Lead generation is the term used for businesses seeking to make inroads with other companies, with whom they would like to establish business relationships. Continue reading to find out how lead generation works and what are the best practices on generating leads for software company.
The need for every business to generate leads has grown in recent years because of the digital age. In order to be successful, a business needs an effective lead generation which will eventually lead to sales. There are various ways by which you can generate leads for your software company and make your business boom.
Generating leads for a Software Company is an essential part of creating a healthy pipeline of opportunities. Chances are you’re reading this because you’re stumped as to how to make this happen. We’ve all been there, and can sympathize with the struggle.
As a software business owner, you would need to know and understand the process of generating leads for software companies. This is an important part of running a business as it is responsible for bringing more clients and sales for your company. But generating leads for a software business is not as easy as leading people directly to your product offerings. Let’s face it – nobody will buy from you if they are not familiar with your brand or have never heard about you. That’s why lead generation should be part of your marketing strategy, especially if you are just starting out or have been in business for some time and have yet to achieve positive results in terms of increasing your sales .
The Basics
According to HubSpot, lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service. Some examples of lead generators are job applications, blog posts, coupons, live events, and online content.
In colder terms, it can involve pulling lists of prospects that match your target profile and persona.
1. Create Cornerstone Content
Cornerstone content pages are landing pages for SEO that focus on core keywords. For example, if a core function of your business is point-of-sale software for small businesses, your cornerstone page may be “POS Software for Small Business,” a Google keyword target. This page will capture leads who search for that term. And search engine, or organic, leads are highly valuable:
SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate (Search Engine Journal).
Your cornerstone pages should include “contact us” forms, or content offers in exchange for submitting the form, such as a free eBook or white paper.
Utilize conversion forms to generate leads. Ideally, you will use content offers instead of simply “contact us” to generate interest.
One major goal for your online marketing is to rank highly for these cornerstone pages. First, you can prioritize these pages for Google by making them your website navigation pages, instead of “About us” or “Products,” which don’t carry much search engine value.
Second, you should publish supplementary content that links back to cornerstone content — we’ll explain this tactic next. Related article: How to Create a High-Ranking Technology Content Marketing Strategy
2. Frequently Publish Supplementary Content
Posting continual blog posts that link to your cornerstone content helps bring search engine authority to your cornerstone content — and that means more leads!
Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages and companies with more indexed pages get far more leads.
Blogs can use longer-tail keywords that are related to your cornerstone keywords and that discuss buyer questions, pain points, and industry concerns. This content should not simply talk about your product but rather provide unique insights into your industry as a whole.
This image shows how your blog topics might link to your cornerstone content, encouraging conversions site-wide. This is a solid SEO strategy for building authority.
Another type of content could be third-party articles written by an executive at your firm. These articles should always include a link to your cornerstone content and discuss the industry at large, instead of promotional.
According to Google, 71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search, which means only publishing branded content is not the best way forward.
Researchers want to read about the industry and the different options before diving into a company, so having third-party outlets publish content under your brand’s name is key. Related article: Content Marketing Strategy for Software Companies
3. Create a Social Media Strategy
Next, extend the reach of your content by posting regularly on social media channels. Use these platforms to promote your content — both blog posts, and sometimes cornerstone content pages — and engage with others in your industry by sharing their content, too. If you struggle to post regularly, schedule ahead of time with a social scheduling tool like Buffer or HootSuite.
Identify key influencers in your software industry and see which hashtags they use and content they share.
Depending on the industry target for your product, use hashtags to enter different user groups on Twitter. For example, if your software is in the analytics world, then #datamining, #bigdata, and even #data would be good hashtags to promote your content with — These are all popular, trusted hashtags in that community.
In order to gain initial traction, employees too should share content and post on social media. For example, they can help answer troublesome development questions using #answer on Twitter to help other programmers.
By spending as little as six hours per week, 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media. (Social Media Examiner).
4. Use Paid Ads
Next, you can amplify your message with a popular demand generation strategy: Paid advertising. Paid advertising is best when you start small to gain insight:
- Identify a targeted audience (possible with AdWords and several social media ad platforms)
- Drive visitors to a cornerstone content page with a custom URL link, so you can track how many visitors came from your ad campaign
- Test different variations
- Utilize a small budget, until you’ve identified what works
- Analyze your result: How many qualified leads did we generate?
