8 Lead Generating Tips to Win as a B2B Business
As the world grows more and more digital-first, we have to pay close attention to the means by which brands and organizations engage with their audiences of choice. Whether those audiences are everyday consumers or other businesses plays a major role in the kind of marketing the brand can and should do.
In this blog post, we discuss the key differences between B2C and B2B businesses as well as the differences in what makes for good marketing in either category. But today, we’ll focus on lead generation (popularly referred to as “lead gen” for short) and provide 8 ideas that we’ve found to be effective in driving leads and increasing sales for B2B businesses.
#1: Make functional and useful templates designed for your target audience.
Everyone wants templates. That might be too broad a statement. More accurately: most working in a growing organization who might be seeking out additional resources will welcome a meaningful template that streamlines a process they already have to do. So first, identify the needs of a key decision maker for the business area that your service affects. Then, create a generalizable solution that is directly related to your service to
The act of providing useful templates really does 3 things at once:
It tells your potential customers you know what they need, which positions your service favorably.
It elicits a positive emotional response in your customers who are grateful for the useful resource.
It gives them a taste of your brand and your expertise for future recall.
If it's valuable enough, people won't mind if it's gated content that they have to give you some contact information for. You can nurture the relationship from there.
#2: Embrace multi-channel marketing.
How many apps do you find yourself bouncing between in just one day? The average person moves between over 8 different social media accounts in a day. What’s more is that they spend around 2.5 hours a day consuming media across all of those digital accounts.
Nowadays, the fact that some of the biggest media platforms are under intense political and public scrutiny. Relying on only one of those to carry your entire lead gen strategy is no longer just foolish, but dangerous!
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by relying on one channel to drive the entire conversation between your brand and potential customers. Diversify your channels so that you’re not missing out on important connection opportunities and to ensure you always have a backup plan in this ever-changing digital landscape.
#3: Check hashtags and brand mentions to reach relevant users.
Don’t think that you understand the full story because you check your page or profile notifications. In today's complex digital age, people are talking about brands all over the place. From public feeds to discussion boards and forums, you never know where your brand might pop up in conversation. To make sure you’re largely controlling those conversations (or at least aware of them), check Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn hashtags. Check brand mentions across all channels where spontaneous discussion may occur, such as Reddit, Quora, and Twitter.
The fact of the matter is that 96% of people who discuss a brand on social media are NOT following that brand. If you want to know what they’re saying and potential extend an olive branch to enrich that relationship, stay on top of your mentions. Stay vigilant. You never know what problems you could solve that are simply being overlooked.
#4: Look beyond “social media” for your marketing.
A statistic that may surprise you is that only 40% of Fortune 500 CEOs are present on any of the 7 major social networks. This is closely related to tip #2 and highlights the fact that brands need to diversify their marketing channels. While CEOs are usually key decision makers, they’re not the only ones who exist in a company, but if these busy individuals aren’t spending time on social media, how many others aren’t as well?
Make sure you’re producing and distributing relevant content across a wide range of channels. You never know where or when your potential customers might encounter your brand. Lead sources are often surprising if you keep an eye on them.
#5: Make sure your site is optimized to inform potential customers of what value you can provide.
Besides the whitepapers, templates, and lead magnets themselves, a successful lead generation campaign relies heavily upon the landing page and website’s optimization. Before you start sending traffic to a page, make sure that the content is easy to understand, short and to the point, and meaningful to the people you’re looking to reach.
Make sure you have thorough FAQs, simple explanations in layman’s terms, and actionable callouts. The lead magnet might be incredibly useful, but if your site’s content is so thin that a visitor doesn’t understand what they’re getting, they won’t want it.
#6: Ensure your site is optimized for intake.
Besides the content, the design and format of your site is the next most important thing. Some actually argue that visual conversion rate optimization is even more important than the content itself. We think that both play equally important roles in the user experience and thus equal effort should be put into ensuring the quality of both factors.
Make sure there are plenty of email opt-ins and that they’re attractive and not intrusive. Make the forms as accessible as possible and that there are plenty of callouts directing people to lead forms. The more opportunities and reminders you give people to performing a specific action with you, the more likely they are to do it.
Never forget that impressive power that suggestion has. Make it clear what you want users to do next when they visit your landing page or website and make it easy for them to do. Frictionless digital interactions are no longer the exception, but the rule.
#7: Create content experiences for unique user personas.
Most marketers have heard of funnels and personas, but few are making GOOD use of them. Create curated content experiences for each persona that makes up your target demographic to really attract new customers and build your niche(s). Show that you understand your audiences, how they differ, and provide content that is unique to each segment so that you can have as many customers as possible feel that they’re being given specific value.
#8: Allow for free trial periods.
If you’re a SaaS or PaaS company, there’s no better lead magnet than a free trial. Yes, you can still make demos available for people, but try not to make people book appointments for them. Figuring out how and when to schedule something is going to take more mental labor than most people will want to commit to when they’re on a research marathon. Most people who are tasked with finding new services or tools for their business have other responsibilities too. Make it as easy as possible for them to get to know your brand without demanding too much in return and you’ll see your lead volume skyrocket.
A great way of closing a deal without creating a barrier to entry is reaching out after the trial has begun or just ended.
