Welcome to our b2b lead generation ideas and strategies article! Lead generation is not rocket science, but lead generation ideas that are focused on the right audience are hard to find and require a lot of testing. So you might be wondering, how will we connect with prospects and clients? These are just some of the questions that we want to answer in this article.
Lead generation is key. No matter what b2b business you’re in, prospects of customers are vital. No matter how much money your company earns or how big the company is, if nobody knows about it or cares, then they will not be your customers. You as a marketer should be specialists in targeting prospects in order to get them to sign up for a lead list and make a purchase from you. But even if you have the skills and techniques to lure them in, you would still need one more thing – the lead generation ideas for b2b.
In this guide, I go over some lead generation ideas for getting customers as a Business to Business (B2B) salesperson. I cover what to do when your pipeline is dry, and also go over a step by step guide of the sales process that I use within my team.
If you’re looking for the best b2b lead generation tools, or wondering how to generate high-quality b2b leads for your Business to Business (B2B) company, then look no further.
About Lead Generation in a Nutshell
1. What is a lead?
A lead is a person who indicated an interest in your company’s product or service.
People can show interest by downloading a free info product like an ebook, subscribing to your newsletter, or enabling your push notifications.
Of course, there are tons of other ways a person can become a lead; we’ll get to them later.
2. What is lead generation?
Lead generation is the process of converting “strangers” like website visitors into leads. The lead generation process usually ends with an exchange.
For example, a website visitor gives you their email address and name to download one of your free ebooks.
They gave you their valuable contact information, and you gave them some great educational content.
From this point on, you can use this info for following up with different types of email marketing messages.
Don’t forget that any business transaction is about creating a mutually beneficial relationship. Use these timeless sales principles in your communication.
Once a person becomes a lead, you’ll need to nurture them. Lead nurturing is usually done with email marketing automation, but you can use tons of other channels.
Real nurturing consists of:
- Showing empathy,
- Understanding the pain they try to solve,
- And helping them solve their pain.
By doing this, you provide real value to the lead. This experience builds trust between the lead and your company.
This trust makes it much more likely that they’ll end up buying your service or product.
Additional Resource: 3 Lead Nurturing Tips that Immediately Boost Your Campaigns
What Are the Best B2B Lead Generation Ideas?
It’s time to look for lead generation ideas to enhance your B2B marketing efforts. There’s a long list to go through, so let’s jump right in!
1. Add Exit-Intent Popup Forms to Gather Leads
Sometimes, visitors will leave your site before converting. So to help capture their information before they go, you can use exit-intent popups. These appear whenever a visitor is about to click away from your window. The goal is to entice them to share their information before they go. For example, you can offer a free download or discount code in exchange for their name and email address.
2. Use On-Site Retargeting to Re-engage Leads
Another way you can use exit-intent popups is to use retargeting methods. This involves using the visitors’ past site behavior to make recommendations. For instance, when a visitor is about to leave, you can have a popup appear showing a discount for a product they viewed.
3. Automate Your Email Marketing Campaigns
As a B2B marketer, you likely don’t have time to sit around sending out emails each day. And nor should you have to. With email marketing automation, you can drive traffic to your business with little effort. Just take a week to set up segments, write the emails, and choose activity triggers to determine when they send. For example, those who sign up for your newsletter will be placed in the lead nurturing campaign. Then a returning customer may receive an email with a discount code if they abandon their cart.
4. Use Case Studies to Encourage Purchases
Some of your leads are on the rocks about buying your product or service. So what can you do to convince them to convert? One way is to show proof of your product’s benefits. Case studies are excellent tools for proving the worth of your products and services. Consider adding them to your email campaigns, blog posts (as links or stories), and social media marketing (i.e., boosted posts or social ads).
5. Create Ads On Social Media to Drive High-Quality Leads
Do you know which social media outlets your target audience uses the most? Then it’s time to take advantage of this knowledge by creating highly targeted social ad campaigns. Develop segments for the personas you’re targeting to create messaging and offers that resonate with each.
6. Publish Social Media Posts Regularly
Social media platforms are excellent to use because millions of people use them daily. And it’s the same among B2B customers. You’ll find 55% of decision-makers using LinkedIn to vet organizations. So having a business profile filled with helpful posts will establish your company as a thought-leader. This may entice visitors to convert into leads and eventually into buyers.
7. Build a Business Blog to Drive More Interest
Blog content works because, when done right, it helps your audience to make decisions. Educational blog posts, such as how-to’s, tutorials, buying guides, and listicles are widely viewed because readers value them. By offering insights, you can build interest in your brand by becoming an industry expert.
8. Create More Content to Build More Traffic
Focus on generating more content for your blog to drive more engagement. Just make sure not to sacrifice quality and depth. Continue adding value to appeal to both users and search engines.
9. Optimize All of Your Content to Improve Your Ranking
Google and other search engines pick up all sorts of digital content. This includes press releases, blog posts, guest articles, photos, memes, videos, and infographics. Whatever content forms you use, optimize them all with relevant keywords so they’re ranked and found by your target audience.
10. Share More Long-Form Content to Engage Readers
B2B customers enjoy long-form content because they’re more likely to be highly informative. This is why you’ll find long-form posts between 1,900 and 2,000 words performing the best on LinkedIn.
11. Add Push Notifications to Extend Reach
The beauty of push notifications is it gives brands permission to reach out to website visitors on mobile devices. So after a mobile user leaves your site, you can continue sending notifications about deals and new blog posts to get visitors to return.
