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How to Generate Leads: 5 Best Ways to Increase B2B Sales

Author:

Aoife Daly

How to Generate Leads: 5 Best Ways to Increase B2B Sales

Author:

Aoife Daly

Reading Time: 4 minutes

How to Generate Leads: 5 Best Ways to Increase B2B Sales

aoife

Aoife Daly

Content Marketing Manager, Operatix

You’ve created your business and have developed a product or service you believe in – but how do you start bringing in leads? Consistent lead generation is essential in keeping your business not only alive, but thriving and successful; knowing how to generate leads is easier said than done, however. If you’re unsure of where to start, keep reading to learn our top five ways to increase B2B sales and secure those all-important leads.



How to Generate Leads: Increase B2B Sales


  • Build an ICP and buyer persona
  • Outsourcing lead generation
  • Master social media 
  • Referrals, reviews and case studies 
  • Don’t disregard old leads



Build an ICP and buyer persona


Understanding exactly who your target audience is ensures your sales team are targeting the right people and only following up on the leads that truly matter. Take some time to do some market research to build an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and buyer persona. At the very least, make note of:


  • Ideal industry
  • Job position 
  • Company revenue 
  • Employee headcount
  • Business goals and challenges
  • Location


A detailed ICP will not only help define your customer base, but also give you a better understanding of how to reach and successfully engage with them, thus helping to increase B2B sales. This is an essential part of understanding how to generate leads – after all, how can you attract and sell to the right customers if you don’t know who they are? 



Outsourcing lead generation


Whenever you look into how to generate leads, you’ve likely been recommended to outsource your sales. Why? Because it works! A proven way to increase B2B sales and accelerate growth, outsourcing your lead generation saves the time and expense it costs to build a sales team such as training, salaries, purchasing a tech stack, and having to pay rent. 


Even those who have an in-house sales team can benefit from outsourcing their lead generation, particularly if you’re trying to enter new markets abroad. If you have a small sales team, it’s unlikely they speak multiple languages or have expert knowledge of the market you’re trying to enter. Here at Operatix, our team can speak 17 different languages and sell in 109 countries, as well as having deep knowledge of local habits. 


You’ll get a tangible sales plan tailored to your needs and get your service in front of key decision-makers, taking advantage of the expertise of an experienced, ready-made sales team.


Increase B2B sales


Master social media


Utilizing social media can strengthen brand awareness, boost inbound leads and, in turn, increase B2B sales. This is one of the most underestimated B2B sales techniques, yet driving engagement is key to getting your name out there to the right people. 


While building a presence on the likes of Instagram is important in terms of recruitment, LinkedIn is a worthy investment of time when looking to increase B2B sales. Not only does it typically improve inbound leads, but you can connect with qualified leads, find the right contacts and nurture prospects using the platform. 


Encourage your team to build their profile, focus on creating a personal brand and share their knowledge to secure your spot as an industry leader. Don’t neglect your business page either; post regularly, be seen, and interact with commenters to build that all-important brand awareness. 



Referrals, reviews and case studies


It’s all well and good showing off your business’s offerings in theory, but showing off a successful track record is key to securing those leads. 


Potential customers want evidence that your services are worth investing in, and building up a profile of reviews both internally and on external websites like G2 will allow you to provide exactly that. Don’t be afraid to ask customers to provide a review, and post the very best ones on your social media pages.


If you have any big wins and happy customers, ask them to do a case study. This is a longer review that typically details the customer’s requirements and the outcome. By investing time in building case studies, you’re demonstrating real-world examples of how your products or services can change businesses for the better.


Referrals are another key way to increase B2B sales and garner leads. You may simply want to request that happy customers pass on their thoughts to a relevant contact or put an incentive program in place. This could be a discount or something else; here at Operatix, for example, we plant trees as an eco-friendly thank you for referrals.


How to generate leads


Don’t disregard old leads


You’ve followed up with a lead that, on paper, sounds perfect – they fit your ICP and buyer persona perfectly, yet they decline to use your services. This can be frustrating, especially if it’s a lead you were particularly excited about. 


