Secrets to Successful Online Lead Generation

A recent survey conducted by research firm, MarketingSherpa, found that business-to-business marketers are shifting from offline to online marketing programs in record numbers.

This is a good move.

In most B2B situations, online lead generation will get you more good leads, faster and potentially at less cost than offline tactics. The only requirement is that your prospects must be online themselves.

Online lead generation has become critical for business-to-business marketers because prospects are actively researching B2B products and services, and they’re doing it online.

For example:

• 80% of business technology buyers say that they found the vendor – the vendor did not find them. (MarketingSherpa, Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007 – 2008).
  
  
• Well over 70% of B2B purchases begin with an online search. (Enquiro Research Business to Business Survey 2007).
  
  
• Even C-Level executives (82%) use search engines. (Forbes.com and Gartner online C-Level survey Nov & Dec 2007).
  

Take a look again at those first two points. The combined concept is worth repeating. 80% of your potential prospects are looking for solutions like yours, and most of them are finding those solutions online. It pays to be where they’re looking for you.

Another reason online lead generation will get you more good leads, faster and potentially at less cost than offline approaches is because it is easy to track and measure the results of online tactics. It’s easy to keep what’s working and drop what isn’t. That saves you money.

It’s also easy to compare one version against another until you’ve found the combination that produces the greatest results. That makes your marketing investment more efficient.

To succeed in online lead generation, you have to lay a good foundation. Here are five fundamental secrets to doing that.

1. Be very visible. Your goal should be to become highly visible and easy to find anywhere your prospects are hanging out or looking for products or services like yours.
   
   
2. Get your prospects to take action. Just as with conventional offline marketing programs, the goal of an online program should be to get your desired prospects to do something.
   
   
3. Be prepared to convert the leads you generate. Only a small percentage of prospects will be ready buy or to talk with a sales person on the initial contact. Sending traffic or leads to your website is only the first step in a multi-stage process.
   
   
4. Participate in the community. Your target audiences – prospects, customers, journalists, employees and investors - are talking online. There’s much to be gained by participating – correctly – in those conversations.
   
   
5. Test and measure. The ability to quantify and compare results from nearly every aspect of an online marketing program is a key advantage of online marketing.
   

Marketers are moving to online lead generation because it works – and especially in a poor economy, it offers many advantages over offline programs. But, like more conventional marketing tactics, you can waste a lot of money if you don’t do it right. Keep the above “secrets” in mind and you’ll vastly improve your chances for success.

© 2008 Tatum Marketing Inc.