7 minute read
Lead generation is an obvious benchmark of success for any marketing campaign. It is especially important in the current business landscape, with an ever-growing number of B2B businesses around the world competing for the same customer base within each industry.
There exists an almost dizzying array of lead generation strategies B2B businesses can adopt to reach buyers. However, it is critical to cut through the noise to find tactics that actually work. To that end, below is a comparison of five lead generation strategies that have proven effective for many B2B brands.
1. Get Personal
While personalizing content for business buyers may seem counterintuitive, it is in fact a very beneficial tactic for capturing and retaining prospects. According to a recent study released by Seismic and Demand Metric, among the 60% of B2B businesses surveyed who have adopted a content personalization strategy, 48% rated personalized content as being “more effective” for their efforts than unpersonalized content. Furthermore, 32% credited personalized content with being “much more effective” than unpersonalized content.
The pros of personalization are evident. So, if personalization yields such solid results, then why is this strategy not being utilized by every B2B business? This is where one of the cons comes into play. It ultimately boils down to a lack of resources, with 59% of respondents citing a lack of technology, 59% citing a lack of bandwidth and 53% citing a lack of data.
Using predictive data is one way for businesses to personalize B2B buyers’ experience. These datasets allow brands to conduct intent signal monitoring. By implementing this process, businesses can “see” every page a prospect has visited – thereby giving them insight into their intent to purchase. From here, brands can begin to identify relevant topics such as pain points and budget.
2. Make the Most of Your Time with Testing
All of the personalization efforts in the world will be for naught if potential leads are not correctly funneled through the process on the company’s website. Falling short in this area can also waste significant time and marketing dollars. For this reason alone, every B2B business should consider A/B testing a necessary weapon in its marketing arsenal.
A/B testing a website involves creating two versions of a landing page. Both iterations are identical, with the exception of one item. The first version is presented to 50% of visitors to the website and the second is shown to the other 50% of visitors. The version that performs better is determined to be more valuable for marketing efforts.
A/B testing has several pros. Due to its iterative nature, A/B testing offers an ideal method for tracking changes made to nearly any element of a brand’s website including calls-to-action, design and amount of copy. Additionally, since results are unambiguous, applying changes can take place without time-consuming strategic planning. Businesses can make tweaks to their website, and start to reap the benefits, immediately.
If A/B testing has any cons, it may be the nearly endless elements that can be tested. In trying to decide which areas on which to focus, the marketing team could overlook elements that may make a more significant difference in lead generation.
3. Give Value to Get Leads
Everyone loves free stuff, and B2B buyers are no exception. Lead magnets – tools that offer visitors something valuable in exchange for their contact information – capitalize on the aforementioned idea. In this era of information overload, people are not going to give their email address out haphazardly, especially if it is a business email account. Marketers need to give prospects a compelling reason to share this important piece of information. This is where lead magnets come into play.
Lead magnets should display most, or all, of the following traits to be attractive to buyers:
- Quick to digest
- Help the recipient achieve the end result easily
- Offer instant gratification
- Provide a specific benefit
- Demonstrate the brand’s unique value proposition
Examples of lead magnets include free trials of a program or service, bonus expert tips, e-books, webinars and training videos.
The pros of lead magnets include offering B2B businesses a chance to demonstrate their expertise. One of the cons is ending up on the slippery slope of giving away too much information, thereby diluting buyers’ desire to purchase when they already got so much information for free.
4. Use Webinars for Networking
Not all prospects have the budget, time or inclination to attend live events such as trade shows and conferences. However, that does not mean B2B businesses have to cut their losses when it comes to networking. The digital age has ushered in a nice alternative to the live event in the form of webinars.
While webinars are obviously a great way to disseminate information about the brand’s products or services, they also reinforce the B2B business in question as an industry thought leader and offer a prime opportunity to network with potential customers. The latter comes in the form of the Q&A session at the end, wherein the hosts of the webinar interact with attendees one-on-one to answer their questions.
And this modern form of networking does bolster engagement. The results of a survey released by BNP Solutions found that webinars generated lead counts that exceeded the expectations of more than 50% of the respondents.
One pro of webinars is the low cost of hosting and promoting them – typically no more than $30 per webinar, and that is on the high end. Cons include investing time and effort into an event that may be attended by just a scant few people.
5. Too Much Content Is Never Enough
When it comes to content marketing, publishing one piece of content per month, or even per week, simply will not cut it anymore. B2B buyers need a compelling reason to visit a company’s website, and content that provides value fits the bill. While the pros of content marketing include improving buyer engagement, one con may be overlooking content quality in the quest to churn out as much of it as possible.
One of the best content tools is a frequently updated blog. The importance of an active blog cannot be overstated. Data released by HubSpot revealed that companies that published 16 or more blog posts per month got nearly 3.5x more traffic than those that published up to four blog posts per month.
Providing on-site content that helps inform prospects’ research efforts is also beneficial for B2B businesses. This type of content serves two purposes: It endears buyers to the company because it makes the buyers’ lives easier, and it gives buyers a reason to remain on the business’ website longer. Live chat pop-ups is one example of researchable information.
Meaningful Results for Improved B2B Lead Generation
At Tag Marketing, we understand that the only leads that matter are qualified leads. We use our clients’ criteria to validate all inbound leads and separate those with value from those that will lead nowhere. During the campaign review process, we employ a vigilant analytical process to determine the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, and adjust them accordingly to ensure success.
In working with clients, we share all of the relevant results, good or bad, to give them the full story. We quantify the results of each campaign in a way that has meaning for our clients, versus presenting them with a set of random numbers.
When it comes to lead generation, campaigns we have launched have generated as much as a 216% increase in leads and a 124% increase in conversions. In order to achieve results like this, we employ the following strategies:
- Target a more qualified audience
- Personalize quality content for that audience
- Create a local presence and expand its reach/li>
- Utilize robust content marketing to engage visitors
- Create landing pages designed to convert more leads and A/B test its elements
- Increase inbound leads to wean off outbound leads
- Setup and integrate a powerful CRM
Without successful lead generation, marketing efforts will inevitably fail. The team at Tag Marketing excels in lead generation by applying the aforementioned tactics to find each of our clients’ marketing sweet spots – producing results that exceed their expectations.
If you’d like to learn more about lead generation, check out our Beginner’s Guide to Generating B2B Leads. It’s full of the top lead generation channels you should be using, maximizing and optimizing content, best practices, making social media work for you, helpful free tools and much more.
You can also download our free guide below about the 30 greatest lead generation tips and tricks…
