B2B lead generation strategies hold paramount importance for the success of every business. Every marketer looks for opportunities to create a pipeline of prospects. According to HubSpot research, “61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge”.
So for every B2B business, defining their lead generation strategies and making sure that the business has a continuous flow of qualified leads should remain the top priority. It should be a continuous process for businesses as lead generation strategies keep on evolving and impact business topline i.e. Sales.
So, how to tie lead generation strategies B2B to have a maximum impact?
B2B lead generation is the primary stage in the sales funnel that helps to convert your target audience into customers. The process further includes building relationships with customers by nurturing them properly. The whole process of lead nurturing can help to steer your lead generation strategy in the right direction.
The below model shows different levels of B2B lead generation in the sales funnel.
Generating leads has to be one of the most important steps to convert your target audience into potential customers. Before we discuss lead generation ideas, let us know the pillars that build an effective lead generation strategy.
After your target audience is identified, you can move ahead to capture them. You have to keep your website updated with all descriptions, specifications, and important details. You can use call-to-action on your landing pages such as ‘Sign up for free trial’ to keep your leads engaged.
Never take your leads for granted. Just because visitors show interest in your brand doesn’t make them a potential customer. You have to ask the right questions based on the needs or expectations of your leads to help them better. By probing relevant information, you can figure out whether the lead is qualified so that you can direct further in your sales funnel.
Lead nurturing is the process of building good relationships with customers across their lifecycle. Some of the most common lead nurturing ideas are educational webinars, valuable content like white papers, eBooks, newsletters, free demos, etc.
The concept of one-size-fits-all does not work for a successful B2B lead generation strategy. Not all the best practices are tactics that work in a similar way. Businesses are curious to know about the different lead generation ideas.
We have listed down the workable lead generation strategies for B2B companies that will bring significant difference to your business.
Let us discuss the strong foundations that can help in B2B lead generation.
Live chat helps to increase B2B lead generation by responding instantly to the queries and closing the sales faster. It helps to understand the customer lifecycle and reach out to them at the right time and place.
79% of customers prefer to live chat because of the immediacy it offers compared to other channels. It is convenient for the customers, encourages them in making quick decisions, and delivers an excellent live chat sales experience.
Undoubtedly, organic search marketing is an important traffic channel for B2B lead generation strategies. You can optimize your SEO strategy in compliance with your lead generation goals and objectives and implement it to improve the number of potential customers that visit your website.
59% of customers look for businesses each month using Google, making SEO a very powerful tool for generating high quality targeted leads that have a 14.6% chance of closing a deal.
If SEO is used correctly, it will ensure the visibility of your website and its content on search engine results pages.
Content marketing is an effective B2B lead generation strategy. 93% of B2B businesses believe that content marketing generates more leads than traditional marketing strategies.
The success and failure of content marketing entirely depend on the “quality of content” If the content quality is high, it will engage your customers and capture interested leads.
Using a chatbot for B2B lead generation can be an excellent way to boost communication between potential customers and your business. Bots empower to reach out to a bigger audience without impacting your team effectiveness. A well defined chatbot service can really help businesses to grow.
You can use bots to prequalify leads when your sales agents are busy are not available. You can prepare industry-specific questions and bots can qualify your sales prospects by asking these questions, then direct them to the sales team or schedule an appointment.
Social media marketing is considered to be an essential pillar for sharing the content to attract customers. Thus, it helps in generating a huge amount of web traffic for the websites and enhances your brand credibility.
Social media lead generation includes strategic marketing tactics designed to generate new leads and invite them into your sales funnel.
Facebook has several different ad formats, but Facebook Lead Ads are specifically designed for B2B lead generation strategies. You can target customers based on their interests and needs.
Where messaging cannot deliver desired assistance, live customer engagement comes in. There are situations when customers encounter difficult scenarios when they are on your website. They could be an improper product demo, subscription plans, filling up a form, etc.
By using visual tools like co-browsing and video chat, you deliver faster real time support to your customers. You can quickly identify the issue and offer an effective solution in the first touchpoint.
Omni channel customer communication is a widely adopted B2B lead generation strategies by many businesses. It helps to connect with customers across different channels like email, in-app, website, store, phone, etc. You can gain customer insights that help you to optimize your processes accordingly to reduce customer churn and encourage them customers towards conversion.
Customers who buy through multiple channels have a 30% higher lifetime value than others.
Bank of America, the globally famed bank sets a good lead generation example. It delivers consistent omnichannel service to its customers. It allows depositing checks to scheduling appointments to be handled by the bank’s mobile and desktop apps.
There is no end to making content interactive. You have to figure out what kind of content attracts your audience. Using interactive pop-ups is one of the excellent B2B lead generation strategies to engage visitors and capture their attention. You get a chance to learn about your audience or promote an ebook.
Webinars act as a great B2B lead generation strategy. Webinars consist of specific topics and provide high-level insights from subject matter experts. 60% of B2B marketers and sales leaders say a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads.
