B2B appointment setting is not just another technical task that brands need to master. Appointment setting is an art that demands a touch of creativity. Without giving your brand a human touch, you will not be able to generate credible leads and all your labor will come to naught.
In this article, we shine a bright light on important aspects that go into the making of appointment setting strategy in 2022. We discuss in detail the factors that one should consider while strategizing for a B2B appointment-setting lead. Before we discuss at length the important factors that go into the successful execution of B2B appointment setting, let’s begin with a fundamental question: what is B2B appointment generation? IN 2022, B2B appointment generation has emerged as one of the most important elements of business communication.
Let us explain to you the complexities of B2B appointment generation through an example:
Let your imagination crown you as an owner of a big tech company with an advanced solution that promises to revolutionize cybersecurity. You have a product, but you don’t have customers. It is obvious that you would like to sell your product to all those who could be your relevant customers. You are a big tech company that specializes in developing new products. You neither have the time nor patience to build a huge sales team that could take your product to its potential customers. How on earth you will be able to sell your product? The answer to this question is B2B appointment generation.
Appointment setters step in and free up your resources which might otherwise have been taken in putting together a sales team. B2B appointment generation gives a boost to your small sales team by delivering a relevant pitch that is good enough to close a deal.
B2B appointment generation, to cut a long story short, is reaching out to your target audience to increase awareness about your brand with the express motive of converting your target audience into prospective customers.
B2B appointment setting is an important cog in the wheel of lead generation and the entire sales cycle. In the beginning, the sales team members sift through the contact list to separate the wheat from the chaff and schedule appointment with interested buyers to close the deal.
How should we go about generating B2B appointments?
(a) Personalization: Gone are the days when the same message could be sent to everyone. In 2022, with more information available on your customers, the scope for personalization has increased. You can be more direct and personal in communicating with your prospective customers. Personal touch in your communication humanizes your brand and helps in creating rapport.
(b) Telemarketing: In the age of the internet, telemarketing might seem to be old-fashioned, but it works. Telemarketing is one of the top-most effective ways of reaching your target audience.
(c) Following up relentlessly on hot leads: To convert hot leads into customers, you ought to follow up with passion. Following relentlessly doesn’t mean pestering your prospective customers with innumerable calls. Rather following relentlessly means being persistent and following up at regular intervals.
So, what are the important factors that we should consider while creating a B2B appointment generation strategy?
- Be thorough in research – There is no scope for shooting in the dark lest you want to waste your resource. The first important step in a B2B appointment setting is to get hold of a contact list and research all promising leads before acting on them. This strategy not only gives you an edge over your competitors but also finetunes your strategy.
- Make Initial calls – Once you are done with your research and have gathered enough information on your prospective customers, you can begin making the first move. Initial calls should be personalized and highlight your strength and experience.
- Schedule an appointment – Scheduling an appointment is the next logical step in B2B Appointment setting strategy. Once you have contacted your client and briefed them about yourself, you should ask for an appointment at the earliest. Delay in getting an appointment can get you in trouble.
- Have a free and frank conversation with the sales representative – The conversation with your sales representative should be honest. Fudging facts, exaggerating quality, and beating around the bush can be counterproductive. Your conversation with your sales team should be to the point and honest. There is absolutely no scope for fakery here.
- Quantify your research – Research per se is not enough. For your research to produce quality results, you must audit your research and quantify IT. Quantifying your research entails conducting a quantitative analysis of your qualitative data. Furthermore, you must organize your data for it to make sense. Interpreting and putting your data in the right perspective comes next.
- Defining your target audience —Have you researched your audience Have you acquainted yourself with your target audience’s likes, dislikes, preferences, lifestyles, etc.? If you have not devoted time and financial resources to study your target audience, you are going down the rabbit hole.
- Building an attractive and hassle-free website is another important factor in B2B appointment setting in 2022. Do not go over-the-top in designing your website, but don’t be casual too. A good website is one that can be accessed on phones as well and should take anywhere between two to three seconds to download. If your website is designed only for PCs or takes more than three seconds to load, fix it at the earliest.
- Credibility defines your creed – All of us are flooded with emails, phone calls, and messages about zillions of products. But do we really care? The categorical answer is No! Why? Because we do not trust what we are told and see offers with suspicion. Learn from the mistakes of others and strive for credibility. Credibility can be gained by putting testimonials on your lead generation page. Many studies suggest your conversions increase by 50% when you include testimonials on your lead generation page.
- Connecting with the right people – Gone are the days when advertisers did not know their target audience and spent huge financial resources unsure of leads it would generate. With the advent of a phenomenon called the internet, PPC has presented itself as a great way to drive leads into conversion by leveraging the bottom-of-the-funnel targeting capabilities. Search engine marketing, also called pay-per-click, is a potent and dynamic channel to generate revenue in the digital marketing world. PPC saves you from the pain of wasting your limited resource – think of newspaper and news magazine advertisements – and get you to a target audience.
- Make Your Brand Resonate – You may have a great product, you may have assembled a great marketing team, you may have ticked all the right boxes, and yet your product may bomb! Think of Tata Nano. Why did such an economic car fail in the market? Because the brand failed to strike a chord with the buyers. Nano’s tagline ‘’Poor people’s car’’ was a tight slap across the face of India’s aspirational middle class. Nobody wants to be called poor. A great idea in Nano was sunk because it communicated the wrong sentiment. Be careful in communication. Be sensitive to the likes, dislikes, and aspirations of your target audience.
- Humanize your brand – Humanizing your brand means getting the values of your brand in sync with the values of your target audience. The humanization of a brand can also be achieved by making a strong presence on all social media platforms. Don’t talk down to your audience. Rather engage your audience in a conversation and empathize with their needs and issues. This simple step will help you in converting your leads into prospective customers
