Lead Generation
How exactly do you generate Qualified Sales Leads?
1. By removing the barriers!
Many websites place all sorts of barriers and distractions in the path of a prospective Sales lead. For instance, asking a
website visitor to fill in his contact details is expected, but turning this procedure into a ten-step slog requiring an IQ of 210, is not. Visitors will leave.
Placing enough barriers and "required confirmation steps", etc. will convince them that your Company, as represented through Your Website, doesn't really want their business or to help them. Make it hard enough and you don't get the lead. 
Like a good face-to-face salesman, a website asks people to sign up at the right moment - not too soon and also not too late - or you risk never getting the lead. Getting sales leads is therefore a fine balance between making it easy for a person to sign up and asking him to do so when he feels he really wants to because he's seen enough evidence in your website that your company will help him the best.
The concept of a "funnel" is used by sales lead marketers to bring order to the complexity of qualified lead generation.
The idea is that you start of with a large amount of web "visitors", then gradually, as you qualify your prospect numbers drop off and you are left with fewer but more qualified leads that you can sell to.
This is basically the "funnel" in lead generation marketing. If you are having trouble getting people to sign up, or hand over their contact details on your website, it well behooves any professional lead generation consultant to look closely at the various stages of the "funnel" that your web visitor is asked to go through.
Oftentime there are far too many steps, which becomes boring and annoying. After all, the visitor reasons: "we can put a man on the moon, but a simple website seems to be beyond mankind's capability". An exageration, maybe. But your website visitor is frustrated in his search, even though he may not vocalise it. His "vote" is seen by his use of the dreaded "back-button". When considering any of the B2B lead generation companies vying for your attention, something to take note of is: "can they point out barriers in the Lead-gen funnel"?
2. By presenting relevant information, at the right time:
Once barriers and clutter have been removed, it's time to start answering the question: "what does the visitor actually need to see and when?" This is where, in lead generation marketing, one speaks of "mapping the buyer sphere", which basically means assuming the viewpoint of the prospect and imagining what the perfect website would be.
If you present the prospective customer with his idea of "a perfect website" then he'll sign up - right here, on your website and not someone else's.
When you successfully assume the viewpoint of a prospective customer then it very quickly becomes apparrent what you need to see on a given webpage.
A lot of the time this should contain:
- A brief explanation of the item or service.
- How it helps them.
- How it has proven to help others (success stories or testimonials).
- How they can get it.
That last one, "How they can acquire it" believe it or not, is sometimes very hard to find on B2B leads generation websites that are underachieving. We give practical integration tips and show how to reduce a buyer's "fear of signing up".
