One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is to work on case studies showcasing how our customers are using Dux-Soup for lead generation.
The conversations are always interesting. Sometimes featuring eye opening ROI. And often touch on points that I had never really considered in terms of benefits.
However, sometimes approaching a customer about a case study is met with a flat refusal, and the two most common reasons are:
“I’m too busy”.
Closely followed by:
“I don’t want to talk about how good Dux-Soup is, as I can’t risk my competitors finding out the secret behind my success.”
I can completely understand both points of view! But let’s focus on the second of these. Namely not giving away your competitive advantage.
After all, who wants to tip off the competition as to how you are generating leads. Personally, I believe that marketers fall into two camps – those who know about ‘cool’ stuff like automated LinkedIn lead generation tools or websites such as buyer personality profiling with Crystal.
And those that don’t. These are the ones that are still just using mainstream marketing channels. Most likely, they are doing this well. They just aren’t adding a newer channel that is proven to deliver leads in multiple industries from selling ladders to driving recruitment.
Hubspot don’t see growth hacking as a top lead generation tool
I was reminded of the sometimes secretive nature of lead generation using LinkedIn when I saw this article from our friends at Hubspot: “The Best B2B Lead Gen Campaigns for Every Channel”. It’s a really good read as you would expect from a Hubspot blog with one exception.
It starts off by saying: “A disciplined B2B marketer should understand the different dynamics, budgets, and expectations typical of each lead generation channel.” But in the section that talks about LinkedIn, it only talks about LinkedIn Ads.
There is no mention of more innovative techniques that we know work such as LinkedIn automation tools.
So, I did a bit more digging around into stats on where leads come from and came across a diagram, again from Hubspot:
Still no mention of growth hacking. But if you look carefully at the diagram the two largest blocks for lead source come from Social Media and ‘Other’.
Will growth hacking move from ‘other’ to mainstream?
My guess is that in the research that was carried out for this diagram, the options were not detailed enough to account for LinkedIn automation or growth hacking and those B2B and B2C marketers that are successfully using these techniques, have ticked Other or Social media.
It’s no surprise that automated LinkedIn lead generation isn’t widely appreciated by mainstream marketers yet as it has the image sometimes of being a bit of a tecky/geeky thing to do. The terminology involved in connecting these systems probably doesn’t help non-technical people (Zaps and Webhooks, anyone?).
But there are a multitude of playbooks out there that break things down into easy to follow steps. These can help you get started quickly and drive your LinkedIn lead generation using proven techniques.
Integrate for more leads
I’m a big believer in integrated marketing. That is, taking a number of different marketing tools and making sure that they work together to create greater synergy with the ultimate goal of delivering more leads and better ROI.
Whenever I talk to a specialist marketing agency, I do have to suppress a laugh when I hear them pitch their service as the panacea to all of my marketing challenges. It used to be that if you talk to a telemarketing agency then the solution to my lead generation goals was to focus on telemarketing. Or email marketing from a digital agency. You get the picture.
However, over time whilst the conversation has changed in these pitch meetings, for example telemarketing agencies will recommend content, email or social marketing to warm up the audience, there is still room to improve when it comes to integration of the different marketing channels.
The reason for this is that no single channel will effectively target all of your audience, at every stage of the buying cycle.
And that brings me onto my next point. What happens when a lead has been generated? One of the hardest things I’ve found is to ensure that leads are followed up properly. This could be keeping leads warm or pulling them through the funnel until they are ready to convert.
Using LinkedIn automation tools can help make the sales follow up more manageable and reliable. With Dux-Soup Turbo, you can create drip campaigns using a workflow to communicate on a regular basis until the prospect takes the action that you are looking for, in which case, the workflow stops the sequence of messages.
Let’s kick some backside
I was interviewing a happy Dux customer recently and she said that she hopes her competitors don’t read the case study as she doesn’t want them to know how she is kicking their ass at the moment!
Over the years and working for many different companies in different sectors, ‘competitive advantage’ is often cited as a reason not to do a case study. I even had one company tell me they would do it, as long as I didn’t release the story in their industry.
However, at Dux Towers, we are keen to speak to more people who are making automated LinkedIn lead generation work. If you think you’ve got a slick way of generating leads, maybe you have a playbook that links Dux-Soup with other tools like email marketing or CRM, let me know. I’d love to talk to you.
About the author
Adam Osman is Head of Marketing at Dux-Soup He is passionate about using the latest marketing techniques to help companies and brands grow. With two decades of experience in marketing technology products for international companies and startups alike, Adam leads the effort to spread the word about how Dux-Soup can benefit companies looking to turbo charge their lead generation.
