Consistent Lead Generation For Technology Companies

If you’re a tech company, then filling your sales funnel with quality leads is certainly one of your highest priorities.

So in this article, we’ll look at how top marketers do lead generation for technology companies. And fill their sales team calendar with appointments – without going over budget.

‘Technology companies’ is a pretty broad term. But I’m confident you’ll be able to adapt all these lead generation strategies to your situation.

Let’s get started!

Do A Technology Search

One of the best lead generation strategies for technology companies is to start with a simple technology search.

For example, find companies that use a product that competes with your own. You know they are already willing to pay for the outcomes you provide. So they’re the perfect sales target!

As long as your competitor has some front-end code, you can probably find their clients.

For example, say you want to find companies using a competitor CRM. Their technology might have a chat box integrated into website. So you can search for any websites using that chatbox.

Build a list of target companies. Then send the decision makers a message to see if they’re open to trying your improved solution.

Alternatively, you can look for technologies that complement your own. For example, an ecommerce analytics company might look for large websites using Shopify.

With a bit of planning, b2b tech searches are the fastest way to build a list of laser focused, qualified leads.

And of course Sales Higher can help you with the technology search. And the appointment setting process.

Share Your Value Proposition

If you’ve got a well defined value proposition then you should be contacting your prospects directly. I mean, how can you help them if they don’t know you exist?!

A strong value proposition begins with a clear understanding of a problem your prospects are facing.

Then share a clear path to use your technology to eliminate their pain.

As a b2b lead prospecting agency, we can help you find the exact decision makers that your solution is aimed at helping.

And work with you to develop effective cold email copywriting.

All your sales team needs to do is follow up with the leads from positive responses that hit your mailbox.

Replicate Your Best Clients

Not all your clients are the same.

Some of them got insane value from your technology. And it had a MASSIVE impact on their business. You saved them money, made their work more efficient. Or you helped them increase revenues.

And those are the clients you want to replicate!

Here’s the thing. As sales professionals, we need to be careful about how we define ‘quality leads.’

It’s tempting to define them as the companies we most want to work with. But that’s not the best definition of quality leads, is it?

Lead generation for tech should be focused on companies where you can have an impact on the business.

So make a list of the companies that you’ve helped at a deep level. What was different about them? What was the real problem they needed to solve?

Now, make a list of companies that have that same problem. Who are they? Who is in charge of solving that problem?

Our list building team will help you find the decision makers at the companies you’ve identified. We’ll connect you with them, and help you take the next step in your relationship.

Make It An Experience

They say in sales, ‘show, don’t tell’.

(Actually, that same advice applies to movies, too.)

Get your prospects to actually USE your technology. When they experience the benefits, they’ll be more likely to express interest.

Note the emphasis on the word ‘experience.‘

There’s an old sales story about a man selling unbreakable glass. He outsold everyone in the company. When they asked him how he did it he explained that he held the glass and gave the prospect a hammer. They hit it as hard as they could. And when it didn’t break he made a sale.

Demos work great for transforming prospects into qualified leads. Your prospect gets a chance to see if your solution is the right fit for them. And if everything goes right they’ll experience enough positive results to want to continue.

In the demo, try and get your sales prospects to do most of the work. The more active they are in creating something, the more attached they’ll be to that outcome.

Free trials are another effective lead generation strategy. Potential customers who engage with your product or service are most of the way towards closing a deal.

Of course our virtual sales assistants can connect you with your potential customers for a demo or free trial.

Offer Webinars

No matter how much we try and automate marketing, communication is about human interaction.

And webinars are an incredible way to connect with people (almost) in person.

Your webinar has two objectives.

First, provide an incredible experience to your potential customers. They should feel like they learned something, and improved at their job. If they feel like attending your discussion was worth the time, then you’ve succeeded.

Second, you’ve got to communicate your solution, and how it helps companies like theirs. This bit should be as short and organic as possible. For example, you could mention what you do when you introduce yourself.

Try to incorporate your products and services into one of the discussion points. Your prospects will get a better understanding of what you do.

Webinars are one of the best lead generation options for technology companies. They work because they’re a form of interactive content. You can speak directly with participants. And you can all learn from one another.

More importantly, the participants are giving up their precious time to hear what you have to say. This signals a VERY high level of intent.

So it’s no wonder that webinars are considered among the absolute best lead generation strategies. With many hosts achieving upwards of 20% to 40% conversion rates.

Use Intent Data

These days, buyer do a TON of research into their purchases long before they connect with a sales person.

That means they do research by visiting websites, downloading white papers, getting ebooks, and so on.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know what companies are researching topics related to your solution? Think how good those leads would be!

Intend data does exactly that.

It uses cookies to combine data from 3rd party websites. And then aggregates information to identify companies researching your solutions.

Yeah, it’s as cool as it is creepy.

It’s worth noting that while intent data DOES improve targeting it’s not the holy grail of lead generation for technology companies. There are still a couple of challenges.

First, this type of data tends to be a pricey.

And second, this type of lead gen isn’t magic. People researching your service might be looking months or years in the future. Or they might be doing research for a blog post. It’s impossible to tell!

But here’s the good news. There are other forms of intent data that are free. For example, if a company is hiring for a certain role, they might need your technology.

