How to: Generate more leads in 2022

When done right, lead generation can result in a harmonious connection between your clients and consumers; when it’s not done right, it’s a confusing dumpster fire and probably a massive waste of time and resources. In this howto special, COURTNEY DEVEREU

What’s the secret to successful lead generation you ask? We chat with a few marketers who impart expert advice.

Hubspot’s ‘State of Marketing Report 2021’ indicated that generating more leads is a top priority for marketers this year, and of course it is. Now that many are making their way out of the Covid-19 molasses, the focus is switching from surviving to thriving, and it’s only through new leads and smashing sales targets that marketers can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yet despite the endless updates to our market that seem to flip everything on its head every six to 12 months, if we’re talking lead generation, although everything that surrounds or influences it might change, the basics remain the same.

“When it comes to the fundamentals of lead generation, nothing ever changes,” says Josh Pickles, Co-founder of The Automation Geeks. “The methods might change, the technology might change, but the process never does. What it all comes down to is simply driving customer behaviour and adding value to their experience.”

Josh says marketers are under too much pressure to hit sales targets, thanks in large part to the pandemic. With these pressures, they often lose the ability to connect with potential leads successfully and consider their needs from a value-exchange perspective.

“It always returns to the emotional drivers and adding value to the experience of our prospects, because when we’ve got that pressure, it’s the first thing we forget about,” he says. “We look to drive numbers up and hit KPIS, but the rest goes out the window.”

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

The pandemic placed a lot of pressure on marketers to hit new and, in some cases, higher sales targets. Now, as things return to some level of normality, Josh suggests heading back to the basics. For him, the biggest concern in this area is the need for rapid growth, which is hindering marketers from slowing down and looking at the bigger picture of what they’re trying to achieve.

“Marketers are now moving at a million miles per hour,” he says. “What we’re trying to encourage them to do is just take a brief step back and go back to basics. Create personas based on your existing data, so you can identify who your customers actually are, then create custom audiences and segment your audiences based on that. That’s the absolute best place for you to be starting, and it’s the one thing that I’m constantly telling [marketers] to go back to every single time.”

According to co-founder and CEO of Bright Street Studio Ian Howard, New Zealand marketers suffer from ‘short termism’, meaning we often focus on short-term results rather than long term strategic planning — an issue accelerated by the pandemic. “Covid has had even more of an impact in that regard, because many moved to a defensive position, worrying about what the future might hold and about dwindling revenues and the inability to get in front of customers in the way that they used to,” he says. “What we’re seeing now is lead-generation activity being switched on, then switched off in a panic when it’s not working within two or three days.”

Lead generation is implicitly a long-term initiative that requires patience, yet there’s a chance that by being too patient, you become unreactive. For Ian, it’s a balancing act.

“You don’t want to be passive, but at the same time, you don’t want to be hyperactive. That often takes a bit of experience, a bit of confidence and a bit of rigour in the way you set up your lead-generation initiatives.”

As Josh says, you can get a lot of quick results within digital, but they can tend to be short-term gains. “If I’ve learned anything about email marketing and anything about automation, it’s that good results will always take time. That’ll obviously be different for B2B versus B2C and what those journeys look like, but when it comes to lead generation, good things always take time —results cannot be pushed.”

COMMUNICATION IS KEY

The pandemic didn’t unearth a lot of new challenges, but it did highlight many the market was already seeing, in particular the changes to data privacy and cookie usage. “This meant that a lot of marketers could no longer rely on third-party cookies to provide behavioural insights for micro targeting processes,” says Ian.

“There’s definitely been a shift towards needing your own proprietary data set and building your own first-party data sets,” he continues. “You need to be across the data and make sure that you’re always correcting if it’s telling you this isn’t working the way it should be.

If you’re expecting leads to roll through instantly, you’re misunderstanding how people make decisions. There’s often a consideration phase that people need, and you need to be aware of that.”

