Lead generation is at the core of any successful B2B marketing strategy. It helps you identify potential customers and the steps needed to convert them into sales.
But B2B lead generation isn’t always easy. The buyer journey from the awareness stage of the funnel through to becoming a customer is usually a lot longer than in B2C – in fact, research shows the average B2B sales cycle is 6-9 months. Add to that the competitive nature of B2B industries with emerging technologies, fast growing start-ups and changes in buyer behavior, marketers need to focus their strategies on lead generation now more than ever.
If your usual tactics for generating leads are no longer working, it’s time to think differently about how you approach it. Here are 5 ways to generate more B2B leads.
How to Generate More B2B Leads
- High Quality Content Marketing
Content should be central to your marketing strategy. Good quality content marketing will not only help you appear higher in the search results, but more importantly, will give you credibility as an authority in your industry. By creating and distributing content that gives value, educates and inspires your target audience, you sit top of mind when they are ready to convert.
Studies show that B2B buyers consume up to eight pieces of content before making a buying decision. Focus on creating evergreen content based on thorough research about your audience’s problems and queries, that your product or service can help. Use this content to build trust as an expert in your market, and to nurture your audience until they convert into a marketing qualified lead (MQL).
Content marketing doesn’t just help convert leads from warm contacts who already know of your business, it also helps build brand awareness with new audiences. The more quality content you share, the more exposure you’re likely to receive on search results, through word of mouth and knowledge sharing, making it easier to generate new business leads.
- Create an Event Marketing Strategy
Event marketing is vital for B2B lead generation. Every B2B business should have an event marketing strategy that’s centered around lead generation. Without events, B2B organizations rarely get a chance to build connections with their audiences in real life.
In-person and online events give marketing and sales the opportunity to:
- Speak directly with their target audience,
- Find out about their pain points and how they’re currently operating
- Create word of mouth
- Increase brand awareness
Marketing and sales teams can use the insights gained from meeting prospects in person to:
1. Improve other areas of marketing to cater to these needs. Resulting in more MQLs in general. And,
2. Forge greater relationships with event attendees so their loyalty lies with your company when they’re ready to buy.
But it doesn’t just start with attending. The process begins with deciding which events to attend based on who out of your target prospects is likely to be there. By choosing the right events (using an event intelligence platform like Vendelux Fusion), warming up marketing leads starts weeks or months before the event has begun. From social media posts telling people you’re attending, to reaching out to prospects to start discussions early.
Vendelux makes producing B2B event leads easy as pie. Event marketers already search through our 30,000+ B2B events to find details and forecast who out of their target audience will be attending. Meaning that you can book in-person meetings and connect with target customers before the event even happens. Guaranteeing more marketing leads from every event you attend!
Don’t have an event marketing strategy but want to get started? Click here.
- Optimize Lead Generation Landing Pages
Lead generation landing pages are specific pages on your website created with the goal of the user becoming a lead. The lead generation landing page should be short, simple, and offer one focus goal CTA to encourage users to convert.
These landing pages should cut out the fluff, and explain the value you can bring to B2B customers. To optimize them, reduce the number of distractions and make the process – from landing on the page to completing the goal – as quick and easy as possible.
While on your website pop ups and personalization can work a treat, on lead gen pages stick to one Call to action (CTA), and make contact information or forms straightforward to complete.
Top Tip: use the insights you gain from events to inform your lead gen landing page. Turn pain points, worries and questions you hear from prospects, into how your product or service is a direct solution.
- Run Discounts/Offer Retargeting Campaigns
It’s common knowledge that cart abandonment is a common issue for B2C ecommerce companies. But not many realize how big a problem it can be for the B2B customer journey too. A user may be on the fence about contacting your company, or get distracted and forget to fill out the form despite spending time on your lead generation page.
Rather than losing potential leads, consider running a retargeting campaign that reaches those who exited your site after reaching your conversion page. Create a time-sensitive offer or a discount that entices users back and encourages them to convert. An example could be offering a free trial of your product, or a discount for the first month using the product or service.
- Ask Customers for Reviews
As well as consuming eight pieces of content before making a decision, B2B buyers also read five pieces of third-party content about a company to decide if it’s a good fit for them. The third-party content helps them make a final decision or give them the nudge they need to the final stage of the funnel. The best kind of content for this is testimonials and reviews.
Reviews increase conversions. In fact, according to TrustRadius “On average, in B2B you can expect reviews to increase landing page conversions by 30%.”
While this is a lead generation tactic used by B2C marketers, B2B companies tend to neglect it. Encourage reviews on B2B sites like Capterra, G2, TrustRadius and TrustPilot. Struggling to get reviews? With the amount of sales leads it could generate, offering an incentive to current customers is worth the ROI.
The Key to B2B Lead Generation: Solving a Problem for the Customer
While there are tactics you can implement to increase lead generation, the real link throughout is discovering more about your target customer. This is harder for B2B marketers as information about specific company employees and their issues isn’t easily accessible. This is why meeting with customers in-person is so important, and why we think events are key to generating more B2B leads.
If you’d like to check out Vendelux, start searching for the best b2b events, today.
