Lead generation comes in many forms, and it can be hard to know where to begin if you are short on time and need a quick boost to your sales pipeline. Here are 3 tried and tested ways to begin generating B2B leads when you need them the most. Utilize these tactics and points of execution to help marketing uncover more qualified leads for the sales team.
1) Generate Inbound B2B Leads with Content Marketing
Content marketing (aka; inbound marketing) is a well-known method for lead nurture and generation. The purpose is to offer a valuable resource of information to your ideal prospect in exchange for their contact information.
Content marketing comes in many forms: eBooks, whitepapers, case studies, quizzes, calculators and infographics, to name a few. We recommend utilizing existing content as a starting point for developing a new asset to leverage. Here are the action items to get your content marketing efforts off the ground:
Identify or publish a content resource
Scan the website, social media channels and file storage systems for existing content to repurpose. Content may be hiding in unexpected places. Here are a few examples to get your gears turning:
- Transcribe a YouTube video to create an outline for an article or eBook
- Scan Google reviews, forums, or social media platforms for frequently asked questions from clients or competitor’s clients to develop a robust FAQ page
- Turn web page copy into an animated video or infographic to convey the message using visual elements
If you do not have existing resources, author a new piece of content that offers value to potential clients. You can use some of the ideas mentioned above as a jumping-off point. Just ensure the content contains unique information, statistics, or answers that speak to your buyer personas at the right stage of their buyer’s journey. For additional best practices, reference “The 4 Rs of Content Marketing.”
Leverage content across channels
The fun does not end once you publish your content. To quickly take your new content to market, we recommend using a medley of e-mail, social media, and digital ads to promote your content to prospects that fit your buyer personas.
Encourage downloads, shares, and views with:
- E-mail campaigns: Draft an e-mail that invites existing contacts to download the content. The leads in the database are already familiar with your brand and engaging them with a helpful resource may spark conversation that leads to further communication.
- Social media posts: Leverage your new content resource by taking bits and pieces and repurposing them for teaser-style social media posts. Pair a strong call-to-action to download your resource with video explainers, graphics containing key quotes, statistics or even polls.
- Digital ads: Use digital advertising platforms (i.e., Google Display or PPC, YouTube Pre-Roll Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Meta Ads and etc.) to expand your reach beyond the existing database and social media community. Continue to the next section to learn more about launching a digital ad campaign.
2) Generate B2B Leads at a Higher Volume with Retargeting
Digital advertising will not only expose your content to new audiences, but it will also accelerate the pace of lead flow. Before launching, the advertiser will need to identify the campaign objective. The most common objectives fall into 3 categories:
- Brand Awareness: Reaches a new audience and caters to the top of the funnel
- Conversion: Reaches a new audience and caters to the middle or bottom of the funnel
- Retargeting: Reaches an existing audience and caters to the portion of the funnel that the advertiser deems necessary
Brand awareness and conversion campaigns have their place, but when a sense of urgency is at play, retargeting is the best option.
Retargeting campaigns allow you to get in front of warm leads versus cold. Warm leads will have interacted with your brand online and have a higher level of intent than a new target audience. Cold leads will take more time to convert as they will need more time to navigate through your sales funnel. If you do not have a sales funnel, we specialize in helping sales and marketing teams with lead funnel development.
Most digital advertising platforms will allow you to retarget:
- Recent website visitors – anyone who has visited your website
- Profile visitors or engagers – anyone who has interacted with your social media profile or commented, liked, or shared your posts.
- Video viewers – anyone who has watched a video about your product or services
- E-mail subscribers – database contacts
Use these action items to make the retargeting campaign live:
Determine a goal-oriented campaign budget
One best practice for setting a paid media budget is to determine your cost per lead. Learn how to calculate your cost per lead here. When you know how many leads you need to generate to reach your goal, your cost per lead can help you determine a budget that will deliver results.
Select the right digital advertising platform
Your budget will also help you choose an advertising platform. For example, Google ad targeting options allow you to tap into a user’s “search intent” when targeting, resulting in a higher level of interest in your product or service. However, the cost per lead for Google ad campaigns is typically higher than other ad platforms. A B2B marketing professional in this scenario may choose to move forward with a provider that offers a more competitive cost per lead.
Budget aside, it is essential to meet your audience where they are. Do not forget to consider the demographics of your buyer personas when selecting a platform. Remember to meet the audience where they already exist. This best practice protects advertisers from wasting ad dollars on users who have no interest in using your products or services.
3) Leverage Partners to Host a Lead-focused Event to Generate B2B Leads
Event marketing offers a broad range of lead generation activities to explore, but for a quick ramp-up, we recommend teaming up with a partner or industry thought leader to host a webinar. Rather than going solo, a partnership can expand your reach and divide and conquer when promoting registration. To effectively set up and promote a B2B webinar, complete the following steps:
Identify a partner
Select an industry thought leader with an established audience that aligns with your buyer personas. If you need help, defining or researching your buyer personas we have a blog post that can guide you. With a few ideal partners in mind, contact them to brainstorm ideas for the topic, date/time of day, promotion strategy and follow-up execution.
Prepare webinar topic presentation deck
Work with your partner to determine a topic that will speak to your buyer’s pain points. Aim to address a frequent problem that your ideal client encounters each day and prescribe a solution to that problem using your product or service.
Promote the B2B webinar to increase participation and generate B2B leads
As much as we’d like this to be a Field of Dreams situation, webinars are not an “If you build it, they will come” scenario. They do require a timeline and promotion strategy to garner a high rate of participation. Work with your partner to determine how you can utilize each other’s online and in-person networks to market the webinar to potential guests. You can do this by:
- Setting up an event registration page
- Sending e-mail invitations with the registration link to both databases
- Promoting the webinar with an event countdown on social media
- Promoting the online webinar on the homepage of your websites
- Utilizing digital ads to promote the event beyond the existing network of contacts
Define a follow-up strategy
- Remember to record the online seminar so that you can send it to the contacts that may miss the live presentation. You can send the recording to your database via e-mail or host it on your website on a resource page or within a blog post recap of the webinar.
- Share key takeaways, quotes or clips from the webinar on social media with a link to view the full recording on your website.
- Use retargeting campaigns to stay in front of those who joined the session or to engage those that interacted with the content you shared post-webinar.
- Define a point of contact on your team that can field any questions, follow-ups, or outreach following the online seminar to engaged participants.
With so many methods for lead generation, limited budgets, and time constraints; it can be extremely challenging to know where to begin to get the most out of your marketing investment. That’s why we are sharing 3 ways to generate B2B leads with action items to help you with follow-through. If you are seeking a partner to speed up the launch of your lead generation campaigns, our team of B2B marketing experts are waiting in the wings. Schedule a free consultation to set your ideas in motion.
There is one comment