Lead Generation for Telecoms - Tips and Best Practices

Marketing has changed...

Many telecom companies struggle with lead generation. Marketing and PR have changed dramatically because of the Internet and this change has been accentuated by the adoption of smartphones and real-time marketing. As David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Sales and Service, stated:

Most sales organizations are built and run as if it were still 1989. The sales model is broken.

A marketing to sales model does not need to be broken. For many telecoms, lead generation is a big problem. Many telecoms still use ineffective and outdated practices to acquire leads, but their leads are not qualified or actually engaged, interested leads--so their sales teams waste time wading through the muck of dead and decrepit contact lists.

On average, today’s buyers might be anywhere from two-thirds to 90% of the way through their journey before they contact a vendor. For this reason, a brand's website, content and marketing communications are more critical than ever--this is especially true for the telecom industry.

Lead generation for telecoms - tips and best practices

• Solve your prospects' problems and create content that educates them. Speak to your sales team and try to understand the initial questions posed by prospects and leads as they engage with your brand. Website content should be helpful and informative for the initial sales inquiry.
• Education and inform instead of interrupt and sell. 
• Social media is useful for both lead generation and PR for the telecom industry. Buyers and influencers spend time researching and keeping up to date with industry advancements, and social media is at the center of the behavior. Social media plays an important role in B2B marketing.
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads, according to Demandmetric. Sharing content on relevant third-party sites can help gain recognition as 'thought leaders' in the industry. Interested in learning more tips? Check out our content promotion article for more information. 
• A website is (or should be) the center of a telecom company's lead generation marketing efforts--as it is the place buyers explore when looking for a vendor. Websites can be a powerful repository of content for all stages of the sales funnel--exploratory to decision (Top of the Funnel (TOFU) to  Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)).
• SEO has gone through many changes in the past couple of years, but one thing remains true, SEO is still a significant source of traffic and leads for telecoms that invest in creating useful and quality content.
• Lifecycle marketing with personalization can be a powerful tool to help prospects become leads quicker because it provides ultra-relevance--making the website and other communications address the needs, questions and interests of a prospective buyer. Lifecycle marketing includes personalization, lead scoring, and marketing automation, which is like putting telecom's marketing practice on steroids.
• Don't let your sales team work in a bubble... Marketing teams often have access to lots of useful data, such as lead scores, lead behavior metrics, and SEO query trends. Marketers can also benefit from the insights gained by the sales team's more personal interaction with leads. Getting marketing and sales to "talk" can be highly valuable for both sides, but each side must be willing to listen.
• Build content that speaks to the present and the future. Your telecom solution may have large and small benefits to a prospective buyer, and your content should outline and describe these benefits. Additionally, your content could address a forward direction for your telecom brand. Inspire users and prospective buyers by showing them where your brand is headed.
• Data-driven decision-making trumps guesswork. Analytics can help telecoms spend money on marketing wisely. Lifecycle analytics can help telecom marketing teams better understand which efforts, content, and web pages are most effective at driving quality leads--and which are the worst.  Using analytics to measure digital marketing efforts is essential and should be a daily practice for powering leads using SEO, social media, and digital advertising.

Lean marketing process using iterative campaigns:

Further reading: The CMO guide to marketing automation and Example content types to employ within social marketing for telecoms

SOURCES:

Demandmetric – A Guide To Marketing Genius [Infographic]- https://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic

B2B Marketing – B2B CMOs: Is It Time for you to Evolve or Move On? – https://www.b2bmarketing.net/

David Meerman Scott, The New Rules of Sales and Service