Henry Jones
If you’ve been following the 7 Pillars of Lead Generation, then you’ll know how each pillar is a key component of an overarching strategy. Without taking care to follow each pillar then the overall strength of any building products businesses lead generation practice is weakened.
Pillar 6 is all about data; why it’s so important, how to manage it and how to utilise it to grow your business and create leads for your sales team. If you’re interested in learning about how to store and manage data using a CRM then read Pillar 4: Systems and Skills.
Why collect data anyway?
30% of businesses in a recent study by London Research, said lead quality is the biggest problem they face (The State of B2B Lead Generation). If so many businesses are facing the same challenge then it’s likely you’ll have questioned the quality of your leads at some point.
If you find yourself in this position, then an important question to ask is ‘how can we consistently increase the quality of the leads we generate?’ Well, the answer is easier than you might think.
It’s data.
Collecting data on the interactions that potential and current customers have with your business, helps you to create a lead scoring system. Lead scoring is the idea of creating a points system to determine the level of interest someone has shown in being converted into a customer.
What is data hygiene?
No this isn’t about how many times you brush your teeth or wash your face. This is all about verification and validation. It’s about checking that all the data you need to support your lead generation strategy is being recorded accurately.
Have a data collection plan and sticking to it is very important, this creates consistency across your team and even for an individual sales rep or marketing campaign. Remembering what data to collect every time can be tricky but having a plan is a sure-fire way to collecting a full data set every time.
Focus on quality and completeness at the point of data capture, not just volume. Having lots of low quality or; good but incomplete date is a waste of time and effort. Just ask lead generation leaders, 67% of them prioritise clean data, compared to 49% of the total group polled (The State of B2B Lead Generation).
What is lead scoring?
Creating a lead scoring system is unique to every business, but it’s based on a common approach, as described by Hubspot, “you can score your leads based on multiple attributes, including the professional information they've submitted to you and how they've engaged with your website and brand across the internet”.
Points should be weighted based on advice from your sales team, your current customers and from data collected by yourself and your industry. Your approach should be agile and change based on the data you collect. This way you’ll be able to get in touch with a potential customer the moment they’re prepared to make a purchase; no sooner or later.
Lead scoring can be split into two categories; MQL’s (marketing quality leads) and SQL’s (sales quality leads). An MQL is someone who has shown interest but isn’t at the decision stage yet, use content such as blogs and eBooks to continue to nurture their interest. An SQL is someone who has achieved a high enough score that qualifies a salesperson to reach out to them.
Be realistic with your scoring parameters, and balance quality and quantity based on your circumstances. It takes time, and trial and error to discover when a lead is properly nurtured and thus calculate your ideal lead score. A tried and tested idea is to start a leaning towards quantity and then creep towards quantity until you reach the perfect balance.
Conclusion
Up to date and engaged data boosts the efficiency of your lead generation practices. You can keep track of the interactions your leads have and score them to maximise the number of deals you can close.
Recording basic data such as names, roles, emails and phone numbers but with advanced analytics such as segmentation, is highly recommended to any starting out with data-driven sales and marketing. Always remember to have a privacy policy and follow GDPR.
But if you keep clean data, upload it to a CRM and then lead score your prospects you’ll very quickly see some tangible results. And for best practice combine this with the other Pillars of Lead Generation to create a mature strategy to expand your building products business.
About Insynth
At Insynth we deliver a predictable flow of leads, customers, and specifications for building product brands through our inbound marketing approach, proven to reach a technically demanding audience.
We use the latest marketing techniques such as construction inbound marketing, to equip building product companies to grow sustainability in this era of digital transformation.
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major in construction marketing. We have a proven formula of bringing a variety of functionalities together including CRM Implementation, Web Design, Sales Automation, SEO, and Email Marketing to achieve your ultimate aim: Growing your business and gaining new specifiers and customers.