What Really Works in B2B Lead Generation – Truth Revealed

Getting a lead through the door is harder. A research report by Act-On Software found that 75% of the 244 participants agreed that generating quality leads for their business is one of their most important and challenging goals. If you think the same, worry not. It’s okay. It happens to most of us.

However, this challenge of finding the dream lead for your firm gets even harder if you forget to act on it at the right time. So, the next question is – how to work on it? How to reach out to the right prospects and sell your product? To help you in this area, we have come up with the well-researched tactics on B2B lead generation.

If you are here to build sales by mending your previous lead generation mistakes, these tips can be of better help. But, before jumping into the most practical B2B lead generation tips, let’s look at some of the cold facts that stop you from reaping the desired benefit.

– There is Nothing Called as “Perfect” Lead

You may find a lot of promising leads, but there’s no way to determine if he is perfect or going to be a guaranteed sale. All you can do is find as many leads as possible and have faith in them.

– Your Emails are Often Disliked by the Audience

People don’t like to answer your calls or emails. Plus, the contact details you get might be inaccurate, and you often end up promoting your products to the wrong leads.

– Marketers Still Aren’t Sure Where Leads Come From

Yes, even a smart marketer finds it challenging to determine where their leads are coming every time. Lead generation is a continuous process combined with various strategies.

And, ignoring these facts is hurting the revenue, regardless of industry type. Don’t miss the better opportunities by being blind to these truths. This article highlights some of the key ideas one needs to consider to tackle such misinterpreted lead generation processes.

1. Content Marketing

Content will always remain as the future of B2B marketing world. It is an excellent source of leads if you do it right. The Content Marketing Institute says almost half of all marketers are planning to use content to reach their customers as it is one of the most effective ways to promote any business. So, clearly, content marketing is great.

Now, let us see how to generate a massive amount of quality leads via content marketing.

• Blogging: Blog has always remained the best form of content. You can easily dominate search engine results and improve your mark in the industry by blogging right.
• Videos: Videos are the most viral and potential form of B2B content. So, don’t neglect video platforms such as YouTube as they are capable of producing leads in large numbers.
  

• Research Report: Research reports are valuable for B2B industries. Publish free and relevant research reports for the audience and generate enough leads.

• Webinars: It is a relatively cost-effective way to get your message in front of a vast audience. So, find a good topic that appeals to your target audience and host a webinar on that topic

2. Social Media Strategy

Social media platforms play an influential role in lead generation. It is a perfectly fine source of leads. But that doesn’t mean merely tweeting every day or having an account on LinkedIn will bring you huge sales. The problem is, most of the B2B industries fail to harness the full potential of social media.

I will suggest some of the social media techniques below that makes your lead generation effective. It reverses the current trend and recapture the leads on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms.

• Be Always Available on Social Media: Your followers expect your presence on social media always. So, get online and be active on your business page. Connect with your audience and engage them with your posts without a miss.

• Join Professional Groups: Social media has a variety of professionals groups that you can join. Find relevant groups that contain professionals who are likely to buy from you.

• Send Your Social Media Followers to the Website: Make sure that the social media visitors go to your website often. Provide website links, ideally to your product landing pages that capture leads with signups, offers, etc.

• Provide Newsletter Signups on your Social Media Page: It is a great way to gain more leads on social media. Create newsletter signup forms on this channel and obtain the email addresses of social media followers who are interested in your brand.

3. Automated Process

Marketing automation is one of the most popular current marketing trends. Most of the marketers treat this buzzword as a comprehensive digital marketing strategy but, unfortunately, don’t recognize its lead-gen value. This part of the marketing is still not very well understood by the B2B industries.

If you are unsure how to use automation in your marketing strategies, take a look at the key-points given below.

• Custom Contact Form: Create custom contact forms for your landing pages. Using customized landing pages along with targeted email marketing is said to yield up to a 50% increase in conversion rate as per the Vero report.

• Build Contact List: Marketing automation tools help you build email lists by retrieving contacts from social media, PPC ads, and other contact forms. Use it to identify anonymous visitors and target your messages based on their behavioral data or demographic.
• Email Drip Campaigns: Plan and execute a B2B drip campaign, which is a series of auto-responder messages sent out on a schedule to convey timely information and move potential customers through the sales funnel.
• A/B Testing: It helps you test different versions of display ad, landing page, or email, and calculates the bounce rate, time spent on the website and other factors to determine which version is more effective than others.

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the traditional yet simplified marketing channels that has stood the test of time. This authentic medium of communication is used by over 3 billion people worldwide. Although there is increased use of social networking and other forms of instant messengers, email continues to show steady growth.

Hence neglecting email in your marketing operation can hinder your lead generation process to a greater extent. Learn some of the best email marketing lead-gen practices to boost business profits.

• Short Messages and Simple CTA: Since people have no time to read lengthy content, come up with the shorter version of an email. Minimize the text as much as you can, and use more images or visuals. Also, make sure your subject line and CTA are concise and simple to understand.
  

• Clean your Email List Regularly: Remove those subscribers from your list who don’t bother to read your messages. There is no point in storing their info as they are not going to buy from you.
  

• Stop Using ‘No-Reply’ in the Sender Address: If you want to build the trust and relation with your customers as well as prospects, don’t use ‘no-reply’ address. People never take such email addresses seriously.

• Link Emails to Your Landing Page: Similar to the social media strategy explained above, you need to direct your email subscribers to the dedicated landing page. It will trigger conversions as they have all the information required to purchase your product/services.

Bottom Line

I believe that exceptional lead generation results come only by experimenting with different tactics and combining them across multiple channels. By trialing, you will realize what exactly works for your market, and thereby you can effectively utilize your time and budget to generate leads and overall higher returns on your investment.

I hope this article has helped you with what’s possible with B2B lead generation, and which areas to focus on for better results.