Introducing: The Venture Lane Lead Gen Lab

Last week, we invited three B2B tech-startups in the Venture Lane community to participate in our first lead gen lab. How does it work? Participants shared their lead gen process and most pressing dilemmas with an expert mentor committee. We were joined by: Jess Iandiorio, CMO at Startburst Data; Eric Keating, VP of Marketing at Appcues; and Courtney Austermehle, VP of Marketing at Salsify.

Key Takeaways

Lead Gen

• Spend quality time thinking about your target market. If this is too broad, how can you narrow down your focus for a more targeted approach? When you determine a focus point, your chance of success increases.
• For resource-constrained teams, first develop the business through your own networks. Tap friends, family, alumni, your network looking for as many warm intros as possible.
• Since industry events and conferences are off for table due to COVID-19, think about if there’s local, responsible events you could host instead. For instance, consider activities that are distanced and outside like golf and fishing.
• For events and conferences, small companies need to follow the lead of large companies. Once they re-start their events, it’s a good sign you can restart yours. Think of it as a flip of the previous event planning model: you used to plan events many months in advance and now it’s better to try and plan a small event in 3 weeks due to unpredictability and uncharted territories.
• Have you seen an increase in webinars offerings? Webinars are great but are also becoming oversaturated. They are time consuming to put together — both for finding speakers and finding attendees. You’ll need a strong hook to make the process worthwhile.

RELATED: Introducing: The Venture Lane Sales Lab

Content

• For resource-constrained teams, consider hiring a third party or freelancer to help with content creation. If you’re not getting your brand name out there and increasing SEO, it’s time to start.
• Before launching a blog, think of overarching segments that you want to tackle. Don’t pick categories that are too broad and don’t pick categories where you’re up against tech giants who will dominate the SEO and organic search. Your content needs to be clear, concise, and tight to compete in organic searches.
• When looking for a freelancer, it’s important to get samples of their work, references, and a feel for their tone. Spend time chatting with them about your brand voice to check if they may be a good fit.
• Regarding content, was your industry disrupted by COVID-19? If so, use this as an opportunity to be the voice of the new normal in your industry with your digital content.
• Have you considered using video? Video helps viewers learn without reading and you should consider leveraging it.
• Do you have frequently asked questions about your product offering? Have blog posts up that answer each of those FAQS for viewers to peruse.

Website

• Ask yourself, does it make sense for our website to have an opening video on the homepage? Is it important for viewers to know who you are, why you started this journey, and what exactly you do?
• If you don’t have a ton of brand awareness, add a list of your clients on your homepage. Keep in mind, if you have big brands on your site it could alienate mid or small sized companies. Or vice versa. Think about your current target market and if the logos would resonate with them or turn them off.
• Is your value prop clear? Is it clear what you do and wha you offer? Have you thought about your webpages from an outsiders perspective?
• For startups that are both B2B & B2C, be cognizant of how you interact with both sides on the site. Is there enough information to satisfy both the B2B folks and the B2C folks? Are you trying to grow both sides of the business? Does it make sense to send users to an immediate page asking if they’re a partner or a customer and subsequently send them to two different home pages? Is your blog catering to both sides? If so, are you effectively using tags so users have the ability to segment the content that interests them?
• Do your own SEO reconnaissance work. Try searching your company name and blog post title — what comes up?

Big thank you to our lead gen lab mentor committee for dedicating a few hours out of their busy Fridays to help early-stage startups in Boston.