B2B lead generation is the process of identifying the ideal customers for your product or service and then attracting them to buy. Every new lead gives you the opportunity to nurture them into a customer. It is essential to B2B businesses as it helps you contact and engage with the right customers.
The ultimate goal for B2B lead generation is to create a consistent and predictable stream of leads that you are likely to convert into customers. If your B2B lead generation strategy is implemented correctly through data-based decisions, it will bring you new customers and revenue, therefore allowing your business to grow.
This post will discuss what B2B leads are, why B2B generated leads are important, and B2B lead generation strategies that are effective in 2021.
What are B2B leads?
There are two types of B2B leads Marketing-Qualified Leads and Sales-Qualified Leads.
Marketing-Qualified Leads
MQLs are highly likely to convert and become paying customers. You will be able to determine they are an MQL through their engagement with your marketing strategy. For instance, repeat visits to your website, fill out a form and send their contact information; and download or sign up for a free piece of material or webinar.
Sales-Qualified Leads
SQLs are MQLs who have moved along the funnel and are ready to engage with your sales team. An SQL is someone who has shown an intent to buy your business’ service or product. They are an SQL if they have sent an email or a direct message on social media; requested more information about the product/service; ask for a demo; or called directly.
What is the B2B lead generation process?
To generate these B2B leads, you can follow this 3-step process:
1.) B2B Data
To generate B2B leads, you need to first collect vital information from your target audience. The most common way of collecting this information from your leads is through forms.
For example, if the user shows interest or intent to buy your service/product, they will likely click a CTA and enter a landing page. On this landing page, it’s crucial to have a functional form for them to fill out. It will gather information such as the leads’ name, email address, company name, and job title.
2.) B2B Outbound
Once the B2B data has been gathered, it can be used in a series of sales and marketing activities. For example, salespeople can use the data to contact likely customers through emails, telephone calls, and social media messages.
3.) Demand Generation
However, if the lead is not yet ready to convert, the Marketing team can nurture them until they are. Nurturing entails providing the lead with relevant and useful content via email or social media, such as blogs, white papers, and case studies.
B2B lead generation strategies that work in 2021
Website Optimization
Optimizing your B2B website goes much further than just a simple “Click Here” CTA. We’ve mentioned earlier that forms are an essential part of collecting B2B data. So one way you can optimize your website for B2B generated leads is by adding forms to pages that receive the most traffic.
At Content First Marketing, our team of experts can determine your best-performing pages by conducting an SEO site audit. This will illuminate where your traffic comes from and which pages they engage the most with. Once our team identifies where your leads are coming from, it’s important to ensure these pages nurture your potential leads’ interest. Then, we can guide you on updating these most-visited pages with content that maintains their attention and adds longer-form content that your leads can access when they fill out a form.
Another way to optimize your website for B2B generated leads is to improve the lead conversion path. As soon as the visitor lands on your website, you can track their journey. If the user doesn’t complete a goal along the conversion path, you can look at ways to optimize it through A/B split testing. The elements you should test and optimize are the wording of your CTAs, the layout of the landing pages, and the thank-you pages.
Content Marketing
A successful content marketing strategy for B2B can effectively lead to high-quality leads and guide them through the sales funnel with useful and engaging content. However, many people from B2B companies are not content creators. That’s where we come in. Content First Marketing has a team of professional B2B copywriters who can use content marketing to focus on qualifying leads so that your sales team can focus on targeting and converting the leads who are further down the funnel.
The average B2B buyer consumes three to five pieces of content before engaging with a sales team member. Also, 96% of buyers choose to purchase a service or product from a company that provides relevant and useful content along their journey. This highlights how important it is to create an effective content marketing strategy and how it can help generate high-quality B2B leads.
Your content strategy should include topics that are important and of interest to your target audience. It should solve common problems they face, make their job easier, and be deemed useful. Longer-form content usually attracts customers who are closer to converting and making a sale. Some successful content ideas for B2B companies include case studies; complete guides, Q&As; videos; and webinars.
Another way to optimize your content marketing strategy to generate B2B leads is to segment your strategy based on different goals. Then, when select goals are hit by your potential leads, send out varied types of content, such as video tutorials or blog posts, that raise brand awareness and capture leads.
Overall, you must put your target audiences’ needs first in any piece of content you create. Then, you can test various forms of content and fine-tune your B2B content marketing strategy on what performs and generates the most quality leads over time.
Email Marketing
B2B email marketing campaigns should conduct a nurture emailing strategy for their leads, which can last weeks or months. Businesses find value through information. They need a service or product that solves their pain points. This means that a B2B email campaign should get straight to the point and highlight how they can solve their problem.
When a B2B lead submits their information on your website, they expect value in exchange before converting. Therefore, a B2B email campaign must deliver non-promotional, educational content, such as blog posts, case studies, or tutorials. This will nurture your leads along the sales funnel and potentially convert them into buying customers.
Social Media
Before you start creating a social media strategy, you must first identify which platform works best for your business. Otherwise, you might be left with low-quality results and wasted resources.
LinkedIn is extremely popular among B2B marketers. In fact, in 2021, 96% of B2B marketers use this platform to share content organically, and 80% use LinkedIn for paid social media posts. Many professionals find LinkedIn useful to enhance their knowledge within their industry and follow news relevant to their business.
B2B marketers can use this platform to generate quality leads by sharing informative and helpful content and engaging with potential leads with comments and messages. Interestingly, 50% of LinkedIn members report they are more likely to buy from a company they engage with on LinkedIn.
You must know where your target audience spends most of their time. Then you will be able to know which social media platform may perform the best for your business. It’s certainly a useful channel to generate B2B leads—79% of B2B marketers believe social media is an effective marketing channel.
Benefits of B2B Generated Leads
Now that we have shared with you what B2B generated leads are and which strategies work well to generate these leads let’s discuss the benefits.
B2B lead generation enables your marketing and sales teams to better understand your target audience and nurture them with useful content that will lead them to potentially converting.
Here are some benefits of B2B lead generation and why your business should focus on it:
- Helps raise brand awareness
- Increase sales and ROI
- Target your ideal customers
- Collect vital information about prospective clients
- Gain high quality leads that you can nurture into becoming return customers
- More cost-effective strategy than other paid campaigns
Outsourcing B2B lead generation can save you time and allow you to focus on what you do best—running your business. Let Content First Marketing take care of this process for you. Our team of experts will capture prospecting clients, identify high-quality leads, and nurture them into paying and returning customers so that you can watch your business grow.
Schedule a free business review today to find out how we can help your business grow!