12. Write Q&A Style Blog Posts to Build Expert Status
Your audience has questions and your brand has the answers. At least, that’s what you want to portray to build your reputation as an expert. So add Q&A style posts to your lead generation strategy. You can find questions on Quora, social media, comments, and from your customer support team.
13. Perform Market Research to Inform Your Audience
Your audience should turn to you when they want information and advice. By offering market research reports, you can showcase your brand as a trusted industry leader and advisor.
14. Add Testimonials to Your Content for Social Proof
There’s nothing like having social proof to showcase the quality of your products and services. Consider adding testimonials to your email campaigns, website, landing page, and social media profiles.
15. Develop Lead-Gen Offers that Are Irresistible
If you study your B2B audience’s habits and interests, you should know what they need (and want). Use this information to create a lead magnet they’ll want to download (i.e., guide, checklist, template, eBook, course, etc.).
16. Create PPC Ads On Google to Drive More Traffic
Google continues to reign supreme as the go-to search engine. So consider creating PPC ads here to drive more leads to your business. Be sure to optimize your landing pages for each target group.
17. Use FOMO to Entice Leads to Convert
The fear of missing out (FOMO) continues to be a driving force for converting leads. You can do this by adding timers to your emails and website that contain offers. Or you can offer limited-time discounts or products.
18. Run A/B Tests to Improve Lead Conversions
Some headlines, copy, and offers work better than others. The best way to find out is to run A/B tests to see what performs best. Do this for your web copy, ads, email campaigns, and CTAs.
19. Create a Free Course as a Lead Magnet to Entice Leads
B2B customers value education, especially when it’s free. Consider ways to train your audience on relevant topics. For instance, how to achieve a result using your product or service. Or it can be more subtle with your product/service CTA at the end of the course.
20. Make Your Newsletter Valuable with Insider Insights
You want to collect leads for your email campaign. But to do this, you need an enticing offer. Why should they add another weekly/monthly newsletter to their inbox? If you offer credible insider insights, then that’ll make it worth their while.
21. Repurpose Content Into Other Formats
Some people enjoy reading blogs, while others like videos or audio content. So consider repurposing videos into blogs (and vice versa), videos into audio, and podcasts into audio snippets. Share them across social media and your blog to connect with leads.
22. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices
Did you know 80% of B2B buyers use mobile while working? So eight times out of ten, they’re going to visit your site using a mobile device. Make sure your site is optimized for mobile to keep them engaged with your content. This is especially essential with more B2B buyers increasing their mobile usage. Over the past few years, 70% of B2B buyers increased mobile use significantly.
23. Get Featured On Guest Blogs to Extend Reach
Find non-competitor blogs in your industry to write guest posts for. Doing so can potentially drive more leads to your website. Your post should be long-form and high-value to entice readers to check out your blog and site. This gives you the chance to connect with leads you otherwise wouldn’t have.
24. Build a Chatbot for Your Website to Engage Visitors
Chatbots are widely accepted by B2B buyers, especially when they’re helpful. And according to Drift, 27% of American adults are ready to buy through a chatbot. This is why 28% of leading companies use chatbots for marketing.
25. Write Whitepapers to Showcase Product Benefits
B2B customers don’t care about what your product or service does. They want to know how it can benefit them. Create whitepapers to showcase how your product or service can resolve their problems. Listing all the benefits and discussing real-world results will get more leads trusting your brand.
26. Attend Online Events to Expand Network
With the pandemic locking down cities and preventing live events, more brands are hosting online events. You can take advantage of this by attending these events and networking with attendees. Focus on events within your industry so they’ll attract your target customers.
27. Host Your Own Webinars to Attract Leads
Hosting webinars is a great way to showcase your expertise as a brand. Consider webinar topics that are educational to entice more people to attend. Then at the end, you can ask attendees to convert into customers. Either way, you have information on all of your attendees, which you can use to nurture those that don’t convert.
28. Host Live Video Events for Better Engagement
Webinars are typically pre-recorded and shareable after production. And while they do well, you may find more engagement when you host live videos. You can turn these into Q&A sessions, expert interviews, or product demos. Consider repurposing the video into social media posts and blog content.
29. Create SlideShare Presentations to Demonstrate Expertise
Another way to establish your brand as an expert is to create SlideShare presentations. B2B buyers regularly view these, especially when they contain information and stats. Consider turning information from your webinars and videos into presentations.
30. Develop Fun Quizzes to Engage Leads
Another way to engage prospective customers is to develop fun quizzes for them to take. Of course, the quiz content should be relevant to the customer and industry. For example, you can have a quiz asking questions to see how well they’re growing, marketing, or operating their business. The results could be helpful in coming up with content and product/service ideas.
Create Success Stories
Any brand can talk a big game and tell leads how much of an impact using their product will have on their business. But this will only take you so far.
A more effective approach, I find, is to show them exactly how existing customers have used your product, along with some quantifiable results.
For example, you’ll find a section on the Sleeknote website that’s devoted solely to customer success stories.
Conclusion
Lead generation is an important step in the buyer’s journey. It provides an opportunity to attract your clients and convert them into leads. Remember, every marketing activity done with the aim of generating leads is a lead generation activity. However, the most common definition of a lead is “a person who has shown some interest in your business, its products or services, by requesting more information from you.”
How do you convert visitors into leads? How do you know if a lead is worth your time? How do you stay focused when it comes to lead generation? These are just some of the questions that we get from our readers every day. Even though every company and industry is different, our goal is to help everyone achieve success by providing valuable information, advice and actionable tips.