Free Leads for any Business or Industry
InfoUSA 728x90 100 Free Sales Leads

How to Generate Leads

April 1st, 2010 Posted in Telemarketing Tips

The typical B2B sales funnel can last as long as 1-2 years for complicated sales, or be relatively quick and painless for less complex deals. But before you can even get into the sales process, you need to generate a significant number of “warm leads.” There are many ways to generate leads online and offline.

Online and Offline Lead Gen
Offline Lead Gen

Cold Calling
Cold calling is leveraged in order to get meetings with the decision-makers of your target clients or at a minimum send them a quote and your brochure. In order to start telemarketing, you’ll need at least 500 targeted sales leads. 500 calls will generally net you twenty contacts, sixty voicemails, and twenty calls stopped by a gatekeeper. Of the ten people that you get a hold of, about twenty percent are likely to have any interest whatsoever in your product/service. Those four decision-makers are warm leads!

Direct Mail
Direct mail is an effective way to generate leads if you pair it with cold calling or email. You can’t just send one direct mail piece to all of the people in your sales database and expect warm leads to flood in though. You need to send several rounds of direct mail to your prospects and follow those mailings up with a call.

Networking
Good old fashioned networking remains a critical strategy in lead generation. Don’t be a pushy sales guy though. Just make sure to be personable and mention your company name along the way. Try to provide everybody you meet with a valuable information. Usually they will reciprocate by providing you with potential leads or at least some advice that might be helpful to you.

Trade Shows
Trade shows can be expensive, but if executed properly you can obtain tons of warm leads. Just having a booth will rarely get the job done though. You need to make sure you’ve done plenty of advanced work to have meetings preset before the event even starts. If you can afford to sponsor the event (or at least a party tied into the event), that can be a great way to drive additional awareness for your product or service.

Online Lead Gen

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Email Marketing
  • Display Advertising (Banner Ads)
  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Social Media