What is a Lead?
Lead is any business or individual who has expressed interest in your products and services.What is B2B lead generation?
Lead generation is one of the most critical aspects of marketing because as they say ' No lead, No sales.' Hence, Lead Generation can be defined as the process of attracting the attention of your target audience and converting them into your customer.
The key here is to find the strategy that works for your business, and in most cases, it is some form of content. In the end, it all boils down to how your audience interacts with your company and content.
Does your audience love video content rather than written content? Double down on creating quality video content in this case.
Some lead generations are blog posts, emails, podcasts, YouTube videos, or any other online content.
However, one must understand the difference between Lead generation in B2B and B2C business as both of these serve different audiences.
B2B business caters to large organizations or enterprises, including management and executives. As the contracts for firms are larger, the sales cycles are longer. Whereas B2C business serves consumers directly, the sales cycle is smaller than B2B business.
However, even if you capture high-quality leads, you must have b2b marketing tactics to convert them into paying customers.
You can learn more on sales tactics here.Some key differences in lead generation for B2B and B2C are:
- B2B caters to narrow and highly targeted audiences, including large businesses and organizations, while B2C caters to a broad audience from various fields.
- B2B consumers are more knowledgeable as compared to B2C audiences and hence harder to convert into paying customers.
- In B2B, only the company's top management has the purchasing and decision-making power, unlike B2C, where every consumer has purchasing power.
Advanced B2B lead generation strategies:
1.LinkedIn Marketing
LinkedIn is the social media platform where most of the company's management and top executives hang out. LinkedIn tops the list of B2B lead generation platforms. Total 94% of B2B businesses use LinkedIn for Lead Generation. Unlike other social media, like Instagram and Facebook, where audiences hang out for fun, individuals on LinkedIn are mostly professional and use LinkedIn for professional purposes. LinkedIn has 500 million users every month as we speak. And a total of 660 million users worldwide as of 2020. Leverage LinkedIn to its full potential using lead generating tools.One of the best ways to generate high quality leads for your B2B from LinkedIn is to use LinkedIn lead generation tools such as LeadConnect.io.
LinkedIn lead generating software like LeadConnect.io and LinkedFusion automate your lead generation,
- List all your target audiences.
- Allows you to set up personalized messages in placeholders to send invitations. (up to 100)
- Helps you set up automated follow-ups messages to those connected to you but haven't responded.
- Send all your data and leads to HubSpot for further lead nurturing and management.
2. Pay per click Ads
Online market space is crowded and competitive. Months will pass without generating leads from organic traffic or other techniques. That is where PPC ads come into the picture. PPC ads are the best way and fastest way to create high-quality leads.The best thing about PPC ads is you get to choose the kind of visitors you want to land on your site. You can target people who are itching to click the buy button and focus entirely on high-quality lead generation.
But you must make sure your landing page is capable of converting those leads into paid customers once they land on your site.
Tip: Extra caution must be taken to safeguard your marketing campaign from PPC fraud.
3. Email Marketing
Email is not dead, as many digital gurus keep claiming. The email has around a 40 percent return on investment or conversion rate. B2B email marketing is known to generate high-quality leads resulting in sales. 75% of B2B businesses saw excellent results after utilizing email marketing.Your business must have an email marketing strategy to make your readers take specific actions. The emails must be crafted according to the buyer's journeys in your sales funnel. You should not bombard your subscriber's inbox with only sales emails, especially not when they just signed up for your email list.
Sign Up for email list >> Welcome series>> Consistent and Quality Broadcast Emails.
After a person signs up for your newsletter, a welcome email series will help them get familiar with your brand. After a welcome email series, your customer is now familiar with your brand and is ready to receive sales and other informational emails.
One must keep in mind that nowadays, people's inboxes are filled with tons of emails. If you want to get noticed in the sea of emails, crafting a clickable title is a critical part of the campaign. Nobody liked receiving unhelpful content in their inboxes. Hence, 'Quality over Quantity’ must be your mantra.
How to use email marketing for lead generation in B2B
Pick the right 'Email Service Provider.'
