4 ms·

Ask HN: Sales Lead Generation Best Practices?

7 points by JSeymourATL 13y ago

What's been your most effective/ineffective Sales Lead Gen effort: Marketing (automation platform, or Old School Cold Calling/Cold Emailing? Others?

bradleysmith 13y ago
We're in an antiquated industry (oil & gas) providing a B2B data-subscription service, so this may or may not be relevant. I've seen similar methods work for B2B direct services in manufacturing, and in B2B and B2C product development services as well. Anywhere we can find up-to-date titles on executives in organizations is very effective for leads generation. Linkedin, Manta, Businessweek biz listings, or ASKINT (cold-call with sole intention of finding out "who's in charge of XXX", build the lead and get the name only for concentrated calls later) all have been effective. We have identified companies of a particular genre previously, and targeted particular titles in those orgs. I personally like running a Manta scraper and vetting results by hand with Linkedin to confirm current titles. I strongly suggest getting Rapportive for Gmail for snooping networks associated with email addresses. If you want to get really snoopy, Maltego is a great tool for looking for connections elsewhere on the web. We have also found trade-shows to be fairly effective at having companies self-identify as needing our service and providing contacts that you have early rapport with to help you find your guy in their company. More effective for bigger business development deals (which can distract as much as help, in my experience), but was moderately successful for us. Bonus of tradeshows: company listings of all the competitors. Generally these will be great lead-list starting material that you can vet down to be high-quality leads (again, in our industry)
- JSeymourATL 13y ago
  Kudos-- much appreciate your insights into the B2B Sales Lead Gen space! Follow up question: are there any authors, thought leaders, or bloggers on this subject you like to follow?
raminassemi 13y ago
It very much depends on current situation of your company, but general good resources: MarketingProfs - Outbound is most effective way of lead gen http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2013/12161/b2b-lead-generation-trends-for-2014-whats-hot-and-whats-not http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2013/12161/b2b-lead-gene... Aaron Ross http://predictablerevenue.com http://predictablerevenue.com Steli Efti http://blog.close.io/how-to-develop-a-first-sales-process-for-your-company http://blog.close.io/how-to-develop-a-first-sales-process-fo...
- JSeymourATL 13y ago
  Much appreciate the links, all NEW to me... thank you~!
pallavkaushish 13y ago
We are trying two approaches which may or may not work for you considering we are still in process: * We select a niche say Cloud Hosting Providers, we then make a personalized yet generic landing page which contains placeholders for the name of the person we are going to cold call/email and his company. Once we contact them we also send them the URL which seems personalized and thus increases the chances of conversion or at least better response. Change the name of the person and company name and you have yet another landing page for a different company. * Make a short 1-2 min video and clearly explain what's in it for them if they take up your product. Video should be made preferably by the CEO. Upload it to youtube and make it private. Send out the link to the concerned person. These two tactics can be accommodated in many different scenarios so keep your mind open if you try them.
- JSeymourATL 12y ago
  Thanks for your thoughts! How do you initially connect with your target customer phone or email?
  - pallavkaushish 12y ago
    Depends. I prefer email because it feels less intrusive. Moreover it's easier to tag a URL in email. If you're going to have a call, you would anyways have to send them an email later on, with the link. Contrary to what I said above if you have good convincing skills, you should have a call first.
notduncansmith 13y ago
Cold mailing (snail, not electronic) has worked for me in the past. Hand-written letters converted way better than printed, IME (I used an online service to get them written, since my handwriting is terrible). One of my favorite tricks was to include something slightly heavy in the envelope (I've used keys and pairs of dice), with enough weight that it would be delivered as a "package" rather than a piece of normal mail. This makes it stand out from the rest of their mail, it's a practically guaranteed open. You tie it into your letter copy somehow: "unlock the potential of the web" or "don't roll the dice with your website". It doesn't matter if it's corny, it sticks out in peoples' brains, and they'll probably call. You can get miscut keys for free at Walmart, Home Depot, etc, just ask for them. It helps if you bring a kid and say they need them for a school project (or if you can't find a kid, the employee will most likely sell a good number of them to you for $5-$10). Another tactic I've used with varying success is to have 3-4 fake LinkedIn accounts (grow them for a few months before you start), and then when you have some cold leads (you should be connected to them via your real account), start using the accounts to tell people they really need to upgrade their website (one every few days or so). Roughly a week after the last message, hit up the lead with your real account and let them know that you're running a special deal on a full website redesign, and that you're starting out with your LinkedIn network since there's limited availability. This one netted me 4 contracts in a month a little over a year ago, with maybe a total 15 hours of work (creating and growing the accounts was the most time-consuming part, and I still have them if I ever wanted to repeat it). Finally, one sales tactic that I've always wanted to use (but haven't gotten around to using yet), is to suit up and rent a Lamborghini for a few hours, and drive around town making high-pressure, high-profit deals. "You could have a car like this", etc. Who's going to say no to a handsome guy in a sharp suit with a Lambo? Make as many deals as you can and then return the car. No clue if this would actually work, but it sounds like a lot of fun :)
- JSeymourATL 12y ago
  Hand-written snail mail letters-- I like it, Old School!

