Lead Generation for High End B2C Products

Hera today we learned that we do not need lead generation for basic B2C products that are low priced and simple.

For example, if you are selling candy or a pen, it is a simple low priced product and doesn't need lead generation.

The sales cycle is short and the decision-making process is easy. Many of these products and services are bought on impulse.

Even if the end consumer makes a wrong purchase, it is not something to worry about. If I spend 10 rupees on a pen and if it doesn't write properly, I will not lose sleep over it.

My time is more valuable than going back to the shop and asking for a refund. However, when it comes to high-end B2C products, we need to do lead generation.

Let's take two examples of high-end B2C products.

What are the biggest purchases that a consumer will make in his lifetime? It is easy to guess.

The biggest purchase would be a house.

People end up spending their entire life savings to buy a home. The next biggest purchase that they will make will be a car.

Let's first think about buying a home.

The Process of Buying a Home:

If someone is interested in buying a home, he/she will look at an ad and will call the number on that ad. Or they will look at an ad online, click on it, visit the landing page and fill out a form with their contact information.

This contact information becomes a lead for the seller. As we discussed in lesson 1, this is a lead because it leads to a sale.

This contact information is the connecting link between the buyer and the seller. Once the seller gets the contact information he will call the prospective buyer and schedule a site visit.

Without seeing the house in person, the buyer cannot make a buying decision. This is a complex product and once the purchase is done, it is difficult to reverse the transaction.

So the buyer will visit the house (or a model house if it is still under construction) and then will ask a lot of questions to the salesperson.

Does it have a good water supply?
Is this a good neighborhood?
What about the facilities in this apartment building?
What about the security and so on.
These are the questions and objections that the buyer has before he can go ahead with the purchase. The decision-making process can take anywhere from 3 to 6 months. The sales cycle is long in this case.

The seller needs to generate the leads, profile the leads, score the leads, and then close the sale with constant follow up. (All these strategies will be discussed in the future lessons).

Now let's take another example of a high-end purchase.

The purchase of a Car: After a house purchase, the next biggest purchase for an end consumer would be the purchase of a car. It is not a one time purchase but it can happen once in 3-5 years. Since it is a complex product, lead generation is required for this.

This is how the process would flow:

The buyer sees an ad online for a car.
He visits the landing page and downloads a brochure.
He gives his contact details to download the brochure.
Then he watches a welcome video.
Below the welcome video, there is a link to request for a test ride.

The form asks a lot of questions such as:

What car do you currently own?
When are you planning to purchase the new car?
Will you be buying it as an individual or as a company?
When do you want to request for a test ride?
Do you need financing for the car or will you pay the full amount upfront?
The questions that are being asked in the form is very important to score and profile the leads. The salesperson may not have time to call every lead and give the test ride of the car to them.

He has to filter out the highly qualified buyers from the unqualified ones. Many car enthusiasts who don't have the money to buy cars would still request for a test ride.

The information filled in the form will help the salesperson to prioritize the leads. That's why lead profiling and scoring becomes important. In future lessons, I will show you how lead-profiling and scoring works in real life with practical tools.

You can see that in both the cases mentioned above the sale cannot happen without lead generation.

No one will see an ad and swipe their credit card to buy a home or a car. Lead generation and sales are required in this case because the buyer has a lot of questions that need to be cleared before the sale can happen. And that can be cleared only by a salesperson. And for that, the salesperson needs the contact information of the buyer.

That's why lead generation becomes very important. The same method can be applied for any B2C product that is high-end.

If you are selling an interior-design service or an appliance that is high priced, you need lead generation.

In the first few weeks, we will be focusing on the theory and fundamentals of lead generation which is very important. Without understanding the principles and fundamentals, the strategy and tactics will not make any sense.

If you are looking for tactics and strategies that you can apply immediately, please have patience, they are coming to you in the future lessons. If you understand the principles properly, you will be able to come up with your own strategies and tactics.

That's it for today's lesson on lead generation for high-end B2C products and services. In tomorrow's lesson, we will talk about lead generation for low-end B2B products and services.

Lead Generation for B2B and Enterprise

In previous post, we talked about why it is not required to generate leads for B2C when the products are simple and low priced.

Consumers need not go through a long decision-making process to buy such products and most of the products are purchased on impulse.

There are cases where you will need to generate leads for B2C products, but we will look into it in future lessons.

Today let's discuss Lead Generation for B2B and Enterprise products.

Is lead generation required for it?

Absolutely yes.

Without generating leads for a B2B product or service it is very difficult to sell it.

The products are high priced and also complex in nature.

For example, if I have to sell my digital marketing services to a company, I have to generate leads.

The number of people who can be my potential customers is very low and I cannot do mass marketing or advertising for my services.