Then, continue iterating over time. This will ensure that you’re not overspending on unqualified leads or bad campaigns.
According to Social Media Examiner, when it comes to paid social media ads, the overwhelming majority use Facebook ads (84%), followed by Google ads (41%) and LinkedIn ads (18%).
5. Optimize your Website for Conversions
Only about 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates (Econsultancy).
But there are many ways to optimize a website to increase the number of conversions — that is, website visitors who submit contact information and convert into business leads.
- Add calls-to-action (CTAs) on all pages, so users can navigate swiftly to conversion pages.
- Customize your CTAs to the page’s content — that is, sales-focused calls-to-action on a sales page, etc.
- Write focusing on a strong value proposition (i.e., what are your software product’s benefits to the consumer) instead of focusing on features.
- Show demos and videos, which can inspire the user to take action.
- Test different messaging and designs for your calls-to-action, to gain insight on what’s working well, and optimize what isn’t.
Most importantly, think of your website as a continuous project, not a one-and-done event. You will see the most success from your website if you stay close to the analytics, and continually optimize it.
Add calls-to-action on all of your pages, ideally above the fold (aka, on the top of the page before a downward scroll is necessary).
6. Develop a Lead Nurturing Strategy
Once your company has generated leads, it’s time to nurture them into customers.
67% of B2B marketers say they see at least a 10% increase in sales opportunities through lead nurturing, with 15% seeing opportunities increase by 30% or more (Demand Gen Report).
Often, companies forget this part of the sales process, which results in missed opportunities.
Use different content offers to nurture leads through the sales funnel.
Working with the sales team, you can identify pain points and hesitations and address these concerns through content such as targeted email or blogs. Once leads engage, send their contact information to your sales team. Use a CRM like Hubspot which has automatic lead scoring to identify where each person or company is in the sales cycle. Then, use targeted content to nurture them in the funnel.
Why B2B Lead Generation Is So Hard for Technology Companies: 6 Unique Challenges
The process of earning trust from readers can be long and for good reason. If they’re trying to find out ways to achieve a goal or seeking out solutions for a pain point, they want to get their information from a credible source.
Establishing this level of trust is a big undertaking, but once you become an authority in the reader’s mind, they’re far more likely to want to hear from you more. This is when they provide their contact information to you, usually for a unique content offer or to subscribe to your blog.
But that process of driving conversions and gaining those leads is especially tough for technology companies because the world of B2B is riddled with several unique challenges.
Some Content Is Unclear.
Communication is key when it comes to marketing and sales. Today’s market has a sharp focus on building relationships and being in touch with businesses.
Even in highly technical industries, where the information communicated can be complex, there should be clear and consistent engagement between you and the customer.
Unfortunately, though, it’s not uncommon for a webpage or other such online content to feel too complicated for leads to understand. Industry jargon, fluff, and an unclear presentation can cause obstacles when attempting to convert leads to customers.
Sometimes, the learning curve is just too steep.
Customer Centricity Is Rare.
By isolating your potential customers through unclear content and a lack of proper communication, then it’s pretty likely that your team isn’t operating with a customer-centric mentality either.
Lead generation only works if you’re focused on your audience and their needs, not just showing off what it is you can do for the world. They want to know what you can do for them. A common challenge comes from balancing the need to sell with the need to provide value.
The latter should always be priority, but that’s rarely the case.
It’s Easy to Target the Wrong Audience.
One of the most common lead generation challenges for any company is figuring out who you’re trying to reach.
Too often, technology companies forget to re-familiarize themselves with their buyer personas and wind up targeting the wrong audiences.
Marketing plans and campaigns can become too broad, drawing in leads that aren’t qualified matches with your business. Unless you know what your ideal customer’s pain points are, you’re not going to be able to target them effectively.
Not All B2B Lead Sources Are Known.
There’s a common question you will hear in the B2B world – where did these leads come from?
Unfortunately, no one’s actually certain in some cases.
Yes, strategies like email marketing, organic searches, and social media pull prospects in, but there’s a large percentage of unidentifiable behavior and activities that factor into B2B lead generation.
HubSpot’s research found that the highest percentage of leads came from “other.” In other words, the most successful channel for lead generation is hard to fully comprehend because “other” doesn’t mean any one specific strategy.
Source: HubSpot
That makes maintaining marketing efforts that much more important, with a high demand of constantly adapting and adopting new strategies. In the long run, that’s a lot of resources, time, and cost put into simply finding leads before they even get truly started in your sales cycle.
