Those who have ventured into the B2B arena before can testify that finding and acquiring new customers is not an easy task. There are several factors behind this, one of them being competition. Another factor is that the total number of potential customers for your industry could be small and the number of decision makers could even be smaller.
As a business owner you need to be equipped with the appropriate skills and tools to survive. You need to generate a steady number of leads every month. This is essential for sustainability. Having a steady number of monthly leads will ensure that your team has enough contacts and opportunities to always follow up with.
Stuck somewhere? Don’t worry- we’ve got your back. After careful analysis and in-depth research we have come up with 33 marketing strategies to help you. These tricks will help you generate more leads than ever before. Read through them, understand them, implement them and most of all enjoy what you do.
1. eBook
This is possibly one of the best lead-generating methods that your B2B company can implement. It will help you generate valuable leads; it’s simple yet very effective. Well written eBooks are packed with pertinent information and are of high value, they are relatively cheap and very easy to create with few resources.
The simplest way to start creating an eBook is by starting with your company’s blog. Let me surprise you- did you know that if you have been posting a company blog regularly for a specific niche or topic then you have already done most of the work. Bloggingbasics101 guide beginner to start a blog.
Gather all the articles that you have written and posted in the past, especially those that were enjoyed by your audience, put them together into one PDF file, design a cover, add a little styling and your eBook will be ready.
After posting or uploading your eBook, you’ll need to ask customers or buyers to enter their email address. You can also ask them to include other information such as job title, industry, department, company size, and others. Market your eBook on paid adverts, LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
2. Infographics
Any marketer will tell you that infographics performs really well. Most competitors are probably still struggling with black and white. To remain outstanding and relevant you need to try something different, something presentable. White paper is very boring, so excite your customers and create more fun with colorful infographics.
Just a small piece of infographic can be shared and circulated. Potential clients will then have to come to your website and if they want to get the full version. In return they will give you lead information. Infographics is not going anywhere soon, and it’s always popular because it’s a way to easily understand complicated information. All you need to do is to make an organized and information-packed infographic that is easy to understand. Simplify readers’ lives and get more leads.
3. Webinars
Social media is an essential channel for those who wish to promote their webinars. Why use social media to promote your webinar? Social media normally plays the same role as that of an email reminder. The audience can be sent the reminder about two weeks before, then one week before, then two days before so that they can register for the event. Humans are prone to forgetting which is why they need something to keep reminding them over and over again. Thanks to social media such as Facebook we can do this in a non-irritating, subtle way. The good thing is that majority of the target audience spend a lot of time on social media and many are even addicted to it. This makes it more likely that they’ll keep seeing your advert for the webinar and be able to easily make a booking for it.
4. Podcast
Thing are changing rapidly and if we read the trends correctly, audio content is the way to go. If you haven’t created and produced any podcasts yet, there is no better time to start than now. Don’t forget to market yourself on social media because that is where you’ll reach your target audience. Podcasts are flexible, convenient and can be accessed anywhere, anytime.
Some social media platforms like Facebook allow the playing of podcasts directly into the feeds through various players such as SoundCloud. Take advantage of such platforms to advertise your podcast and make it easy for your clients to listen to them without having to download the podcast. Just ensure that the podcast is relevant and interesting for the target audience.
5. Social Media Competition
This can be tricky but if you pull it off, you’ll get great results. One of the proven best ways to use social media for generating leads is through a social media competition or giveaway. If you want to generate a lot of leads on social media, then try having a prizegiving. Just be sure to follow these simple steps: choose a theme, settle on the rules, pick an end date and time, decide on what your prize is and lastly, do some promotion.
This is more than just a marketing strategy; it’s also a great way of having fun. Through hosting a giveaway, you’ll get the opportunity to interact with so many different people. Out of these of a number of them will certainly turn into real clients. Who doesn’t like a competition where there is a reward offered? The majority of those who see your advert are likely to try their luck and through that you’ll be able to get a lot of leads into your company.
6. Newsletter Subscriptions
As a general rule of thumb with lead generation, to encourage a user to convert, you should always try and offer as much value as possible. And while a periodic magazine subscription box on the side of your website or blog can be an easy way to generate tips, unless it is followed by something else of importance, the likelihood of someone changing is very small. That’s why we suggest adding some added value to your newsletter subscriptions by offering a “free content startup pack,” such as eBooks, or some other relevant content type to make you look more professional and legit.
