A slower sales pipeline is more than just a minor bump; it’s a blinking warning light. The world of B2B SaaS is hypercompetitive, and any leads won’t cut it-you need the right leads. You want your pipe full of prospects who are primed for action.
Most SaaS businesses face problems: unqualified leads, ineffective strategies, or just being left behind in the race. That amounts to wasted time, lost opportunity, and stalled growth. That is just it: without quality leads flowing into the top of your sales funnel consistently, little business will happen.
In this guide, we look at actionable ways through which qualified leads can be attracted to help your business grow.
Throwing darts in the dark about your lead generation efforts? Well, we have been there before. You invest in resources only to find out later the leads aren’t interested in what you have to offer. That is where intent data changes the game like flipping on the lights to see exactly where to aim.
Intent data can transform your lead generation strategy in these ways:
Nurturing Pipeline Efficiency
Just think about being able to spend your time on only those leads that have a real interest in your product. Intent data lets you do just that. No wonder 97% of marketers report that leads driven by intent data are more effective at filling the pipeline than those from other sources. You are not just adding names to your list; you add leads, which are more likely to convert.
Increasing Conversion Rates
In all, intent data increases your potential for converting leads into customers. About 86% of marketers believe that intent-driven leads improve the conversion from MQL to SAL. Knowing what your prospects are looking for allows you to craft your messaging in such a way that their journey is smoother and more relevant than ever.
Creating a Seamless Buyer’s Journey
It is always easier to engage with someone if you already know what they are interested in. Intent data lets you answer, very precisely, the signals coming out from your prospects by offering them exactly what they need at every stage of their journey. The experience will be more personalized, and the chances of their moving further along the process will be much higher.
Optimizing Resource Utilization
Nobody has infinite time and resources, and nobody likes to lose resources on leads that won’t convert. Intent data helps you target the leads that are more likely to become customers, allowing your team more time for high-impact activities. This optimizes your marketing and sales processes in making full utilization of your resources.
Reassessing Your Lead Generation Marketing Channels
It can be so tempting to jump onto every new marketing channel that everyone’s talking about. But once the predicted results from it haven’t shown up, perhaps it is time to take a step back and reevaluate whether targeting the right channels is actually going on. What works for others may not be the best for you, and misalignment leads to wasted time and resources.
If your lead generation efforts aren’t delivering, here’s how to reassess:
Track and Measure Performance
First, analyze the performance at each channel. Look into their conversion rates, cost per lead, and overall ROI. If a certain marketing channel does not return quality leads that convert, then perhaps you should revisit the investment in it.
Align Channels with the Buyer’s Journey
Understand how different channels perform at various parts of the buyer’s journey: some might be great at awareness but less effective at driving conversions. Make sure your channels align with your objectives at each stage.
Audit and Refine Your Strategy Regularly
Marketing channels constantly change, and what worked a year ago may not work today. Periodically audit your channels to make sure they remain healthy. If something isn’t working as well, don’t be afraid to pivot.
Test New Channels Cautiously
Innovation drives business, but always try a new channel on a small scale before going all in. This will give you an idea of whether the channel is working or not without betting too much of your budget on one horse.
Pay Attention to Where Your Audience Is Active
It’s infinitely more efficient to engage your audience where they’re already spending their time. Whether it’s super popular or not, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to put resources into a platform where your target audience isn’t active.
7-Step Action Plan to Generate Qualified Leads for SaaS Businesses
For Startups:
Create a Focused Content Marketing Strategy
Create content related to the challenges your ideal customers face. Examples include blog posts, eBooks, and case studies. Give them gated content that requires website visitors to fill out a form with their contact information. That way, you will be collecting leads of people much more interested in what you do.
Make Your Website Convert More Visitors into Leads
Make your website mobile-friendly, ensure it loads fast, and make sure calls-to-action are clear. A well-placed and well-designed form on a landing page can increase conversion rates from visitor to lead manyfold.
Utilize Social Media
Focus your efforts on those platforms on which your audience is active. Be it LinkedIn for B2B or Twitter for broader engagement-strategically use them to drive leads.
Offer Freemium or Free Trial Models
Let your potential customers use your product without too much commitment. A freemium or a free trial has the potential to convert really interested leads into paying customers.
Start a Referral Program
Reward happy customers for referring others, and provide incentives. Referrals are many times pre-qualified, with built-in trust, and hence are good leads.
Webinars and Live Demos
Make prospects interested in your product by demonstrating what it is and how it works in real-time. Webinars and demonstrations require the person to register, giving you a clear means of capturing leads and answering questions straight away.
Social Proof and Testimonials
Highlight positive reviews, testimonials, and case studies front and center. When your prospects can see that other customers are benefiting from your product, they will naturally be more likely to convert.
For Growth-Stage Business
Implement Intelligent Pop-Ups
Trigger pop-ups at the right time, which could capture leads when they intend to leave. Offer free trials or some unique content.
YouTube Video Marketing
Create videos on YouTube showcasing your product in action and answering frequently asked questions. Show your success stories. Video is among the most shareable forms of content and will drive traffic to your site.
Personalization of Email Campaigns
Automate personalized emails, triggered by a lead’s behaviors and preferences, making them feel noticed and cared about.
Lead Scoring Implementation
Sort leads according to their activities and profiles so that you focus on the ones most likely to close and hence optimize your sales effort.
Use Chatbots for 24/7 Lead Qualification
Let the chatbots talk with your website visitors and qualify leads at any time of the day or night. They can do the pre-engagement and send the qualified lead to your sales team.
Captivating Lead Magnets
Give away a lot in the form of eBooks or reports for capturing the contact details of a qualified lead.
Co-Marketing Partnerships
Partner with companies whose target audiences are similar. Joint efforts will spread your reach wider and generate more leads without putting in additional effort.
3 Bonus Tips to Get You Qualified Leads
Simplify Your Forms
Keep forms short by having only one or two critical fields, like an email address, to reduce friction and increase submissions.
Exit-Intent Pop-Ups
Uncover leads before they disappear; offer them some additional value in exchange for contact information with the help of exit-intent pop-ups.
Focus on High-Intent Targeting
Route high-intent leads through the best resources toward your sales team to nurture the most promising ones to conversion.
How Insightrek Helps You in Generating High-Quality Leads
At Insightrek, we specialize in creating customized lead generation strategies per the growth stage of your SaaS company.
Market Position Evaluation: This is basically the starting point in taking an assessment of your market position as to the identification of the most viable channels that can be effective for our business.
Custom Channel Recommendations: We recommend the best demand generation channels based on business stage, market specifics, and budget.
ABM for New Markets: For SaaS products in new categories, we highly recommend ABM to reach out to high-value prospects and accelerate growth.
Ready to take your lead generation to a whole new level?
Schedule a call today with Insightrek to discuss how they will craft the strategies that fit your scaling needs and help you generate the needed leads.
