How the Top 100 Cloud Companies Collect Leads

The top 100 Cloud companies are doing something right when it comes to their sales and marketing strategies. That’s why we’ve taken a look at the latest research from Siftrock to see exactly how these companies are at the top of the game.

The research explores the two different delivery models, the self-service and the sales driven models. It found that 60% of the Cloud 100 were sales-driven models, where talking to a sales rep is required before trying their product.

The other 40%, fell into the self-service model, where companies allow self-service access to trials and/or paid accounts. But, it is worth noting that the majority of these companies do still have sales teams.

Overall, when it came to communicating price, 60% of the time price was not transparent on the Cloud 100 websites, yet these are some of the most successful companies in the world, so we must take note of these tactics.

Collecting leads

Every company collects leads differently, and usually, they use a variety of techniques that all work hand-in-hand to create results.

Here, however are three of the top notable techniques that Cloud 100 companies used to generate their leads.

Webinars

Webinars have become one of the latest success stories for generating leads, they’re so easy to do and with the push of the button you can be live to an engaged audience. So, it’s not surprising to see that 77% of Cloud 100 companies run webinars, making it one of the most popular lead generation tactics.

Webinars are brilliant at providing information to an infinite audience and therefore securing your place as a thought-leader in the industry. If people can’t make the time and date of your webinar then upload it to your website as a downloadable resource so they can still have access to it and you can still see who is watching. Check out some of ours here.

At the sales-driven Cloud 100 companies, 85% were found to have an active webinar program, showing that webinars are a great way of generating hot leads.

Neal Amsden, VP of Demand Generation at ON24 said, “Growth companies must scale rapidly and with minimal resources. Webinars fit the bill in terms of both engagement and rich data collection.”

Anyone can create a successful webinar no matter the size of your company.

Gated content

Downloadable content is also an increasingly popular technique, with websites becoming more powerful than ever, but the question is, should you gate that content? According to the research, 67% of all Cloud companies use gated content, but the tactic was much less common in self-serve models where just 43% used a gate.

This is because 83% of businesses trying to generate leads for sales reps rely heavily on this method as it is providing relevant, hot leads, while self-service companies tended to focus more on qualifying leads with their products or free trials.

David Cunningham, Director of Generation SnapApp said, “Great content drives great conversations. But lead gates block this activity. Interactive content puts the buyer at the center of the experience, creating a two-way exchange – marketers get great insights, prospects get terrific content. Lose the gate, not the leads!”

So, depending on the model of your business and what you’re trying to achieve will determine whether you feel you should gate your content or not – either way, if someone wants to read a piece of content, then they will.

Webchat

Webchat is a way of engaging instantly with someone on your website about what they’re looking for – giving them what they want. It’s still a pretty new trend, and given that, it’s reported that 23% of the Cloud 100 have adopted live chat/messaging on their website.

Of the companies that were found to be using Webchat, 60% have it on their homepage, and 67% of companies using chat have a welcome message pop-up for visitors.

Only 2 of the Cloud 100 were found to have adopted bots or virtual assistants in chat, but this is expected to grow with the increase in mainstream adoption of AI.

Live chat allows you to replace form filling with messaging where you can capture and qualify leads in one step. It makes the process of generating leads succinct and quick, which in turn makes for better qualified leads and more sales.

Collecting leads: other techniques

Webinars, gated content and Webchat are three great ways of generating leads as used by the Cloud 100 companies.

However, it is worth looking at five other ways these companies generate leads through their website:

1.       35% = request a demo

2.       25% = sign-up/create an account

3.       25% = start a trial

4.       14% = contact us

5.       11% = request a trial

Whilst the traditional methods are still in use, it is worth noting that all techniques work together to create a larger master plan.

Adopting the techniques

Feeling slightly inspired by what you’ve seen? Yes, us too! Even better, it’s not as hard as you think to recreate their strategies.

With the help of HubSpot, you can create simple forms and host your content for people to download.

If you’d like some advice on how you can move your lead generation strategy forward, then get in contact with us at grow@bbdboom.com and we’ll be more than happy to chat.