Strategies Are Difficult to Choose.
With such a wide array of strategies and techniques available that boast incredible conversion capabilities, it can be difficult to know which ones to implement in your plan.
And that decision carries a lot of weight since the average marketing team doesn’t have a lot of resources to work with.
It’s not often that having a surplus of opportunity becomes a problem, but, unfortunately, that’s the case for tech and software companies. Narrowing that list down to a handful that are going to drive the right results is unique challenge that requires trial and error.
It’s Common to Ignore Metrics.
Speaking of experimentation, a self-imposed challenge would be when B2Bs don’t take the time to monitor and analyze the data received from the strategies they do practice.
You can’t just put a campaign into effect and then walk away from it. Measuring and assessing metrics is an important step in identifying what’s working and what isn’t. If a lead generation strategy or tactic isn’t performing, then it should be either adjusted or dropped and replaced.
10 Lead Generation Strategies That Work for Technology Companies
There are a lot of obstacles that a company has to overcome. Throw in some external and internal challenges, and you have a business that’s trying to put out fires instead of converting customers.
But never to fear. We’ve found several strategies that software and tech companies can leverage that will start generating leads more effectively.
1. Create Content Offers That Align With Your Prospects’ Pain Points.
Marketing begins with your knowledge of your prospects. It’s vital to understand what question or problem brings them to your site. Do they need to reduce hiring costs? Are they interested in new software?
Buyer persona research can assist in defining these pain points, providing insights on how and when these issues come up for your customers. Understanding each persona’s unique experience will allow you to align your content offers with the right stage in their buyer journey.
Each individual problem should be associated with a giveaway – an ebook, video series, or other content they have to subscribe to your mailing list to receive.
2. Deliver Thought Leadership Content.
Once prospects get educated about their problem and possible solutions, they usually look at several potential vendors.
To differentiate from the competition, focus on developing high-level content like whitepapers or case studies that show the unique value your products offer. This is especially important for B2B tech companies who often have to walk customers through a lot of highly technical information.
By focusing not only on what you do differently but why your way is best, you set the tone of the conversation.
It builds brand trust and enhances your reputation, both of which are often direct influences on a decision maker’s business.
Companies like Openview Labs and GE’s Txchnologist share educational content purely to provide value and expand their audience’s knowledge base. And because of it, they’re trusted online above several other tech companies.
3. Ensure Your Online Presence Is Mobile Optimized.
A Google study found 42 percent of B2B decision makers used mobile devices during the buying process. What’s more surprising, the average American spends 10 hours a day interacting with their phone, including making purchases.
Simply put, mobile use is growing, reflecting the challenges buyers face as they make more complex decisions with less time.
As a result, your entire digital presence should be optimized for the mobile web. Otherwise, leads won’t be able to access or act on your offers when they need to.
Mobile marketing has become incredibly competitive. If your strategies, website, and offers aren’t accessible, then buyers will easily decide to go back to a SERP and find another company that is.
4. Make the Most of Video Marketing.
In the same study, Google determined 70 percent of B2B buyers watch video during the buyer’s journey. Video content is powerful and flexible – and nearly half of B2B buyers consume 30 minutes or more of it.
At the top of the funnel, a polished one-minute video may be more effective than a blog in inspiring leads to convert, since they can consume videos quickly and easily.
PandaDoc does an excellent job of relaying content and valuable information in less than two minutes (which is the ideal time, by the way). Here’s a video giving a brief, but detailed, overview of the services they offer.
Within only a short time, they’ve addressed who their targeted leads are, what pain points they alleviate, and how they alleviate them, all while being engaging and creative. An impressive campaign!
5. Start Connecting and Engaging on LinkedIn.
A scattershot approach to social media does more harm than good for technology enterprises.
Research has shown that LinkedIn leads the pack in B2B lead generation, yielding about 78 percent of B2B leads compared to just 48 percent for Twitter and 42 percent for Facebook.
Social traffic is valuable, but if you only have the resources to focus on one network, pick LinkedIn for lead generation.
Those stats are largely in part because of the average tech company’s customer’s behaviors. You won’t find many businesses looking for new software scrolling through Instagram. They’re looking to find thought leaders and their business information, like size, age, and other credibility factors.
