Understanding lead generation can make the difference between life and death for a company. With strong lead generation, your business can weather rough spots in other areas and truly shine to your fullest when the rest of the picture is complete.
The importance of lead generation is well-recognized, which is why Pareto put the time and effort in to create this beautiful interactive infographic to explain the core elements of a successful lead generation strategy.
There are seven areas identified by the infographic as being key to your understanding. The first, source quality, offers an insight into understanding how to identify worthwhile sources and optimize your ROI on the effort you’re spending to reach them. For example, using email to generate leads is best done between the hours of 8 AM and 3 PM.
Lead volume is the second area of study for the infographic, calling attention to the fact that managing your lead volume is a balance between bringing in leads and having optimal capacity for handling leads properly. As noted in the infographic, even the best sales team will sometimes lose a deal; holding on to leads until the time is right can allow you to maximize your conversion by giving sales teams the time to properly pursue their sale.
Understanding decision makers is the third aspect of lead generation. In an era of social media and online presence building, finding out information about key decision makers is easier than ever and offers a clear return on investment by better equipping your sales team to close the deal by offering something they know the decision maker wants.
Similarly, the fourth area covered – business targeting – is about finding out whether the businesses you are after are in a position to generate value for you, and how best to offer value to them. It’s worth taking the time to find out whether businesses are expanding, investing, or restructuring.
Location targeting, the fifth segment, helps you to understand how you’re shaping your business based on location. Your best locations for current business may be saturated, so take a look at what made them successful areas of business development and look for new locations with similar criteria.
Knowing your markets and understanding the industries you’re engaged with – or could expand into – is the sixth area, and offers further opportunities. When you understand how your target industries operate by knowing key purchase periods and trends, you open up the opportunity to be there and make yourself known right as the need is greatest.
Finally, social media and traditional media offer powerful channels of information. Use them to give your sales team common ground with prospects, and use alerts to ensure you’re always up to date on the latest face that prospects are presenting to the world and news regarding their industry.
Lead generation is such a crucial aspect of your business strategy that the return on investment for time spent maximizing it is very high. By understanding your channels and making the most of them, you position yourself to get the most out of every lead and prospect.
Please click the image below to experience the full interactive version!
