Schurq

Combination between online and offline visibility ensures effective B2B lead generation

|
Reading time minutes
By Patrick Schokker

Recently, the B2B Marketing Trend Report 2019 was released. This report provides insight into the challenges, spearheads and key activities of B2B marketers in the Netherlands. It showed that B2B marketers this year are focusing more on results rather than data. They want to generate marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and use the buyer's journey as a guide. A combination of online and offline visibility proves particularly suitable for effective B2B lead generation. This is because it better matches the buyer's journey, which is relatively long in B2B. 

Marketing qualified leads the most important KPI

In 2017, the focus was on data. In 2018, the translation was to beautiful personalized content, and now all that beautiful content has to deliver MQLs. That is the most important KPI for B2B in 2019. The research emphasizes that good integration and collaboration with sales is important, but that this alone is not enough. Online and offline marketing and content play an important role in this. 

Key KPI B2B marketers

The combination between online and offline visibility

The decision-making process to a purchase in B2B takes an average of three months (27%) and sometimes as long as six(19%). Because it is a long process, you have room to integrate offline activities. Networking and events often produce the most qualified leads, according to B2B marketers. By coupling this offline recruitment method with the use of online channels, the surveyed experts believe they can optimize their B2B lead generation. 

decision process term in B2B

Events, networking and sponsorships get people in touch with the company, but also work well to make a sale. It just depends on where it is deployed in the buyers journey. Online marketing such as advertising, organic search traffic and marketing automation are used to acquire leads and customers. The results can then be properly measured. You can see per channel which leads have actually become customers.

Jordi Damen (owner of Leadrs) points out that email marketing still provides the highest conversion rate for existing customers. "For new customers, SEA and LinkedIn campaigns are often the most successful, but then we make the interaction to an event and monitor on the back end if there is a relationship from an existing network. This way you get warm leads."

Example:
You organize an event (offline) and make sure people leave their email address during the event (or as a registration). You can then use marketing automation software to follow up these leads and guide them through your buyer's journey to the sale(lead nurturing). It's important to have (different) specific content for each phase of the buyer's journey.

Of course, the results of the online-offline mix vary by industry, type of product or service. But a good mix can produce effective B2B lead generation. 

However, only 32% of B2B organizations have implemented marketing automation. Often the reason given is that the organization is too small or that they are working with such a small number of leads that personalized follow-up is possible. So marketing automation is still not where it could be. Do you want to start with marketing automation but are not sure where to start? Get in touch with our marketing automation specialists! 

Properly align online and offline marketing channels

In B2B Marketing Trend Report 2019, it was concluded that online and offline marketing channels, as mentioned above, should be well aligned. This is how B2B marketers score better leads.

The chart below shows which channels marketers are using. 68% promote their organization through social media and 54% actually boost organic search traffic, but networking (46%) and events (33%) primarily yield the best leads. 

channels B2B marketers use for effective b2b lead generation

By mixing channels and analyzing the behavior of valuable leads during their buyer's journey, you'll find out what the success factors for your online and offline mix are. Says Jordi Damen (owner of Leadrs). 

The right content for the best B2B lead generation

Good content is still a challenge for B2B marketers. If you want to generate valuable leads with content, it's important to create authority. The experts in the trend survey indicate that a content calendar can help with this. And this calendar should be integrated by everyone who has external customer contact. Think: sales, marketing and account management. In this way you can align your communications with the wishes and behavior of your target group and get results!

Nearly 60% of those surveyed use newsletters within the marketing mix. Customer case studies and blogs are also widely used and provide great leads. 

types of content

The collaboration between marketing and sales

It is still common in organizations that the marketing department generates the leads, but lacks good cooperation with the sales department and an actual sale fails to materialize.

Ellis van der Slikke (SecondFloor): "The challenge is defining the right target groups, a structured approach to leads and relationships, and finally a good collaboration between marketing and sales."

Consequently, this is what 26% of B2B marketers see as a challenge. 

Marketing automation software can help with this. Lead scores are used to provide insight into the behavior of leads. Based on various actions on your website or within an email campaign, you assign points, the lead score. Lead scoring makes it clear to the marketing department which leads have the most potential to become customers. The sales department can be set up to automatically receive a notification when a lead is warm enough to be followed up. This optimizes the sales process because they do not have to search for leads to follow up. This saves both departments time and provides good cooperation and follow-up. 

Key conclusions from B2B marketing trend research 2019

The focus of B2B marketers this year is on generating Marketing Qualified Leads. The research shows that a good combination of online and offline visibility can generate valuable leads. Offline, networking and events yield the most qualified leads. Online, this applies to newsletters, customer cases and blogs.

Marketing automation is currently used by only 32% of B2B organizations to bring in more qualified leads and have better insight into results. A (too) small organization and limited number of leads are reasons why these companies refrain from marketing automation. 

Download here the complete report

Share this article via
Patrick Schokker
Patrick Schokker

About this schurq

General Manager

Also read
|
Lysanne Paulus
|
2 minutes

Google Consent Mode V2

|
Guido Sombroek
|
4 minutes

Server Side Tagging explained simply

|
Guido Sombroek
|
5 minutes

The SEO guide to improve your organic findability