Lead generation is the top challenge for B2B companies with 41% of marketers ranking it as their primary corporate objective. However, in an age of texting, tweeting, selfies and all around too much information, how do we cut through the proverbial clutter to generate more leads and make our words count?
Well, let’s pause and think about the steps needed to launch a bona fide Email Lead Generation campaign:
Acquire a Quality Prospect List
Despite popular belief, the best prospect list is not necessarily your own home-grown one. Truth is you can buy data from a third-party source and these contacts can be of very high quality. The choice to acquire a list of cold contacts has proven to save companies an exuberant amount of time and money – something that we’re all in short supply of. However, before you buy a list of contacts it’s important to plan accordingly. Determine who your prospects are. Not all customers are created equal. So, it’s critical to understand your market before you purchase your list. Once you know who you’re looking to reach, contact a few reputable data providers and provide them with your objectives. Fact is, not one data provider will have all the contacts in your market. Best rule of thumb: source and purchase data from multiple providers to acquire a more comprehensive and complete quality prospect list.
Ensure Your List is Accurate
No list will ever be 100% accurate. People change jobs. Companies close down. And sometimes an email address that was once valid and good has become a honeypot or spam trap. A common practice ISP’s use to encourage regular list maintenance. After you acquire a quality prospect list, get it cleaned and anti-spammed checked to ensure better accuracy. This will remove bad addresses, spam traps, keys, moles, and honeypots for optimal email deliverability. Once you validate your list, take the bad contact records back to your list provider and ask for a credit so you’re not paying for “dirty” data. Clickback does this for all their clients who use their Email Lead Generation software.
Choose the Right Software
It’s a common misconception that you can use your current email sending platform to send cold emails. Doing so is a breach of your terms of service with your Marketing Automation or Email Sending Provider software. A choice that could get your acquired list deleted or quarantined. In severe situations you may even get your account banned or blocked from sending future campaigns. That’s why it’s pertinent to choose the right software for sending lead generation email campaigns to your list of cold contacts. Clickback is one of the few companies available that allow this type of sending. And as an end-to-end solution, we’ll extract any newly opted-in lead from our software and transfer it into your current email sending platform. This means you’ll be able to segment your cold email list from your warm lead list for superior email deliverability.
Execute Your Email Lead Generation Campaign with Great Creative
Once you acquire your list, clean it and choose a software that allows for this type of sending (i.e. Clickback), it’s time to deploy your Email Lead Generation campaign. As mentioned, it’s becoming more of a challenge to get your words heard and stand out from the inbox chatter. That’s why it’s essential to not only have good creative content and visuals, but it needs to be great. Think about your audience, their pain points and what solutions you can deliver to help them succeed. Getting into the mindset of your prospect will help you determine their needs so you can write content that positions your band as an industry leader to build rapport and gain their trust. Once you know them, bring in the creativity. Take ho-hum content and make it hum. Avoid hackneyed words and buzz phrases that can cause eyes to roll when read. Be smart. Give your prospects access to new information. Fresh content gets attention so that your readers filter you in and not out. When you have your content ready, deploy your Email Lead Generation campaign and watch the leads roll in.
To learn more about how Clickback delivers results for their clients, sign up for a demo or give us a call.
