• CRM. The cost of CRM systems has gone down have to do market research to know the most
largely due to SaaS (software as a service) popular key words associated with your products
options. CRM theoretically allows companies and services, link to your site, build the brand
to protect their contact and relationship assets. through content and messaging, promote a viral
If a salesperson leaves the company all of his marketing effort, and measure the effectiveness
or her contact information should stay with the of your efforts.
company. CRM also lets VPs of sales and their
staffs have visibility to the sales funnel and run • Search engine marketing. SEM is a less technical
reports on leading and lagging sales indicators. offshoot of SEO. It’s more about the strategies
CRM is used to execute mailing campaigns and behind your marketing and selling efforts.
other lead generating events.
• Email campaigns and landing pages. These
• Search engine optimization/Google ad words. are still effective as long as they are purposeful
SEO can seem complicated to the average and well written. Using landing pages and
person but its basics are easy to understand. You white papers helps prospects learn about your

9

services. They can position you as a thought »» House lists appear to be most cost effective
leader. It’s important to avoid selling in a white to obtain, but when you factor in the
paper since it will be an unpleasant surprise to investments required to get those names
the reader. White papers help prospects realize they can be quite expensive. If a trade show
new perspectives on issues that they might have costs $40,000 to attend you’d better get a
overlooked. significant number of high quality leads to
make that investment worthwhile.
• Using lists such as Lead Builder from Hoovers.
One unique characteristic of Lead Builder is that »» Lists from partners can be valuable, but the
you can customize the list to meet exactly the typical problem is that they don’t always
requirements you identify. come from your target market. That’s less a
problem of the leads and more a problem of
• Linked In. Linked In offers many possibilities the lack of a focused target market.
for lead generation. Your immediate community
of 1st level contacts is obviously first. These »» With rented lists you must be careful to
contacts have contacts and therefore open up buy from a source that is highly reputable.
much greater possibilities for introductions to new Otherwise the integrity of the list data is
people. Discussion groups are fundamentally a suspect. Marketo uses Hoovers because
targeting tool because they identify people who it trusts the data integrity. Hoovers uses a
share a common interest that you might want to thorough cleansing and verification process
reach. to ensure high data integrity. With Lead
Builder you only pay for the names that
• Using rented lists, lists from partners, media match your target market. You do not pay
lists (publication subscribers), house lists (site for names you won’t use.
registrations) and ad web forms and newsletters.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each
of these sources.

Regardless of the tools and tactics deployed, marketers should adopt a ‘test and learn’ mindset to their lead generation
efforts. Marketers have to be willing to try new technologies and tools for the simple reason that the prospects they
wanting to reach are also experimenting.

10

V. GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR LEAD
GENERATION EFFORTS
Regardless of the tools you use and the markets you pursue or the budget you set for lead generation
you will want to commit to the following structure and discipline to make sure you maximize the value
of your lead generation investments.

Manage to the long term from one stage to the next stage and you can find gaps
in how well you facilitate that movement. This model is
A long term strategy is more likely to achieve short term
necessary for making effective hand offs from marketing/
results. Committing to an annual budget for your lead
lead generation to sales.
generation maximizes your success. It avoids treating lead
generation as a ‘situational’ function – that is, seeing it as
a priority when business is slow but not when business is Have the right infrastructure and tools
booming. One way to change the perspective is to create Effective lead generation requires an infrastructure to make
a separate lead generation budget within marketing. This the investments in resources and tools pay a ROI. For
makes it clear what the objective is and therefore you’re example, you need a CRM system for collecting contact
more likely to achieve your goal. information, uploading lists, launching campaigns, tracking
history of activities, and working a sales funnel. There are
Have clear objectives of what you want to many SaaS models on the market such as Sugar CRM,
salesforce.com, and Microsoft. There are also software-
achieve
based products.
If you’re unsure of where you’re going you are not likely to
get there. Goals and objectives for lead generation help Implementing email campaigns is necessary to reach
you focus, measure outcomes, and decide if and how
changes must be made.
With a lead generation
Adopt trial and error and always measure
The range of channel and technology options available for
model based on the
lead generation requires a trial and error approach on an
ongoing basis. It also means that you need to measure the
customer buying process,
impact of your campaigns to make sure they make sense
before you repeat. Measurement helps you make logical
your sales and marketing
decisions more quickly on where and how to spend your
lead generation investments. Remember to measure real
teams will always have the
intent to purchase, not just clicks and opens. Measuring ‘true north’ alignment.
clicks and opens helps you nurture leads that are more
slowly in developing. Click patterns can be revealing but
new customers and build your relationship with current
assess them in the context of other data.
customers. Companies like Manticore Technology, Exact
Target and Constant Contact are well known services.
Build a buying process based sales model
The customer buying process determines what and how Lead nurturing, scoring and segmenting helps you carry
they buy. With a model designed entirely on the customer on the digital conversation with prospective customers
buying process you and your sales and marketing team in ways that are most relevant to them, without pushing
will always have the ‘true north’ alignment. You’ll be more them away (being too aggressive) or by not picking up on
efficient with your selling resources. Having a BuyCycle stronger buying cues. Eloqua, Marketo, and Marketing
Funnel for example lets you know how a customer moves Sherpa are leading companies in this area.

11

VI. RESOURCES

We have mentioned several resources throughout this white paper. For your convenience we have
listed them here and added several more for your benefit.

Eloqua Hubspot
www.eloqua.com www.hubspot.com

Marketo Geoffrey James
www.marketo.com www.geoffreyjames.com

Meclabs Freemium
www.meclabs.com www.freemium.org

The Funnel Principle and Google Analytics
BuyCycle Sales Funnel www.google.com/analytics
www.funnelprinciple.com
Hoover’s
Marketing Sherpa www.hoovers.com
www.marketingsherpa.com

Seth Godin Selling Power
www.sellingpower.com
www.sethgodin.com

12

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Hoover’s Inc., 5800 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78752


How to Optimize Lead Generation

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