Rather than crossing their name off the list and giving up hope, circle back every so often. After all, situations and budgets change, new problems come about – ones that you can provide the solution for. Just because a lead has decided that ‘right now’ isn’t the time to invest in your product or service, doesn’t mean you should disregard them altogether. Keep their contact details on hand and check in periodically without being pushy. 


With a multilingual team of experienced sales professionals, you can increase B2B sales and accelerate growth with help with Operatix. Get in touch today to see how we can help your B2B software business enter new markets and reach all of the right people.

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About Operatix

Operatix is a Sales Acceleration company specialized in supporting B2B Software vendors to identify new revenue streams, increase qualified sales pipeline, and accelerate channel development across Europe and North America. Operatix has a wealth of experience in working with the biggest tech players worldwide as well as a multitude of emerging software vendors.

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Channel Transformation

Digital transformation is changing how companies buy and use business solutions, making vendors re-assess the capabilities of their channel ecosystem. With channel dynamics in constant flux, vendors need to be ready to cut ties with partners that don’t share their vision or have connections with the right B2B buyers.

 

Operatix has supported numerous vendors in their path to Channel transformation by assessing current partners and recruiting new partners that are more aligned with their new channel strategy. Once the right partners have been identified, Operatix built scalable outbound sales development programs that accelerated their routes to market.

Inbound Response Management

In a competitive industry like technology every lead counts. Operatix can help you maximize conversion from MQL to SQL and from lead to pipeline, increasing both your revenue and ROI on marketing activities.

Account Identification

Identifying the accounts that are more likely to buy from you is part of our expertise. We will research the market, identify verticals and industries that can benefit from your solution and set up qualified sales engagements for your teams to kick-off the sales process. 

Cold Prospecting

Our team will identify new sales opportunities within the strategic accounts that you haven’t been successful in penetrating through your sales & marketing efforts. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, multitouch approach to connect with prospects, generating qualified sales engagements for your team and ultimately increasing your pipeline.

Outbound Sales Development

Using a proactive outbound sales approach has been proven to be one of the most effective methods to engage with prospective customers. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, human approach to getting in touch with prospects to increase your qualified sales engagements and ultimately generate more pipeline.

Outbound Sales Development

Using a proactive outbound sales approach has been proven to be one of the most effective methods to engage with prospective customers. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, human approach to getting in touch with prospects to increase your qualified sales engagements and ultimately generate more pipeline.

Partner Concierge Service

Our Partner Concierge Service helps vendors accelerate their channel programs, by engaging and nurturing channel partners and supporting them to get to revenue quicker.

Demand Generation

Whether you need to implement a demand generation strategy or get more results out of your existing demand gen engine, Operatix can work alongside your marketing team to yield better results out of your demand generation programs.

Account-based Marketing

An Account-based Marketing strategy is only as successful as the revenue it generates. At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Lead Qualification

If your marketing leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help sieve through leads that need further qualification, so they are ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with.

Account-based Selling

At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Pipeline Generation

Generating Pipeline for our clients is our key-objective. And we do that by using a multi-touch, multi-channel approach to generate qualified sales engagements for our customers’ sales teams.   

Account Intelligence / Deep Dive

Understanding buying centres, hierarchies and relevant personas in strategic accounts is a fundamental step to increase conversion rates. By leveraging account intelligence in a sales conversation your team can tailor their message and provide value to their prospective customer. But sales & marketing teams often struggle to dedicate time and resources to do the deep research and this is where Operatix can help.

DMID – Decision Maker Identification

Finding quality data is an on-going challenge for B2B Tech vendors. The accuracy of data platforms is questionable and that is why Operatix developed a manual process to identify & verify contact details for decision makers within strategic target accounts.

Playbook design

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to get your messaging right, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapt the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

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Sales Playbook Development

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to implementing the correct messaging, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapting the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

Lead Qualification

If your leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help filter through leads that need further qualification, ensuring that they’re ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with and progress through the funnel. 

Partner Portal / Marketing Concierge Service

Vendors often spend thousands of dollars building multifunctional Partner Portals to help channel partners educate their teams, manage opportunities, and create marketing programs. Still, these portals are often underutilized due to lack of bandwidth and capacity from vendors to offer support in enabling their partner community. Operatix, through their Partner Development team, can support your partners to make the best use out of your partner portal, managing the relationship with your partners and helping them set up co-marketing campaigns to drive more revenue for both businesses. 