You can then have a plan or schedule about how often to send newsletters to your subscribers. Another important thing is a call to action. Make sure you put a call to action in your webpage or in the blog post. Remind the reader to subscribe to the newsletter at the end of the blog post. You can also create a popup for this.
7. Checklists
These days, with so much excellent material and guidance on the internet, readers can often be left confused and uncertain of where to start. That’s why it is so efficient to have checklists. Checklists operate by condensing guidelines and actionable measures into manageable steps. This will make it easy for your followers to decide what to do because it provides them with a deeper understanding of what and who you are and what you’re up to. Remember there is a lot of competition which is why you need to make things simpler for your target audience. This will keep them coming back because they can understand everything.
8. Free Tools
Providing a free tool is an excellent way of providing customers with immediate value while at the same moment gathering contact data for yourself. Different instruments will make sense depending on what sector you are in. Investment calculators could be a good idea, for instance, in the finance sector. If your company offers HR software, it might make sense to have a free tool that calculates staff efficiency or inefficiency. Look at this WordStream free instrument, for example. To determine how efficient they are, they automatically give a quality grade to the AdWords account of a marketer.
9. Email Courses
Offering a free internet course can also be a good idea depending on what sort of material you are providing. In order to gradually introduce individuals to your company, email them the classroom content over several days, weeks and potentially even months. Email classes operate well as introductory classes or as a way of splitting up complicated subjects into bite-sized pieces.
Who doesn’t like free things? Most people, if not everybody, likes to receive something for free which is why you can make your audience happier by gifting them with free email courses. Most of us like to learn new things and most of us go onto the internet daily looking for something to read or watch. Take advantage of this and offer your audience some properly organized courses.
10. Contest Prizes
Social competitions are an excellent way to engage your crowd and generate a list of aimed leads even for B2B companies. One of the best ways to ensure that potential clients are the sort of individuals entering your competition is to present your products as the award.
When you present your products as the award, you will have an easy time identifying your target audience, in terms of demographics, age and other factors. This will help you to plan for the future and also to plan how to implement other strategies because you’ll have enough relevant information.
11. Quiz
Quizzes are an excellent way of providing your crowd with an interactive experience while at the same moment producing leads. We all love fun challenges. All you need is to come up with a fun quiz but make sure it is relevant to your company. Allow the audience to not only answer but also to ask questions that the other clients can answer. Through doing this you’ll learn a lot of things. Clients will feel special and cared for and will love being given the freedom to express their opinions.
The type of company you’re in will determine the sort of contest you’ll operate. An advertising firm, for instance, could question business holders about their understanding of internet PPC. An internet safety technology company could question the conduct of customers around the internet on different internet browsers. Irrespective of the type of contest you choose to operate, remember to keep it enjoyable while also offering some form of end value.
12. Resource List
If you generate any sort of material, whether it’s pictures, podcasts or blog entries, it’s likely that at some stage you’ll mention some tools and applications. Create an online resource list that will make finding these different assets easier for your readers later. Listing is easier to understand and it can still provide in-depth information.
13. Industry Reports
Insights and information from the private sector can be converted into extensive accounts from the sector. This can then be used to draw leads and to capture potential sector partners. Specific data and ideas generate value immediately as the information would not be accessible elsewhere.
Vision Critical utilizes its client intelligence platform in its sector study below to collect data on “Generation Z.” This allows them to attract customers and generates an interest in their advertising among the vitally important Generation Z.
14. Free Trials
Facebook enables custom websites to be developed directly on your company Facebook page for companies offering free tests for their item or service. It’s another method of gaining visitors and conversions using a third-party audience.
Moz has their custom tab configuration to provide their website with a free 30-day trial. This way they can reach a wider Facebook audience than they otherwise would have had. Again, the objective here is to transfer traffic back to your site where it can be converted. The greatest method to set you up for achievement is to use every available technique to do so.
15. Free Consultations
Free consultations are known as a useful lead source for social media promotion. Specifically, influencers will utilize the free dialogue time offer to obtain leads. For instance, Shopify utilizes its network of amazing influencers and company officials to give mentoring as an incentive to create a company challenge for them. They exploit these mentors’ names and reach and constantly encourage them across social media. You can try this method too.