Ian encourages marketers to start with the customer journey, then try ‘test and learn’ tactics to see what is and isn’t working for your audience. The key, he says, is to communicate to your customers in a way that’s authentic to your brand, while using CRM systems to ensure you’re creating a systematic approach to how you tell your story and nurture through that lead process.

“Understand your value proposition, target your customers and articulate that value proposition in a different way, then implement technology systems that enable you to analyse the data, the insights, and make course corrections along the way.

“When it comes to the fundamentals of lead generation, nothing ever changes.” Josh Pickles

“Try a multitude of different ways, and let the data tell you what is and isn’t effective,” he continues. “It really isn’t difficult to create variants, and particularly if you’re trying to generate leads at scale, it’s important to create targeted offerings, rather than one bulk message for a large audience.”

AVOID ‘ SPRAY & PRAY’

The ‘spray and pray’ approach is a popular one in lead generation. As its name suggests, it involves sending out a general message to as many people as possible, then hoping for a good result.

Ian says this is a quick way to get lost in the noise. He believes marketers should instead go into the process by first understanding their customers and the journey they go on when making purchasing decisions.

“The customer journey should always be the place to start. It’s one of the few ways you can truly differentiate, through that better understanding of your customer. Marketers get caught up in drinking their own Kool-aid, thinking, ‘ This is a great idea, why wouldn’t everyone think that?’ and expect to generate results. The honest truth of it is it rarely will.”

Instead, marketers should be pivoting to connect with their potential leads in a meaningful way. New Zealand, and Auckland specifically, is often referred to as the ‘little black book’, whereas two degrees of separation connect us all. Client Director at Data Insights Donna Outram says now is the time to lean on these connections and grow relationships through pre-existing clients or even just friends and family.

“When it comes to lead generation in a post-covid landscape, it’s about who you know. Lean on those connections within your circle. However, you still have to make sure what you’re talking about has relevance — if it doesn’t, you’ll lose a lot of potential connections by spouting something that isn’t relevant to them. More and more people are looking for authenticity in relationships, and that’s more important than a transactional relationship.”

It’s not just the way relationships are made through lead generation, but also how they’re maintained. According to Deloittes 2022 Marketing Trends report ‘ Thriving Through Customer Centricity’, authenticity is one of the leading trends dictating business growth.

Essentially, consumers and clients want to support brands that represent them and their values. Donna says clients expect third-party players to act as an extension of their business and are looking for those that can sit within the ‘extended family’.

“People have started to look at relationships as more of a longer-term investment,” she says. “Through this relationship, you become a trusted partner and start to have honest conversations about how to grow their business.”

When it comes to lead generation, there’s no one solution, but Donna outlines several key points that can help you drive leads in this new landscape. “Build on your strengths, know what you’re talking about and who to talk to. Remember that relevance is key — if you’re trying to sell a toaster to someone who already has a toaster, you’re wasting everyone’s time. You may find success in emailing or direct messaging on Linkedin, but keep your messages short and concise. People don’t want to hear about your 18-point plan — they want to tell you their business needs, and from there you can make a plan on how to best help them succeed.

“Persistence wears out resilience,” she says, so those being given the cold shoulder shouldn’t feel dejected, but should instead reassess their approach. “Some things just take time; you need to keep a regular cadence happening with potential clients who at least seem moderately interested in what you have to offer. We have clients that we’d been talking to for a year before they came on board, but we continued to keep in touch with them because we knew what we had was relevant to their needs and added value.”

THE VALUE OF ADDING VALUE

For the secret sauce of lead generation, we should look no further than MBM, who were recently awarded Brand Awareness Premier Partner of the Year at the Google AUNZ Premier Partner Awards and were finalists for Lead Generation Premier Partner of the Year — the only New Zealand agency to make the list. MBM’S Chief Digital Officer Emily Isle says the accolades came down to the agency’s non-hierarchical culture of specialists across data, tech and media, which ultimately enables them to alter their delivery to meet client needs.