7 points by JSeymourATL 13y ago

What's been your most effective/ineffective Sales Lead Gen effort: Marketing (automation platform, or Old School Cold Calling/Cold Emailing? Others?

bradleysmith 13y ago

We're in an antiquated industry (oil & gas) providing a B2B data-subscription service, so this may or may not be relevant. I've seen similar methods work for B2B direct services in manufacturing, and in B2B and B2C product development services as well. Anywhere we can find up-to-date titles on executives in organizations is very effective for leads generation. Linkedin, Manta, Businessweek biz listings, or ASKINT (cold-call with sole intention of finding out "who's in charge of XXX", build the lead and get the name only for concentrated calls later) all have been effective. We have identified companies of a particular genre previously, and targeted particular titles in those orgs. I personally like running a Manta scraper and vetting results by hand with Linkedin to confirm current titles. I strongly suggest getting Rapportive for Gmail for snooping networks associated with email addresses. If you want to get really snoopy, Maltego is a great tool for looking for connections elsewhere on the web. We have also found trade-shows to be fairly effective at having companies self-identify as needing our service and providing contacts that you have early rapport with to help you find your guy in their company. More effective for bigger business development deals (which can distract as much as help, in my experience), but was moderately successful for us. Bonus of tradeshows: company listings of all the competitors. Generally these will be great lead-list starting material that you can vet down to be high-quality leads (again, in our industry)

JSeymourATL 13y ago
Kudos-- much appreciate your insights into the B2B Sales Lead Gen space! Follow up question: are there any authors, thought leaders, or bloggers on this subject you like to follow?

raminassemi 13y ago

It very much depends on current situation of your company, but general good resources: MarketingProfs - Outbound is most effective way of lead gen http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2013/12161/b2b-lead-generation-trends-for-2014-whats-hot-and-whats-not http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2013/12161/b2b-lead-gene... Aaron Ross http://predictablerevenue.com http://predictablerevenue.com Steli Efti http://blog.close.io/how-to-develop-a-first-sales-process-for-your-company http://blog.close.io/how-to-develop-a-first-sales-process-fo...

JSeymourATL 13y ago
Much appreciate the links, all NEW to me... thank you~!

pallavkaushish 13y ago

We are trying two approaches which may or may not work for you considering we are still in process: * We select a niche say Cloud Hosting Providers, we then make a personalized yet generic landing page which contains placeholders for the name of the person we are going to cold call/email and his company. Once we contact them we also send them the URL which seems personalized and thus increases the chances of conversion or at least better response. Change the name of the person and company name and you have yet another landing page for a different company. * Make a short 1-2 min video and clearly explain what's in it for them if they take up your product. Video should be made preferably by the CEO. Upload it to youtube and make it private. Send out the link to the concerned person. These two tactics can be accommodated in many different scenarios so keep your mind open if you try them.

JSeymourATL 12y ago
Thanks for your thoughts! How do you initially connect with your target customer phone or email?
- pallavkaushish 12y ago
  Depends. I prefer email because it feels less intrusive. Moreover it's easier to tag a URL in email. If you're going to have a call, you would anyways have to send them an email later on, with the link. Contrary to what I said above if you have good convincing skills, you should have a call first.

notduncansmith 13y ago

Cold mailing (snail, not electronic) has worked for me in the past. Hand-written letters converted way better than printed, IME (I used an online service to get them written, since my handwriting is terrible). One of my favorite tricks was to include something slightly heavy in the envelope (I've used keys and pairs of dice), with enough weight that it would be delivered as a "package" rather than a piece of normal mail. This makes it stand out from the rest of their mail, it's a practically guaranteed open. You tie it into your letter copy somehow: "unlock the potential of the web" or "don't roll the dice with your website". It doesn't matter if it's corny, it sticks out in peoples' brains, and they'll probably call. You can get miscut keys for free at Walmart, Home Depot, etc, just ask for them. It helps if you bring a kid and say they need them for a school project (or if you can't find a kid, the employee will most likely sell a good number of them to you for $5-$10). Another tactic I've used with varying success is to have 3-4 fake LinkedIn accounts (grow them for a few months before you start), and then when you have some cold leads (you should be connected to them via your real account), start using the accounts to tell people they really need to upgrade their website (one every few days or so). Roughly a week after the last message, hit up the lead with your real account and let them know that you're running a special deal on a full website redesign, and that you're starting out with your LinkedIn network since there's limited availability. This one netted me 4 contracts in a month a little over a year ago, with maybe a total 15 hours of work (creating and growing the accounts was the most time-consuming part, and I still have them if I ever wanted to repeat it). Finally, one sales tactic that I've always wanted to use (but haven't gotten around to using yet), is to suit up and rent a Lamborghini for a few hours, and drive around town making high-pressure, high-profit deals. "You could have a car like this", etc. Who's going to say no to a handsome guy in a sharp suit with a Lambo? Make as many deals as you can and then return the car. No clue if this would actually work, but it sounds like a lot of fun :)

JSeymourATL 12y ago
Hand-written snail mail letters-- I like it, Old School!