13 IT Lead Generation Tips to Improve Results

Like any other industry, the IT sector exists on selling volume of quality products on an ongoing basis to new and existing customers.  New customers can find you, but for the more proactive IT business, you need to get out there and find new customers or clients and that means your telemarketers need to generate leads for your sales force to close.

Image source – David Poe (CC License)

 

You’ve heard people say that generating leads is a numbers game.  If you get enough leads, a percentage of them will convert.  That may be true, but a much smarter way of generating more convertible leads is to ensure the quality of the leads over the quantity.

Sit down with the sales team and determine exactly what a quality lead looks like.  Keep the flow of communication between lead generators and sales team constant, in order to ensure that this definition of a sales-ready lead is precisely what they need and is actually working out.  It’s possible that your sales team thinks they need one thing, but in practice – the truth is, it may be quite different.  Communication is essential to ensure that the lead team is delivering convertible leads.

It’s essential that your lead generators – most likely a team of telemarketers are well versed and experts in the area of your business.  They need to know your products and services inside-out and feel comfortable extolling the virtues, benefits and strengths.

If you’re selling from Business to Business, then it’s important to focus on the benefits specifically to that business and the application of your hardware, software or other IT products/services.  Demonstrating how useful the product/service is to that business will make that lead much more convertible at a later stage because the potential client understands how relevant the product or service is to them now.

Frankly, if you’ve got the opportunity to generate leads, it’s vital that you make the most of them.  Rather than wasting your time or risking failure in a potentially expensive trial and error process to your lead generation, you may wish to consider outsourcing your lead campaign to a professional third party expert.

Believe it or not, over 70% of your success in generating leads is down to the quality of the data that you start with.  So, it’s really important to ensure that your lists are accurate and targeted towards your typical client or customer.  If you are going to buy a new list, test the water before committing to spending money on a list that doesn’t reap rewards.

Long before the sales team are ready to storm in and do their thing, your lead generators should have already destroyed any possibly objections that the prospect can come up with.  Actually, one of the best ways to deal with objections is to ask some deeply probing questions which will allow the prospect to see how flimsy their objection is, then it just disappears.  But once you’ve removed the objection, then you have to step in and fill that space by stimulating their interest and gaining their complicity to continue.

This goes without saying really, but you need to share your enthusiasm for the product or service with the prospect and use any possible ‘in’ to start building rapport with them. Building rapport requires that you sound natural and at ease. If you’re reading from a script, then you end up sounding like a robot.  Never ask for forgiveness by apologising for calling – you don’t need forgiveness for sharing something THIS good with your prospect, they should be thanking you.  Having said that, take care with your vocal tone – try to match your prospect’s rhythm and speech patterns so that rapport is built in synchronisation with the person you are speaking with.

Scripts make your telemarketers sound stupid and immediately turn your prospects off transforming them from potential leads into irritated blockers.  If you need to ensure that your telemarketers hit certain key topics, then create a calling guide for them.  This will allow them to check that they’re on track, whilst using language and speech rhythms that are natural and suit the conversation or the moment – rather than an imaginary ‘model’ scripted conversation.

From time to time, you need to stand back and analyse the data that you’re getting back from your lead generation campaign.  You can’t just bang your head against the wall if it’s not working.  It’s time to reassess, change your strategy, employ new tactics and take action to supercharge your lead generation campaign.

It can take a total of 7 attempts before you’re able to get the conversation that you need with the person you need to speak with.  Don’t give up after one or two attempts, keep calling until you get what you want.  Change your approach each time, so you don’t sound like a stuck record.  Sooner or later, you’ll get the conversation and then it’s game on!

One of the most effective ways to generate a lead is not to steamroll the call receiver, but to spend time listening to them.  Does that seem obvious to you?  Don’t simply go silent on them.  Listening to them carefully and processing what they’re saying will allow you to keep the conversation going.  There’ll be no painful silences because when you listen you give yourself plenty to talk to the prospect about!

Finally, when one of your team demonstrates a successful strategy, have them share it with the team and test it’s effectiveness across the entire campaign.  Give positive feedback on work well done and find constructive ways to keep telemarketers with poor results motivated.