Technology Marketing Insights: Here’s why your leads are not turning into qualified pipeline

We consistently see technology companies embark on expensive, isolated, and often unsuccessful pipeline generation initiatives through the year.

They’re often thought of as fun to do, or opportunistic based on some vendor funding or discount deal. We also consistently see that these initiatives give results that are WAY less than expected and lead to total disillusionment.

Two reasons for this are that:

1. The initiative wasn’t planned or executed properly

Good planning and good execution means that these initiatives are part of a higher strategy. We often see a lack of planning in these initiatives where they aren’t given the adequate time to educate and nurture prospects. Many of your net new prospects have NO idea about your company and frankly, they don’t care.

Like any good relationship, it takes time for them to warm up and open up to you. It needs care, content and attention that specifically talks to their problems in a personalised approach. Yes, this is hard to scale, especially with busy sales resources. But this is exactly why you need a strategic technology marketing partner (*cough, cough* like us…) who understand the complex B2B technology buying cycle that they can nurture for you.

2. Your expectations weren’t realistic

Ah yes… the common misconceptions. Marketing efforts have us believe that a sprinkle of events, a dazzle of a trade show, and a dousing of some emails = lots of new customers. But what most technology companies forget is that it takes around 8-13 interactions and engagements with your brand (depending on your target audience and offer) to convince just 1 person you’re to purchase from you.

But it gets even better… that one person then must go around and convince their peers and organisational stakeholders, too. This is exactly why referral systems and word of mouth businesses are so lucrative and important – trust is already established. So, with no trust in your prospect customer, you need to expect that warming up to you takes time and that multiple engagements across multiple channels with considered orchestration (in person, online, digital marketing and content) is the express lane to doing this.

The technology buying cycle is a journey,

let us hold your hand through it.

Techtent is here as an extension of your internal team to guide you through the B2B technology buying cycle. In fact, it’s all that we do. We take the fundamentals of the non-linear cycle and strategise how we’re going to generate leads for you.

How? You might wonder - we’re so glad you asked.

1. You’ve identified the problem, we educate on the issue

Buyers can’t be aware of issues if they don't actually know that the issue might exist. We drill down on educating the right targeted audience of the problems that WE KNOW are lurking within their IT processes and environments and marry them up with the technologies and solutions that WE KNOW will solve that problem.

2. You’ve created the solution, we educate on the product/service

Like we said, we take the time to understand your technologies so that we know they will solve the issues. So, we emphasise that your solutions solve real business problems, and very well.. This is where the consistency of nurturing and generating trust with your audience is most important. Now that they know an issue exists, they’re looking for the right way to solve it and we need to consistently demonstrate that your solution does just that until trust is reached.

3. You’ve got their interest, we facilitate the Q&A

So your buyer has learnt about a new issue, they also think you can fix their issue, but they want to get personal and ask more questions. We create campaigns to open doors for new conversations through meeting makers that gift new prospects with experiential events or strategised incentives.

4. You’ve got a prospect buyer, we circle back to the start

Cue: the sales team. We’ll head back to the top and start educating again in case the memo was missed, or we’ll find new and relevant audiences while your sales team weaves their magic and mitigates hesitations from the buyer. Even though we’re back to the start, we will keep nurturing these prospects all the way through until they’re closed or won. We’re not here to go MIA!

The information curated in this process is the driver for customer trust and qualified sales pipeline.

Get in contact with us today for your free proposal about how we can hold your hand through this cycle: contact us today!