- 24 Jan 2020
How to Set Measurable Goals for B2B Lead Generation?
Goal setting is important before starting off anything. It gives you clarity and direction to act.
Most people underestimate the importance of goal setting in b2b lead generation and they directly jump to set up their sales and production team without any clarity.
I was also a great believer in taking quick actions, but things have always been messy. A year before I decided I will get my process refined to the point that it will not need my participation at all.
I have employed some ideology and have done a couple of projects successfully and smoothly. I thought I should share it.
Okay, let’s get started!
There is this beautiful principle I have read on goal setting-S.M.A.R.T Principle.
S.M.A.R.Tstands for-
Specific
Always make specific and particular goals. Specific goals give you clarity in setting up a further process in your b2b lead generation campaigns.
For example:
Not Specific: We are gonna be the biggest lead generation company in the World.
Specific: We have to generate revenue of $150,000 in the next 6 months time period.
Measurable
People who are data-driven tend to perform far better than people who don’t. Set goals that you can measure with available tools in your industry and more importantly accessible to you.
The goals that you can’t measure can’t be achieved. If you can’t measure them, you can’t adjust your processes.
For example:
Not Measurable: We will use quality content to build awareness.
Measurable: We will generate 4 articles per week, 2 for blog and 2 for 3rd party sites for better exposure and branding.
Achievable
Everybody starts somewhere. Everybody first focuses on their niche and particular location before they choose the highway.
Your goals should not be according to the industry standards, they should align with you, your team and your business appetite.
Making too ambitious goals will hamper your team’s energy and motivation in the long run.
For example:
Not Achievable: We are starting off, so what! We are gonna be the best content marketing company in the world.
Achievable: We are starting off. To have some grip in the market we should start focusing on one niche and start with a target of reaching 10 clients in metro cities as of now.
Relevant
Believe me or not goals that are not relevant or far off the purpose of your campaign are tough to focus on, and if it did not get enough attention they are left undone.
No matter how fruitful some goal or strategy is if it is not relevant to your core campaign it will not be a priority and slowly you will start losing motivation.
For example:
Relevant: We have acquired two clients from the infrastructure industry, we should target the same industry for multiple locations.
Not Relevant: We have a couple of clients from the logistics industry, we should go into the health industry to diversify our portfolio since it has lots of opportunities.
Time-Oriented or Timely
Proper scheduling of goals is as vital as making them.
For most people, the deadline is the driver of long term planning and scheduling. Always keep deadlines, it increases efficiency. Plan for every day, every hour of the process you set up.
For example:
Not Time-Oriented:
We have to build an email template that’s gonna drive sales.
Time-Oriented:
We have to build an email template by this afternoon and have to set the whole LMS(Lead Management System) by the end of this day. And will start marketing from tomorrow morning. Let’s get started!
Alright, that’s one of the principles that my team follows to set up most of our processes. We are pretty successful with that.
If you have a different and unique ideology don’t forget to mention in the comment section.
Do you think, the most important aspect of your lead generation strategy is not the strategy itself but the content you market? Let’s start with that.
I know you are aware but it important to mention-
There are 3 main phases where your customer lies in any lead generation campaign funnel:
Top of the Funnel:
The “Top of the funnel” content has the job of initiating awareness in your target audience.
Your landing page or lead magnet’s content should be designed in such a way that it drives people's interest and curiosity around your product/service that you are offering to your audience through your lead generation campaign.
The content you might use in this phase would be:
- Blog posts
- Images and Videos
- Ebooks
- Pop up forms etc.
Check out this resource on how to optimize your landing page for lead generation.
Goal Setting:
- Use the S.M.A.R.T principle for generating and scheduling your content.
- If you have to outsource the content creation set a limit on your budget.
- Don’t forget to provide a self-explanatory draft for every content that has to be created.
Middle of the Funnel:
The “Middle of the funnel” content has the job to nurture those leads that you have acquired in your first phase.
This phase is all about providing value to your customer.
Nurturing is nothing but building a healthy relationship with your customer. And how do you do that? Yes, Content.
The type of content that you might use in this phase:
- How to content(Informative Response Posts)
- Case Studies
- Products Demo Videos
- Product Specifications, Manuals or Data Sheets
Goal Setting:
- Make a specific and clear content strategy- how much content should be pushed to your audience per week and when?
- Keep a Specific number of case studies to share. Don’t share everything at once. Let your customers digest your “How to” content.
- Similarly, provide demo videos weekly or bi-weekly.
- Put product info with your demo content.
Bottom of the Funnel
The “Bottom of Funnel” has the job to really convert your hot lead into your customer. Your lead in this phase is already well educated and aware of you and your product.
The content type you might use in this phase:
- Reviews
- Testimonials
- More demo videos and images
- A b follow-up
Goal Setting:
- You should exactly know who is your hot lead
- Set a specific number of follow-ups you need to have in a week that will convert your lead.
- Keep educating through more product info content. Prepare your content list at least 1 week prior. Make sure you don’t flood your content over your customers.
Now that you have set your goals for your process, it is time to set up goals for the team which will help to manage the whole lead generation process.
Don’t ever underestimate the power of doing things together. Delegation of the process has the same importance as in making it.
The whole picture from lead extraction to converting them into your customers include three processes:
1. Lead Extraction
You have to decide how many people should do lead extraction. It might be your job to choosethe first five niches that you should target in a particular location.
Then who will target which niche will depend on the experience of the person. Don’t put your team members according to their ability but according to their experience.
For example, I was good at researching IT, tech, and education, and my team members were doing on other niches mostly healthcare. Then we thought that- there is a lot of opportunities in the healthcare and medical industry, so I decided to switch with one of my team members.
This was not a surprise that I did worst but it also hampered my productivity too.
2. Lead Nurturing
There starts your marketing. You need content and strategy on how and when each has to be delivered to your prospect lead.
The rule of assigning tasks to people according to their experience and not by their ability holds good everywhere.
Divide your team into two-Content Creation & Prospecting(lead nurturing).
The content creation team should have a sheet of content strategy for a week in advance. The same sheet should be handled to lead the prospecting team with data of leads to target.
3. Lead Conversion
Your lead conversion might have the most experienced people in sales and marketing.
They are finally left with cold calling and b follow-ups through e-mails, phone, and online or physical meetings.
The same sheet with shortlisted prospects should be forwarded to the final sales team. They should be provided with the required content if the prospect still demands more learning of your product or service.
Key Takeaway
Setting goals is an art in itself. And there is no fix at anybody’s first attempt to anything. Keep a learning mindset and you will be able to refine your goal-setting process for your b2b lead generation campaigns to multi-folds and if you have something you do differently in your company I would love to hear from you. Make sure to share in the comment section.