By using webinars, you can reach out to your target audience and acquire a list of leads. It is recommended to keep the webinar informative with tutorials, training, or workshops.
We all are attracted when we come across something like the “Sign up for a free trial” or “Shop now” buttons. These are the call to action (CTA) buttons that fall under lead generation best practices.
The CTAs prompt visitors to do certain intended tasks such as to add comments, subscribe to the email list or connect with you via social media. An effective call to action can generate more leads.
Forums or communities are excellent B2B lead generation strategies that help users to ask questions and connect over similar interests. As a business, you need to be active in these forums & communities in order to create visibility to share your thoughts. This develops opportunities for businesses to reach out to customers with their services to resolve queries.
For example, Quora or Linkedin groups allow you to interact and interact with your targeted audience to add value to others, share insights, and build out your network with prospects.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is to enable customers to take actions when they land on your website. You can tailor your website elements in such a way that it increases the chances of converting the visitors into leads.
Maximum websites are designed to convert website visitors into customers. These conversions occur all over the website like on the homepage, pricing page, blog, and landing pages. These web pages can be optimized for a higher number of conversions. The process of optimizing those conversions is exactly what CRO entails.
Email marketing is one of the best B2B lead generation strategies to engage the target audience. 72% of U.S. adults prefer to communicate with brands through email as opposed to other marketing channels.
Customers are so comfortable with this marketing channel and like communicating through emails. You can easily connect with your target audience through a reliable channel.
One of the best B2B lead generation strategies is through the referral of happy ones. It just takes a satisfactory experience for customers to share their network about your brand. Additionally, leads acquired by referrals are likely to be qualified as existing clients tend to suggest their friends to the right brand.
Referral marketing programs include a referral incentive. It is what you give to your customers in return for referring their family and friends to your website. It can be of any form like a discount coupons, gift cards, and more.
Lead nurturing is one of the critical elements that drive business momentum. Nurturing helps to track leads and successfully converts them into sales-qualified leads. An efficient CRM impacts a business significantly. It helps in nurturing leads and building better long-standing relationships with customers even before interactions with the sales team.
A CRM system is believed to be beneficial in determining the quality of leads by maximum companies.
CRM is a very useful B2B lead generation tool that simplifies the management aspect of businesses. By implementing the right CRM, you witness improved results in sales, close more deals and increase real-time decisions and predict accuracy. However, there are chances to get into deeper customer data to improve sales initiatives.
Businesses making their prominent appearance to trade shows and events, consider it as one of the best B2B lead generation tactics. Convention Industry Council study found more than 284,000 conventions, conferences, and tradeshows in the U.S that attracted almost 87 million attendees.
Businesses looking forward to boosting their sales conversions can adopt the lead generation best practice of offering good deals & discounts. Mediapost research says when people receive a coupon or savings offer, they become happier and more relaxed.
Giving discounts helps customers to choose your brand over others. Loyalty reward programs & bonus discount offers help to increase customer loyalty. The different types of discounts you can offer to your customers are free shipping, free gift, dollar value discount, or percentage-based discounts.
One of the key lead generation marketing strategies is to stay a step ahead is to keep an eye on your competitor’s every move. The crucial things that you need to continuously monitor are:
Keep a track of competitor’s website content and keyword rankings to stay informed about how your competitor’s marketing strategy is working. You can focus on blogs, case studies, meta changes, interlinking, etc.
Tracking the social channels and posts of your competitors helps to gain insight into what is performing well for them. You should find out the topics they are choosing, the length, style, etc.
Watching out the promotional campaigns helps you to know more about their product or services and how you can outperform your competitors. You should consider the frequency of the campaigns they are using.
Customers reach out to your business in different ways and it has changed a lot in recent years. One important thing, which every business needs to pay attention to, is online listings. Through directory listing management, you can make as many citations as you can.
Note: Citations refer to the place where the online listing of your location can be found.
Website directories are a great way of B2B lead generation because of the following reasons:
The more the number of directories, there is more business that leads to more websites and finally more leads. Here are examples of web directories for lead generation
Many marketers have been using Google AdWords for acquiring leads. Google has cemented itself as the go-to search engine and has moved on to capitalize on its 92.42% market share.
Businesses that have multiple levels in the sales funnel use lead-generation campaigns to provide sales opportunities to their team. They drive traffic to a landing page, a relevant page designed to get a visitor’s contact information.
Influencer based lead generation marketing strategy helps in building relationships with individuals who have influence over your buyers’ decisions. This marketing strategy helps you increase brand exposure, build authority, and connect with new audiences.
B2B lead generation strategy is a long-term play and not something that happens overnight. By harnessing the right system of lead generation KPIs, tools, channels, and ideas, you can build a successful pipeline of leads.
Every business caters to different audiences and hence they should not rely on one channel or short-term fixes to generate leads. By building a solid B2B lead generation strategy, you can make your business sustainable.
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