Tableau recognized this behavior and made a move to use LinkedIn Sponsored Content. This pushed their conversion to six percent, raising the bar for qualified leads.
6. Drive Word of Mouth With Your Current Customers.
Word of mouth is one of the most trusted strategies by consumers. People trust people.
Reversing that chain of thought, when someone finds a product or service that provided real value, they become excited to share it with those close to them.
There’s a pretty good chance that one of your current customers has a friend or colleague with a need similar to their own. Through reviews, testimonials, and social proof, you can boost your brand awareness with these fringe leads.
If your customers are having large success with your business, then it’s time to take it one step further and introduce referrals. Asking them to “refer a friend” can start generating leads that are already warm after hearing good things from your current customers.
This can cause a chain reaction that evolves into an expanding web of connections and new business.
7. Schedule Events That Your Audience Wants to Attend.
Building connections with your leads is a primary step in converting them to customers. That can be difficult to accomplish through SEO tactics and LinkedIn content posts alone.
Get leads in front of you and teach them what it is you can do for them through events like conferences and webinars. You’ll be able to educate them, upping your trust factor, while also establishing your business’ position as a thought leader in your industry.
While in-person conferences are one-time touch opportunities, you can continuously provide value through recorded online events. Webinars are accessible from anywhere in the world and can be archived for returning leads.
Invite leads to register for a series, or promote expanded content online to your in-person leads. Leveraging events like this and then following up with potential customers after keeps them engaged with your business, bringing them closer to a sale.
8. Collaborate With Influencers In Your Space.
Leaning on the value of word of mouth again, partnering with a popular influencer who can advocate for your products can bring in an unexpected amount of leads to your business.
Technology “unboxers” and reviewers carry a lot of sway on YouTube, Twitter, and other social media channels. Even though you don’t necessarily need to be putting a ton of resources into social media marketing, that doesn’t mean you should abandon it.
Send products to key industry influencers before you release them to the public to generate hype before a launch. Their thoughts and opinions can create a high demand.
9. Consider Co-Marketing With Strong Partners.
Co-marketing is a pretty common strategy, but it still yields notable results.
Functioning both online and offline, partnering with a hardware or software company, respective to your own business, allows you to generate leads for one another.
Find another business that has a similar audience that doesn’t directly compete with you. You may even be able to support one another’s solutions, providing real testimonies. Splitting the cost also leaves room in your budget to bolster other lead generation strategies.
In the end, lead generation grows at only half the cost.
10. Add Product Comparisons to Your Content Strategy.
Product comparison is extremely popular amongst tech business decision makers. It only makes sense: if you’re torn between two or three different choices, compare the pros and cons of each to help make the decision.
If you’re getting a lot of traffic from SEO strategies, then implementing product comparison content should be an easy next step. Provide potential customers with an easy means of evaluating their options directly from one of the businesses in question.
It shows confidence in your own products and transparency in your standing within your industry.
Building pages on your website dedicated to product comparisons can also boost your rankings on SERPs and leverage keywords against your competitors, like “versus” or “alternatives.”
Technology and software companies have to contend with long buying cycles, which can be difficult at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Generating leads is especially difficult with unique challenges and obstacles in the way. But using these strategies as part of your bigger inbound marketing strategy can help stretch the reach of your brand awareness to your ideal potential buyers.
Lead Gen Costs
There are several costs that can be associated with lead generation:
- Media agencies and operations: the costs to hire an agency for your lead gen efforts
- Media placement and distribution: the cost of paying external sources such as Facebook and LinkedIn for your ads
- List purchases: the cost of buying or hiring third parties to receive or generate lists
- Campaign creation: the internal costs of developing an effective marketing campaign
- Incentives: Reward costs e.g. discounts, sending gifts
And no doubt many more additional costs from the management of any campaign, to the cost of hiring and training a team to run it.
Conclusion
Lead generation is challenge for many businesses. No matter what business you are in, the need for leads for your business will always be a reality. Today, we live in a technologically advanced environment that makes it possible to generate leads from numerous sources. In fact, there are many lead generation sources where you find high quality leads for various purposes.
The lead generation, advertising and sales calls all experience certain challenges within the software industry, particularly in technology. Outsourcing, decreasing market share and the speed of technological innovation are just a few of the challenges faced by companies in this area. Although these companies have established themselves as industry leaders and top competitors, they must adapt to a changing environment by learning from their competition.