article |
February 17, 2012
Fundamentals of B2B Lead Generation Programs within Key Accounts
By: John Staples
Lead Generation is the process of turning inquiries, through nurturing, into sales qualified leads. Each Key Account within your portfolio should have a program that allows complete visibility to the entire sales funnel, producing a steady flow of qualified leads to the Key Account Team. The program is then measured by the return on key account marketing spend.
Our focus within Key Account Management is building awareness and interest among the targeted buyers and users. A multi-touch campaign approach is implemented to generate interactions and inquiries. The Inquiries are then nurtured and developed from the early stages of the buying process. The inquiries are then developed by offering resources and next steps that are in a natural alignment with the buying process, essentially “pulling” the prospect along while providing a helpful resource approach.
Simply put; lead nurturing is about keeping conversations going overtime, building relationships and allowing the creation of interest in the products and/or services while bringing the leads to sales-ready status. Lead nurturing is exceptionally effective in articulating your value proposition to maintain, in a subtle and consistent manner, a stream of relevant information that is important to the key accounts.
Top Five most significant findings from a recent case study:
Can you afford not to nurture your key accounts? Most company’s focus their marketing spend on prospects and neglect their Key Accounts. Let’s remember these are the accounts that supply the greatest percent of revenue to the company and/or provide the greatest potential for account development. Losing or failing to penetrate one of your key accounts can be a recipe for termination for most sales organizations.
Implementing a Demand Generation program within your key accounts provides the opportunity to defend, cross-sell and up-sell within these accounts by keeping you relevant and top of mind.
In our experience some of the most effective approaches are:
Key Takeaway: If you’re not nurturing your key accounts to increase wallet share, you can bet your competitors are doing this. Download our our white paper to learn more about growing revenue from key accounts.
John is the global leader of SBI’s account management business unit. As such, he and his team help clients across 19 verticals drive top line growth and operational efficiency in sales and marketing.
John’s marketing, sales and product expertise span a multichannel strategic approach. He has an unyielding focus on strategic and key account development, which enables strategic alignment between all functional team members in order to reduce acquisition cost and increase lifetime value.
His broad experience in sales, marketing, product and engineering allows him to bring a unique problem solving approach to his team and clients. As he has discovered through decades of experience, clients are often distracted by the symptoms of a larger problem and overlook the root cause of it.
Read full bio >
In a world of uncertainty, market leaders are sure which customer touchpoints require prioritization...
With the global shift to working from home, UC&C companies have witnessed a record amount of dem...
As a sales leader, it is necessary to understand the performance levers which impact your bottom lin...
At SBI we strive for all of us to reach our full potential by being diverse by nature,&nbs...
The most difficult challenge leaders will face in 2021 is motivating personnel. Even with a new pros...
At this point in 2020, all your competitors have undergone some variation of a “digital transf...
Consumer behaviors have changed drastically over the past year, with a significant rise in ecommerce...
For market-leading software companies, the changing economic conditions have had a positive effect o...
SBI TV episodes bring you Sales and Marketing insights from B2B industry thought leaders and growth experts, on topics like product, pricing, customer experience and success, and go to market. Catch up on new and previous episodes here.