Maybe you noticed a new trend popping up.
It seems that tried, true, and tested lead generation is now too hard core for lots of B2B marketers.
Lead Generation focuses on the ready to buy prospects. Anywhere from 3-10% of your Target Market at any given time.
Let’s examine the pros and cons of a Lead Generation approach.
And then open up thinking beyond Lead Generation.
Start thinking Demand Generation.
Lead Generation Pros and Cons
Let’s look at why so many B2B marketers are stuck on Lead Generation.
As well as some of the pitfalls of Lead Generation.
1. It’s Fast and Easy to Launch
You can purchase a lead list, or build your own lead list quickly and easily with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, or other online databases.
Once you have the lead list, you can plug it into an email delivery software or auto-dialer and begin contacting potential clients within a matter of hours.
You’re in the hunt. Chasing down ready to buy prospects.
Or, you can even use direct response ads with LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google to drive leads fast.
The drawbacks?
You have zero authority positioning, no real relationship, and questionable trust with buyers.
You’re positioned the same as all your competitors chasing hot leads.
2. Easy and Fast to Scale
You can buy more leads. Expand and build a bigger lead list.
Hire more people to pound the phones and blast out emails.
Again, all it takes is more money, but you can do it fast without lots of changes.
The pitfalls?
It’s easy to burn out your list fast too.
You risk alienating potential clients when you contact and apply pressure when they’re simply not in a buying mode.
3. It’s more predictable
With lead generation you can easily match revenue with activity.
You can track all your metrics.
Number of calls to appointments set.
Number of emails sent to opens and responses that lead to set appointments.
Number of appointments that resulted in sales.
The drawback?
You end up in the weeds on a focus on the numbers and building trusted relationships is an after thought.
4. All Lead Generation Takes Is a Simple Funnel
It starts with an ad, cold, call, cold email.
Next a Landing Page with a Call To Action to…
A Discovery Call
That results in a won or lost Deal.
The Cons?
Once again while it’s fast, easy, and inexpensive to set up a simple Lead Generation funnel, too many potential clients have seen them and know from the first minute it’s a sales pitch.
Again, little emphasis is placed on building any kind of trusted relationship.
As a result, potential clients who are not yet ready to buy dismiss you as an option in the future.
5. It’s Easy to Outsource Lead Generation
You can quickly hire a Lead Generation agency or hire people to hit the phones and send out emails.
Or you can hire an agency to handle LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google ads to drive leads to your Lead Funnel.
It takes little strategy to ramp things up. All you need is money.
The drawback?
It lacks any sort of strategy to position you as the Trusted Authority.
You bypass the opportunity to build relationships with potential “Perfect Fit” clients because your sole focus is filling your pipeline with ready to buy prospects now.
The Harsh Truth About a Lead Generation Only Focus
Keep in mind, only 3-10% of your prospects are in an active or open to buying mode at any given time.
Your Lead Generation outreach is mostly ignored (or even considered offensive) since 90-97% are not in the market.
This burns your budget and burns out your Target Market fast.
The focus is placed upon leads, not revenue.
You end up missing opportunities to create and capture demand with your target market prospects.
The result?
You’re seen as simply another vendor. You’re always compared to your competition.
Even if you have a distinct and valuable difference, it goes unnoticed.
Yes, you can scale Lead Generation quickly and easily.
But it’s at a price.
You risk turning off potential clients and decreasing your lead generation performance.
Make The Switch to Demand Generation
You don’t need more leads to grow your business.
You want fewer, better educated, more qualified, trusted relationships who are pre-sold and ready to do business with you.
You make the switch to create content to Create Demand.
- You post on LinkedIn to grab attention of your Target Market.
- You comment on posts of your Target Market and Influencers of your Target Market.
- You create YouTube videos to educate.
- You use DM to build relationships and pre-qualify potential clients.
- You educate your Target Market with podcasts and webinars
No this isn’t fast and easy.
To create awareness and capture demand requires you to leverage client insights.
You’ll need a content strategy and game plan.
It will require patience and different forms of content.
You’ll need to dig to find out what really worked to get clients over the line.
You’ll want to pay attention to content that engages your Target Market.
Finally, you’ll need to Capture Demand.
You capture demand with:
- Your LinkedIn Profile
- Your website
- A LinkedIn Event or Online Workshop
- Even a low-priced, no-brainer product
Keep Plugging Away with Lead Generation or Make The Switch to Demand Generation?
It’s easy to keep riding the Lead Generation train.
However, it does come with risks as mentioned in this article.
Finally, I’ll leave you with one key Demographic and Social Change to consider.
Millennials are rapidly moving into Decision Making roles.
They’re digital natives comfortable with researching and communicating via social media.
They don’t answer cold calls or respond to cold emails.
They’re plugged into Dark Social and they tap it to make decisions.
How you go about attracting these B2B buyers and building trusted relationships with them will demand a shift in how you market.
Are you ready to make this shift in your thinking beyond Lead Generation?