All you need to do is ask us to reach out to them. And THAT’S how you can use free intent data to generate leads that close.

Do A Reverse IP Search

Every day you get tens, hundreds, or even of thousands of visitors to your website.

But here’s the thing. How many of those visitors actually become leads?

If you’re like most companies, only about 2% of visitors convert to qualified leads.

So the question is, what about the other 98%!? Should we just ignore them?

Mid to large sized companies often use a dedicated IP address at their office locations. And on their VPNs (virtual private network), too.

This means, when they visit your website you can identify them by doing a reverse IP search. You’ll instantly know what companies visited your website.

And while it sounds complicated, it’s not. There are several reverse IP look up tools that can generate a daily report of who visited. They’re a bit ‘hit and miss’ in terms of accuracy. But they’re generally pretty good at figuring out who was on your website.

So how do we put these insights to work?

First, it’s important to understand the limitations of a reverse IP look up. If the company visiting your website is small, they are probably using a shared IP. So they’ll be hard or impossible to identify.

Also, the reverse IP search will tell you what companies visited your site. But they won’t tell you WHO was the visitor.

With this in mind, reverse IP look up is best at generating leads when you focus on your highest value pages.

Don’t look at what companies visited your website. There are probably too many. And the research process will suck up all your time.

Instead, identify the most valuable pages on your website. These are probably product or services pages and very low in your sales funnel. Someone searching for information on those pages is certainly a viable prospect.

By narrowing your focus to just a few pages you’ll spend your time on your top opportunities.

Sales Higher can find the names and contact information for the decision makers in those companies. We’ll then reach out to them and see if they’re interested in getting more information. Or if they’d like to arrange a call to discuss your solutions.

Connect With Partner Audiences

Take a moment and consider your ideal leads.

Who are they? What do they do? Who do they buy from?

Answer those simple questions and you’ll know who you want to partner with.

Here’s an example. Sales Higher does lead generation for accounting companies. So for us, an ideal partner would be someone connected to the accounting industry. And also isn’t a direct competitor to ourselves.

Fortunately there are lots of companies that fit that criteria. There are accounting schools, accounting associations, accounting software companies, and so on.

To connect with their audience all we need to do is offer to share our expertise. The partner benefits because they get quality content that helps their audience.

And we benefit by getting our work noticed in an industry where we can add a lot of value. It’s a win-win lead generation strategy!

Keep in mind that content marketing can take many forms. For example you could share an article, join a podcast, create a video, and so on. Try different forms of content marketing to see what works best for your partners.

Get Testimonials

One of the very first things to generate leads for technology companies is to get some high quality testimonials. Ideally from clients that are similar to your target market. This simple activity will create new opportunities. And make converting prospects to clients much easier.

Testimonials work because you aren’t saying great things about yourself. Someone else is! This builds trust and provides social proof that you can do a great job.

Most testimonials are framed in a problem-solution pattern. The client tells the reader about their problem, and how you solved it. This is powerful because your reader might be experiencing that EXACT same issue. They see themselves in the review, and now they know you can help.

Another reason testimonials are perfect for b2b lead generation is they are keyword rich. A typical testimonial mentions both the prospect’s problem and the solution you provided. These keywords get indexed by Google. And you’ll receive relevant website traffic related to your solutions.

Remember, Google knows where your office is located.

If you’ve got keywords related to your service on your website then they can send a lot of local business your way. The search algorithm just needs to understand what you do. And trust you can do it well.

Which brings us to the last point. Get some positive reviews on Google My Business. It’ll get you on Google Maps. And help you generate leads from local companies searching for tech help.

Use Long-Tail Keywords

For tech companies, lead generation is sometimes just a matter of writing about niche topics related to your solution.

This is known as a long tail keyword strategy.

Imagine potential customers are searching obscure information related to your product or service.

And now imagine you’re the only search result that directly addressed that query.

Usually these searches are to find a techology that’s compatible with their existing infrastructure.

Or they are looking for technologies that solve a very niche problem.

Either way, there’s usually not a lot of information for these topics.

The lack of search volume means no one wants to write about them. So if you answer the queries then you’ve got a very good shot at becoming the top result in the search engine.

Your Product IS Your Marketing Strategy

“Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster.” – David Ogilvy

There’s a lot to be said for the idea of creating an MVP (minimum viable product) to test demand and validate your idea.

And that works amazing to get attention and work with early adopters. But to grow your user-base you’ve got to create a user-friendly experience. And your product has to work perfectly.

Here’s another way to think of product development. At a certain point your product BECOMES your marketing. If you’ve got a great solution that people LOVE then they’re going to share it organically. And you can’t buy that kind of marketing!

So far this week I’ve checked out 4 different SaaS tools.

But here’s the thing. All of them were recommended by people I DON’T know. They were so effusive in their praise of their favorite tool, I felt like I HAD to give them a look. And I’m glad I did! I bookmarked one for future reference, and signed up for another.

If you want to dive deep into product-led marketing then you should check out the book Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush. It’s chock full of great advice on the right way for technology companies to grow.

How Do You Generate Tech Leads?

So that’s everything you need to know to generate technology leads that convert.

What have you found works well?

I’d love to hear what you do differently, and why. You can message me on Linkedin or send a message on our contact page.

Look forward to hearing from you!