B2B Lead Management: In our work as a MarTech company we are constantly talking and interacting with our customers: What are their main pain points, how do they organize processes and workflows or what do their strategies look like.
Lately we have often been hearing an interesting story: Especially SMBs and B2B companies believe in the myth that leads always originate in customers or prospects getting mailings and filling out a contact form and/or giving away their contact data – before getting value-added information like whitepapers, how-to content and even quotations.
Gated Content: The death of B2B Lead Management
True is: This strategy can be highly efficient – if executed within an holistic marketing concept. However, many B2B companies and SMBs fall for exclusiveness and take this as a given. The result: Every campaign looks a like – they always start with the customer being forced to give up his contact data to get a reward.
But in our highly digitized world this approach of creating more and more Gated Content will in the long run not generate the best possible Customer Experiences what will lead to ever less leads and declining sales results.
Tear down the Gates
Our MarTech company believes passionately in the relevance of creating more customer friendly ways to help companies and brands engage with their prospects – and build better B2B Lead Management processes. We also believe in the power of data and that Ungated Content and contact channels are the future!
B2B Lead Management does not start with mailings and contact forms – it starts with direct interaction! Marketers must go back to the roots and remember what is really important: Marketing is not collecting mail addresses, but generating conversations and interactions with the customer!
Our recommendations to all marketing and sales decision makers to create more interaction with the target group:
- Don’t limit the contact channels your customers can interact with you!
- Don’t force them into the channels that are efficient for you!
- Create pull content, position yourself as thought leaders and tear down existing gates like contact forms!
This is one way to create a great customer experience and in the end a stronger marketing ROI – and more leads for the same budget.
