In an ideal world, marketing would feed sales with a stream of quality leads to keep pipelines full with opportunities just waiting to be capitalized.

How often does this happen?

In reality, this is not the case. We all recognize that in every industry and every company, there are invariably up and down in the lead generation process to the point that we cannot be completely reliant on marketing to provide them.

Lead generation in the modern market require the same level of time and energy output it once did, but in different way and with a variety of activity. Many said that Cold-calling is mostly dead, is it true?

The research shows Cold calling continues to fade out as a selling tactic.

In addition we have to account also the cost per lead in our consideration, in fact Internet can be a cost-effective lead generation machine, especially in the B2B space, if you know how to use it for such purposes.

Things are changing today so fast that those who learn how to adapt, make adjustments, and pivots faster are gonna flourish post-2019. Utilizing social selling for lead generation enables you to find and connect with your potential sales leads, who are already on those social platforms, engaging with others and content. But generating leads on social media is tricky territory. One of the common mistake is to treat social selling like cold calling. Instead, treat it as a way to build strategic relationships.

The buying process has changed

In the traditional buying process Reps were responsible to getting the prospects attention and convincing them that they needed the product or service that they were selling. Back then, it was only about cold calls, sales demos and qualifying leads. While all are still important, the biggest change has happened to the way that people buy.

Today, 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally and decision makers consume at least 5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep.

This buyer behavior is further supported in a study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC), which finds that 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level or vice-president level executives use social media to make purchasing decisions.

It’s a simple fact that in the age of digital, customers want to handle most of their own research, and that’s why the Marketing must be accountable to the consistency of the sales pipeline. To the other hand the salespeople should embrace this, and frame themselves in this process, each individual salesperson need to adopt the proper marketing strategies.

Conclusion

In order to have your sales pipeline flowing, there are three core activities that must be done: finding qualified buyers, helping qualified buyers find you, and have in place a strong referral engine. There’s no denying the importance of social media’s role in the B2B buying process today.

When a prospect is ready to buy, they turn to social media. And you need to be there!

But, it’s not as easy as signing up to every social network and pitching your product at every opportunity but with the right steps you can still reach an abundance of contacts and achieve results.

This starts with a strategy by finding prospects that are similar to your existing customers, establishing yourself as industry expert and by leveraging customer relationships to earn more referrals and recommendations.