Do you think I would end up getting customers for my digital marketing agency if I put a billboard in a busy junction? It might help in brand awareness, but people are not just going to see an ad and buy a complex service with a 6-months contract.

When you are selling high-end services and products for B2B and Enterprise, lead generation is also easy.

You might be thinking that isn't lead generation difficult in such cases?

No.

Lead generation is easy - but the sales and conversion process is difficult.

To sell well, you need a brand, a personal brand, and a good offer combined with a strong sales pitch.

Let's look at an example from my own experience.

I sold a digital marketing funnel building service to a big publication. The publication was Your Story. I had a feeling that if they did digital marketing well, they would be able to scale up their revenues fast.

I wanted to get in touch with their CEO and I was able to do it. It took a lot of patience and persistence, but when I got in touch with her, I requested a meeting and I got it.

In the meeting, we pitched our services and we closed the deal along with some advanced sales and negotiation tactics.

Here, the lead generation was not difficult. We knew their contact details. But I was able to get a response from them because I had a personal brand for myself as a Digital Marketer and they have heard about me. I also did a very strong sales pitch and used my negotiation skills to close the sale.

Let's take another example of a company with products and services for high-end clients. Wipro serving HDFC Bank. If Wipro has to sell their software development services to HDFC, they will not be generating leads online nor will they advertise their services. They will get in contact with the right decision-makers.

Getting a response from the decision-makers and closing the deal is not easy, but the lead generation is not difficult. You just know who your target customers are and you get in touch with them. Your target customers will be very low in number.

So what I am trying to tell you here is that lead generation is NOT required via digital marketing if you are selling very simple B2C products , or very high-end B2B and Enterprise products.

Lead Generation is required when you are selling high priced complex B2C products or low priced B2B products. We will discuss this in the next lesson

If you have any questions about this lesson, let me know.

Do we need lead generation for B2C

If your business doesn't need lead generation, then there is no point in trying to learn how to generate leads, right?

So when does a business not need lead generation?

A business doesn't need lead generation when it is selling low priced consumer goods that are simple in nature.

When consumers need not go through a tough decision-making process to buy something, and when they do not need a lot of time to decide, generating leads is pointless.

Here are some examples of low priced consumer goods:

• Candy
• Soap
• Pen
• Cookies
• Body spray

These FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) products are simple, low priced, and attract a lot of repeat buyers.

Companies that sell FMCG products do not need lead generation.

Imagine how difficult it would be if you had to generate leads for someone who is interested in a bar of soap, have a salesperson call them and convince them to buy the soap and close the deal.
It is not practical because the amount of profit that you make from the sale of the soap is not enough to pay for the sales person's time and you would end up making losses with the sales process.

It is also not required because the decision-making process for buying soap is simple. Only when a product or service is complex and has a lot of questions to be answered about it, a salesperson needs to be involved.

Many FMCG products are simple products and decision making is usually impulsive. In such cases, brands will engage in marketing activities to raise brand awareness about the brand and get a strong market positioning within the market that they are operating in.

For example, Gillette is a good brand for men's razor blades and they have a strong market position as the leader when it comes to razor blades. They do not generate any leads for the sales of their products. They just advertise and build brand awareness.

What would you do if you had salespeople that do not take a salary or a commission from you? Would you employ them to sell your low priced, simple B2C products? Probably yes. But in the real world, you cannot hire people at no cost. But you can close yourself digitally and use marketing automation to sell without any human effort.

Can you think of all the products and services that do not require lead generation?

What is a Lead and What is not Lead

As Digital Marketers we use the word so much. Get Leads, Convert Leads, This Lead, That Lead, and so on. However, what is a "lead" in the real sense?

That's what we are going to learn today

There are a lot of people out there in the real world who would want to buy your products and services. You are here with a product or service that you want to sell. How are you going to reach out to your potential customers?

A lead is called a lead because it leads to a sale.

A lead is a connecting link between you (your business) and your prospect who is out there in the real world.
A lead usually consists of the following 3 things:

• Name
• Email ID
• Phone Number

Sometimes the leads do not contain the names. Sometimes it is either the email ID or the phone number.
The Email ID or the phone number helps you reach out to your potential prospect and have a conversation with them so that you can tell them about your products and services.

• If you want to have a sales call, you need leads.
• If you want to invite people to a webinar, you need leads.
• If you want to invite people to an event, you need leads.

What are not leads?

When we are talking about what are leads, it also helps to talk about what are not leads.
A lot of people focus a lot on building their social media following. But they are not your leads.
All these are not leads:

• Facebook Fans
• Instagram Followers
• Twitter Followers
• YouTube Subscribers

You are having a connection in someone else's platform and that is not going to be helping if you want to sell something to them. Many times, you will not be able to get 100% reach (or even 30%) because they are the users of the platform and not your users. Hence you will not be able to reach out to them on demand.