Picking the right email service provider is critical for success. Different service providers provide additional email customization. Make sure the email service is right for your business.Constant Contact, Get Response, Convert Kit, Mailchimp are some of the top best email service providers in the market right now.
Consistency
Consistency is the key in Email Marketing. Sending one email every day for one week and not sending any after that for five months can negatively impact your brand. Be consistent in sending an email. Choose 2 or 3 days in a week to send emails so that your audience will know when to expect emails from you.When people give you their email address, that means you gained their trust. It is like getting an invitation to their private space. Many people check email at least five times a day.
That is your opportunity to grab their attention.
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| Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels |
4. Using Scarcity or exclusivity
Have you ever come across a limited offer saying this is once in a lifetime offer that will go away forever in the next 15 minutes? And you purchased it. Fear of losing out can make people take instant decisions instead of I will buy next time (which in most cases means never)App Sumo excels at offering exclusive or limited offers for software or digital products. They sweeten the deals by providing a lifetime membership of products at highly discounted prices.
5. Leverage SEO to get more leads
I guess everyone is aware that the importance of SEO is invaluable digital space. But you will be surprised at how many businesses have crappy websites with hard to navigate interfaces with those frustrating and intrusive popup ads and no search engine optimization strategy. Ohh!! Did I forget to mention their website is not mobile optimized?About 61% of Google's total traffic is received from mobile devices. And if you have not optimized your website for mobile, you are losing a significant chunk of your traffic and sales.
You won't get the leads if your audience can't even find you. Make it easier for your audience to find you by following SEO optimization techniques.
However, SEO optimization does not mean stuffing keywords. It is frowned upon by Google, and you will most likely be flagged as spam.
First of all, SEO has evolved a lot in the last decade. It is no easier to rank for any keywords as they did in the past. There is tough competition in this space. Hence you must have an SEO strategy.
Make a list of keywords you want to target. Know the types of keywords by user intent.
There are two types of user intent behind.
- Inform
- Purchase
Optimize your existing content- Optimizing your existing content lets Google know you are consistent, and hence it may start ranking your keywords. Keep your content as natural as possible, and use long-tail keywords. Instead of using "Software," you can use the "Best automation Software in 2020". This way, the traffic you will receive will be more targeted and specific rather than generic users.
Fill the content gaps by filling the gaps with new content. Suppose Google search for specific keywords is filled only with e-commerce product pages. You can use that opportunity to create content to target users with high transactional intent.
Optimize your off-site and On-site SEO. For example, use keywords in H1 tags for Onsite SEO and build backlinks from reputed resources for Off-Site SEO.
Make sure your site loads faster on devices of every size. Site loading time is one of the factors Google uses to rank the website on search results. (It must not take more than 3 seconds for your website to load)
6. Offer free lead magnets.
Your paid ads failed. Content marketing fell short. Your best? It is to give freebies. 'Give before you ask' is the best technique to gain the trust of your audience.
Who doesn't want gifts? Everyone does. Lead magnets are 'freebies' offered as an incentive or content upgrade in return for an email address or other contact information.
Lead Magnets can be evergreen, seasonal, or time-sensitive. Lead magnets provide value to the readers and must be kept short and punchy.
Different types of lead magnets B2B businesses can offer are:
- E-books
- Case studies
- Video Training
- Resources
- Cheat Sheets
- Templates
- Checklist
- Free trial
Advantages of offering lead magnets
- Helps you position yourself as an expert in the niche.
- Builds trust in your brand or business.
- Helps you grow your email list.
- Free trials offered can lead to sales.
HubSpot is the best example for generating leads for B2B businesses by offering attractive leads magnets.
Conclusion
Generating B2B leads is hard, and it is a bitter pill you have to swallow. All those digital gurus claiming that their strategies are best for B2B lead generation forgets that an approach that might work for one business might lead to the fall of the other.You must tailor your B2B lead generating strategies around your business, products, and services because there is no one specific formula for all. It is the only way to guarantee success.
Do you have B2B lead generation strategies that worked well for you? If so, we’d love to hear about them.
