Lead Gen for the Long Haul

It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.  Pardon the cliché, but darn it if it doesn’t fit B2B lead generation perfectly. Most of our clients know this, but it’s difficult for them to get sales teams and executives on board. They want sales ready leads that produce quick wins. Sometimes, when an early campaign for a new product or growing brand doesn’t make a big bang, the tendency can be to give up on the race all together.

So what’s a marketer to do? Especially, when there’s a shiny new marketing technology born every day promising sprinter-fast sales. Well, let’s share some data with our non-marketing friends:

  • According to an August 2014 study by marketingcharts.com, B2B marketers say email and whitepaper downloads are still top performers in generating qualified leads.
  • 2013 Data from more than 300 TCI Marketing Services programs shows that prospects are more than 2X more likely to engage a secondary call to action after they’ve been offered the same content more than 9-times.

 Success depends on a smooth hand-off from one teammate to the next 

You’ll notice that this confirms the marathon metaphor. So, please remind your non-marketer chums that lead generation is just the first mile, if you will, in a complex, marathon conversation with your prospects. If it’s working properly it can produce waves of net new contacts for your nurture programs, attendance at live events, and sales opportunities. But as you know, it needs to keep running at a steady pace.

More to the point, lead gen is a relay marathon. We’ve agreed it rewards the steady and patient, but we should also mention success depends on a smooth hand-off from one teammate to the next. We’ll focus more on the hand-off from marketing to sales in future posts. In the meantime, keep putting one foot in front of the other. We’re here to cheer you on.