Marketing & Sales Alignment

The sales development function is often seen as the “glue” that brings sales & marketing teams together. By working as an extension of your teams, Operatix will be your predictable source of pipeline, sales & revenue.

Optimization of MDF

Market Development Funds are an important component of any channel ecosystem, though vendors believe they are not maximizing the return on investment they should be getting from their MDF programs. At Operatix, we build scalable outbound sales development programs that will give you the visibility of return over the invested spend and will provide clear value for your channel partners.

Increase Partner Productivity

The 80/20 rule is still very applicable to the channel, which means that investing in partner productivity should be a priority for vendors looking to grow their businesses. Operatix can increase partner productivity and shorten sales cycles, by identifying ready to engage sales opportunities for your most valued channel partners.

Virtual Channel Account managers

Our VCAM team is responsible for building, maintaining, and managing sound relationships with current and prospective channel partners. They can get involved in opening up new sales conversations as well as closing small businesses up to $ 10k.

Tier 1 & Tier 2 Activation

Whether your business decided for a Tier 1 or Tier 2 distribution model, Operatix can help your channel partners get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements to your channel partners we can accelerate your route to market with tangible and easily measurable results.

Solution Selling Training

Far too often vendors insist on enabling their channel partners to talk about features and technical details of their solutions. Customers don’t buy features; they buy the benefits your solution can bring. Operatix will work with your partner community to train them in articulating your message from a high-level business perspective, enabling them to talk to prospects about the value your solution can bring to their company from a board-level perspective.

Channel Enablement

Enabling your channel partners have measurable wins for your business when done right. Operatix has a proven track record in enabling channel partners from a sales & marketing perspective, providing them the knowledge and tools to successfully pitch your solution and sell the value & benefits of it. 

Partner Recruitment

Recruiting the right Channel Partners is the first step for a successful channel program. Operatix has helped over 350 B2B Software vendors recruit suitable channel partners across EMEA and North America, supporting them to scale and expand their presence in different geographies and verticals. 

Risk/Reward Business Model

To truly work as an extension of our client’s sales & marketing teams, we have also adapted our business models to show how our clients operate, and how their success is measured. With our risk/reward business model your investment is proportional to the results our team delivers.

Sales Qualified Leads

On average, 52.5% of the sales engagements set up by our team progress into a next step in the sale process. That means that 5 out of 10 meetings will progress either into a POC, a Demo or a pipeline opportunity.

Geographical Scale

Trading in different geographical markets not only requires a knowledge of the native language, local rules & policies, but a deeper understanding of the local culture and habits. We have the ability to deliver campaigns in multiple countries with flexible resource allocation. This is through our team of international speakers, who have the ability to sell in 17 different languages across the globe.

Increase Revenue & Decrease Cost

Building an internal sales development team comes with many additional costs and challenges that aren’t always taken into account: recruiting resources, training and enabling them etc. You also need to take into account the need for having the data and tools to make them successful, which in turn requires time, capital and effort. By outsourcing your sales development to Operatix you will see your revenue increasing, while decreasing costs and business risk.

Predictable Pipeline Generation

On average, our clients see a 26X ROI on the programs we deliver. By understanding your revenue targets and sales pipeline gap, we will work on a sales & marketing plan that will deliver tangible results.

Vertical Growth

Entering new industries or launching new product lines? Operatix can accelerate your growth by supporting your go-to-market strategy, and getting your sales teams in front of decision makers in key target accounts.

Reduce Headcount

By outsourcing your sales development and partner programs to Operatix; we reduce headcount and the challenges that come with managing people, technologies, and processes. We take care of your sales development, so you can focus on what matters the most: growing your business.

Revenue Acceleration

Operatix helps your business get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements for your direct sales team (to kick-off new sales cycles), or by accelerating the growth of your channel partners, our focus remains on delivering tangible results for your business. 

Persona-based Selling

Operatix team will design specifically tailored messages to influence the different levels of decision makers in the sales process, tailoring the communication according to each job function. Our focus is to sell the value of your solution from a business perspective, not its features.    

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