“We have a unique, synchronised offering of analytics and data science, platforms technology prowess and media smarts that I believe comes together to deliver very strong and collaborative digital solutions for our clients,” she says.

For Emily, anyone looking to create quality leads needs to start by really knowing their customer and client, and tailoring an offering around those signals. “The more you know

about who you want and need to draw in as a lead to grow the business, the better you’ll be at crafting a value offer for that consumer that will trigger them to exchange their data and time.”

This value exchange is at its core level quite simple, yet it’s something MBM has used to put them at the forefront of led generation. “At MBM, we use analytics to better understand and identify highvalue customers,” says Emily. “It ties into the first principle of good lead generation: intimately understanding who you want to convert to a lead, so you can spend your marketing money where it’ll give you the best return. It’s also helpful to have a framework around the different products and solutions you can deliver collectively, to easily table these with clients, road-map what’s most useful for their business goals, and set priorities with clear stakeholders and timelines.”

Emily sees lead generation as a critical tactic for a broader range of businesses moving forward, even more so than it has been in the past. If you ask her, marketers need to start promoting outward brand values and purpose, which can help your business differentiate and deliver on emerging needs for

“The more you know about who you want and need to draw in as a lead to grow the business, the better you’ll be at crafting a value offer.” Emily Isle

consumers through brand experiences and association.

“Start with the content you produce,” she says. “The content itself must be intriguing and relevant to connect your brand to your high-value customers’ interests. It also needs to be presented in a space and voice that your customer frequents and trusts.”

When asked how others in the space can emulate the success that MBM have seen, Emily encourages a framework that puts clients’ needs at the very heart of the solution. “Value exchange is certainly key. In the B2B world, this comes to life with white papers and webinars, useful business tools a lead signs up for to show intent and qualification. With the emerging consumer value extending beyond your tangible product to ethical and purpose-driven exchanges, I do think there will be a secret to how this value exchange evolves.”

Yet how do you truly figure out the proper value exchange, or even know what your customers want? According to Grace Brebner, the other half of The Automation Geeks along with Josh, marketers just need to shut up and listen.

“We’re not good enough at listening to the needs of the customer, understanding what questions and concerns they have at different points of the buyer cycle and designing marketing to target these concerns,” she says. “What we tend to get caught up in is pushing whatever the business’ objective is and what the dominant messaging needs to be at those points. What it really comes down to is we need to be better at listening.”

GETTING EMOTIONAL

Grace says one thing that makes a difference is working to really connect with the individuals on the other end of the line and communicating to them in a way that’s going to create an emotional affinity.

“Almost 99.9 percent of buying decisions are emotional decisions, then after we’ve made the emotional decision, we use logic to rationalise why we made that choice, but at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is that my gut was emotionally drawn to that option. Even when comparing B2B and B2C product purchases, nine times out of 10, they’re logically justifying an emotional decision they made six months before they actually settled on the thing. If we as marketers don’t do a good job at harnessing whatever that emotional basis is, we will not win.”

With regards to the difference between selling in B2B versus B2C, this emotional bias is still in place; however, as Grace suggests, marketers must go the extra mile and equip clients with extra data points and levels of reasoning to get them over the line.

“In a B2B sense, the people you really need to sell it to are the people who are going to be the users, and then they’ll become your champions in the business,” she says. “What you need to do is get that person and emotionally lock them in, then arm them with the information they need in order to sell it to the people in the business who do care about the numbers. If they’re emotionally locked in, they’ll fight that fight for you.”

Ian echoes Grace’s words, and suggests that marketers looking to generate leads need to find their niche audience and connect with them beyond digital to drive an emotional response. “To avoid drinking our own Kool-aid, which we’re all guilty of, we have to figure out how our offering fits into a certain niche, and from there tailor a specific audience or a specific subset of our customers. It’s much more likely that a niche offering will resonate emotionally with a potential lead. It’ll be relevant to them, and it’ll differentiate you from other competitors out there, which is key when it comes to generating quality leads.”