Not All Leads Are Created Equal: How to Drive High-Intent B2B Leads

Quick — read these three sentences and tell me if you’ve ever said them.

• “We don’t have enough leads coming in”
  
• “We need a better sales software”
  
• “Our Salespeople need to make more calls.”

While these issues may sound like a Sales problem, they’re really a go-to-market problem.

They’re just manifesting themselves in Sales because that’s where the rubber meets the road.

The real issue: You’re not getting high-intent prospects, and that’s why it’s so hard for your sales team to close.

It’s not that you’ve hired poorly, or that outbound doesn’t work.

It’s simply that your time and energy investments lean too heavily on Sales, when really the issue is more upstream, with Marketing.

You’re not getting high-intent prospects, and that’s why it’s hard for your sales team to close.-Adam Lambert, RevBoss Director of Marketing

To change this, you’ll need to introduce more quality leads to your pipeline.

But it’s not a tap you can just turn on. There’s a process to getting quality, B2B leads, and we’ll share it right here.

Realistic B2B Sales Prospecting

There are several mediums that lend themselves to B2B sales prospecting: cold calls, email marketing, LinkedIn lead gen… The list goes on.

But to really succeed with any of these, your messaging has to be on point.

I’m talking attention-grabbing, super relevant, empathetic messaging.

Unless you’re a category leader, people aren’t searching out your company directly. And you can prove this to yourself by checking out branded terms inside Google Analytics.

What people are searching for is a solution to the problem at hand.

And in this case, it’s the quality of leads coming in.

So how do you improve lead quality without restructuring your Sales team or dedicating half your waking hours to outreach?

You understand your customer, speak their language, and offer help—in that order.

Become Experts at Understanding Your Customer

To start, you absolutely have to nail your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

This is difficult for younger companies whose client list might be widespread, and who’s product or services have several applications.

But that’s truly no excuse. There is a decision maker for these deals, and they do have things in common—even if it’s not their job title.

Let me give you an example.

I used to work at an ad agency where I led marketing for a large healthcare system. They had dozens of locations, a children’s hospital, several research centers—you name it.

When we asked them who to gear our marketing towards, the executives explained that healthcare is a human problem. Literally everyone gets sick, so everyone needs healthcare.

They said it was impossible to pick an ideal customer.

But we dug a bit further, and found there actually was an ICP—and it was crystal clear.

Think about it: when the kids get sick and need to see their Primary Care Physician, who makes the appointment?

What about when it’s time to have Grandma’s eyes checked because she’s been in two fender benders this year?

Or when someone randomly gets a kidney stone?

Mom makes those calls. Mom schedules those appointments.

Our research concluded that Mothers make 90% of the healthcare decisions in the family. Not just for those inside her household, like a partner or children, but for her parents, and her partner’s parents.

So while the execs were right in saying everyone receives healthcare, not everyone makes healthcare decisions.

Find out who your decision maker is, and that’s your ideal customer.

That’s who you need to talk to.

Nail Your B2B Sales Messaging

Once you’ve figured out who your ideal customer is, it’s time to listen.

Literally, listen.

Try to speak with as many people who fit your ICP as possible (within reason) and listen carefully to the language they use to describe their problems.

It may not be sexy, but it’s precisely how they understand the issue.

And if you understand things from that same vantage point, you’re able to create messaging that will speak directly to your customer.

Let me give you another example.

I used to work for Calendly, a tool for scheduling meetings.

The product was great, and people could pick it up very quickly—but not everyone was familiar with Calendly.

What they were familiar with was the struggle of scheduling a meeting—the incessant back-n-forth emails required to book time, and get it on the calendar.

They weren’t going to search us out directly, or Google something like “external meeting scheduler.”

We needed to meet people at their level of understanding.

So what message resonated?

“Calendly helps you schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails.”

We used the customer’s own language to make sure they knew we understood the problem they had.

Once they identified with that problem, we offered our software as the solution.

That’s how you create relevant messaging.

Now You Can Reach Out

With your ICP target locked, and your messaging now on point, you’re ready to go back to those channels we mentioned earlier.

Email Marketing. LinkedIn Lead Gen.

Make sure your Sales Development team knows the ICP and the messaging backwards and forwards, then let them loose.

Or, if you’re a smaller company, and you’re the Sales Dev team, consider outsourcing the legwork to a company like RevBoss.

It’s the tedious part of reaching out and sifting through the duds that makes Biz Dev so difficult.

But when marketing drives pipeline with high win rates, you need fewer Sales resources to hit your revenue targets.

Not only will this improve the quality of your leads, it will help you better balance spending across Sales and Marketing.

So set out that ideal customer target, sharpen your messaging arrows, and start sending.

You can do outbound the right way, knowing all leads are not created equal.

Aim for that bullseye.

And if we can ever help out, don’t hesitate to contact us.

We’ll be right here.