Over the last decade, lead generation has significantly changed. The market has rapidly shifted to greater digital interaction. Decision makers now tend to search for solutions themselves with no need to contact salespeople directly. B2B clients, those seeking lead generation systems, are more interested in digital processes instead of the traditional tools of the past. They feel more comfortable with remote (online) selling.
Due to this, new trends in lead generation have emerged. Trends such as data-based approaches, omnichannel outreaches and new automation tools have become the new norm in sales driven activity. Let’s have a look at some of the most popular lead generation trends to explore.
The follow is a list of the most successful lead generation trends in the marketplace today:
1. Data-Driven Systems
One of the most significant changes in recent years is the importance of data analysis for B2B decision-making regarding lead generation processes.
According to Forbes: “The use of analytics is no longer limited to big companies with deep pockets. It’s now widespread, with 59% of enterprises using analytics in some capacity.”
A few of the main reason for “gathering & retaining” high-quality data is to:
- Increase a team’s efficiency
- Increase the profit, by reducing the cost, of a company’s main lead generation process
- Make better strategic decisions regarding lead generation and the sales process utilized from it
These days the data-based approach for B2B’s is a significant tool for executives. Implementing a solid data-driven system allows you to uncover huge potentials for your business and build a more efficient marketing strategy.
a. (CDP’s) – Customer driven data platforms
Understanding data is just a first step in building data-driven lead generation systems. One of the more recent methods to manage an overwhelming volume of data is through the use of CDPs – Customer Data Platforms.
Customer Data Platforms are “packaged software that create a unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.” In the simplest terms, CDP anonymously creates & manages customer profiles by collecting information from different sources and combining that information in one place.
The data can then be extracted with CRM tools, and can include a person’s social media activity, their behavior on the pages of your website, and so on. Basically, CDP’s contain all the information about a prospects engagement with different platforms online, this empowers your organization with these valuable insights that build a much stronger lead generation system.
Something to keep in mind: It’s not a good idea to violate data collection policies like GDPR compliance or you run the risk of legal proceedings, which can led to consequences that might be costly for your business.
b. Intent driven data
Another current lead generation method is Intent Data. This type of lead generation data helps to identify the decision-makers who are actively seeking solutions to specific issues within their business. Thus, they are much more likely to purchase your solution-based product or service.
Intent data is, as it sounds, data driven by user intent and it is most commonly collected by third parties in order to merge it with the information you may already have tracked & stored on your business website. Every blog post a prospect reads, every message a prospect receives, every inbound or outbound activity a prospect engages in is recorded in a database to help identify hot-prospects more efficiently.
Intent driven data can significantly improve your lead generation system, bringing it to next-level efficiency. By knowing the keywords your customers use in a Google search, the sources your customers trust, and what topics are your customers primary interest, you can very precisely target them.
2. Account-Driven Targeting
The typical buying process is generally a group affair and is usually comprised of 6 to 10 B2B decision-makers. This makes customer targeting & personalization much more complex. (ABM) or “Account-Based Marketing” helps overcome these challenges by targeting entire accounts, rather than individual decision makers in a group, making the process much more streamline.
This 2021 ABM Survey, states that as many as 98% of businesses implement “account-based” marketing systems or at least plan to in the near future. The use of Account-Based-Marketing has increased ten-fold, which shows its effectiveness in B2B lead generation.
ABM targeted decisions increase your chance of finding prospects who will fit your Ideal Customer Profile and who exhibit a strong desire for your specific products or services.
3. Sales Process Specialization
Sales processes have become more sophisticated. As a result an individual seller has greater difficulty performing all the tasks related to sales on their own. Prospecting, product discovery, outreach, lead generation — each one of these individual steps requires the skills of a trained specialist. That’s why we see so many new & specialized roles in lead generation. We see researchers, copywriters, and campaign strategists — all specializing in different skills, skills that require mastery to be effective.
This specialized sales trend is positioned to grow for B2B organizations. In fact, most fast-growth companies are now using these specialized sales strategies as a cornerstone of their marketing systems. The reason is that employees performing these specialized roles in their teams can actually perform better than an individual being responsible for all tasks.
4. Automated Sequencing Tools
Another popular lead generation trend is sales sequencing automation. These automation tools give salespeople the ability to:
- Analyze data more efficiently
- Assign specific routine or repeated processes to a computer
- Use more of their time on customer personalization
- Reaching out to many more leads for a one-on-one experience
- Customize outreach processes & onboarding
- Track progress and make necessary adjustments immediately
All of these automations are making lead generation much more effortless & cost effective, while giving salespeople the flexibility to take necessary actions by engaging these automated processes for the more routine tasks, which gives them more time to focus on specializations with regard to their particular skill sets.
5. Omni-Channel Outreach
Lead generation, more than anything, is really about having a business conversation with the right people. Now, with the growth of self-serve digital channels and remote (online) human activity, omnichannel or multichannel outreach has become one of the fastest growing trends with many more buyers using this new system. These systems allow you to deliver your business messages thru multiple channels at the same time so your opportunity to engage qualified prospects increases significantly.
But it’s not just these message delivery systems that are new drivers in the lead generation industry. It’s also outbound channels such as sending cold email campaigns, making phone calls, and using social media advertising.
6. Outsourcing Your Lead Generation Process
In a vastly more competitive marketplace, like we’re seeing today, most companies are seeking ways to cut costs and use their teams’ time more efficiently. Outsourcing your lead generation process can be a cost effective business decision, especially if you’re trying to save on the costs of onboarding, training, and maintaining your in-house team. It enables your business to lower the overall ‘per-lead’ cost while handing over the lead generation process to experienced professionals with a proven track record of successfully generating sales-qualified leads.
With Upcision you can save significantly on a lead generation system for years to come!
The foreseeable future of lead generation is clear. It will be data-driven and intensely dependent on automation. Companies now have to adapt to these new systems of digital selling as well as remote work. With Upcision’s help, your lead generation campaigns will be your strongest asset.