16. Referral Bonuses
Sharing is used as an impetus for social media competitions in this approach. By sharing the competition with their networks, respondents earn bonus points for more opportunities for winning.
On their latest social media competition, Yovada used this precise approach. If respondents communicated about the competition on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest, a bonus entry and an increased chance of winning would be given.
17. Collecting Testimonials from Social Media
Interactions on social media need not remain within the environment of social media. You can use your relationships in various fields of your company. Positive social media interactions can be used as testimonials on your blog. These beneficial interactions operate to bring confidence and legitimacy to your company and what you are offering.
Picatic understands this and utilizes tweets from other large company competitors to make their homepages and landing websites more credible. These aren’t the typical random testimonials you’ll see on the internet with a cheesy picture. These are real tweets that you can get from lawful customers.
18. Showcase Partnerships
It is a significant component of expanding and reaching fresh audiences to show that you are playing well with other B2B companies. Partnerships enable you to share audiences with other businesses and communicate with like-minded people.
Cisco takes advantage of several possibilities to highlight the alliances they have created with other social media brands and companies to demonstrate their participation in various groups. A Live Nation collaboration demonstrates how they care about live music, and more importantly how their technology makes it possible to do stuff like multimedia performances.
19. Build Back Links
In order to send traffic back to your blog, social media sites should be fully optimized. This implies connections in all data about the bio and the full profile. In order to ensure that third-party traffic has easy access to your website, social media accounts like your Facebook company page should be finished in full.
Interested parties will land first on your Facebook company page in some cases, so finding more data will be simple for them. Mailchimp makes sure to connect all of their social media sites back to their blog apart from their amazing personal material. Your Instagram profile link will be aimed to your career page in this scenario. This is due to the fact that they use their social channels to give their followers easy access to their business and operations.
20. Paid Ads
This is a no-brainer. Each social network provides its own type of paid advertising. Paying for social media publicity is an efficient route for companies with sufficient funds to obtain immediate outcomes.
For instance, LinkedIn is the world’s biggest specialist social media network, making it a B2B publicity favorite. Facebook and Twitter also rank high, but eventually you’ll understand where your crowd is spending their time. Shaw Business utilizes LinkedIn Ads to support a detailed job performed with Jelly Marketing that generated a video. The type of videos you use for the advertisement will create more accessibility if they’re more appealing to watch than those of your competitors.
21. Optimize Cover Images and Pins
For B2B companies, a chance that’s often lost is to optimize their social media websites. One way is the development of pictures with branded headers. The header picture is a great opportunity to list company data such as a database, email, and personal handling. It’s the first thing that a visitor notices when arriving so it attracts a ton of attention.
Always pin something to the top of your social stream as well. To draw attention to it, a fresh promotion, competition, or fresh piece of material should be attached. The fresh unveiling of the GetResponse automation center is attached to the top of the Twitter page so interested tweeters will first see it. A branded cover picture and a pinned post are simple victory for companies and will concentrate on significant material.
22. Showcase Clients
Put your past achievements to work. Do not hesitate to show off a little and put the spotlight on what your satisfied customers are saying. This might be in the form of a case study or just a great review a customer gave. A rule of thumb is to keep a 4:1 proportion of happy client testimonials to advertising material in order to prevent scaring off followers.
23. Live Chats
Although the this function is comparatively prevalent on most websites, live chat on social media is increasing too. Companies specifically use it on Facebook as an optional channel for talking and engaging with clients. You have probably seen papers speaking about chatbots throughout the internet. Whether you choose to develop a chatbot (expensive) or talk to a person, live chat can be a powerful tool for your company to promote, market, and sell.
For more data, your Facebook page users can speak to a human help officer in real time and be redirected to your blog. Bank of America links with some of its clients via Facebook Messenger to provide their clients with real-time assistance. This trick is a quick and easy way of showing that you really care for your clients.
24. Live Streaming
The live streaming characteristics on systems such as Facebook and Twitter (Periscope) provide an insider viewpoint for your supporters. Many people had an inside look at Facebook and the day the live streaming feature was released, they were treated to a Mark Zuckerberg Q&A.
Enabling your supporters to have live access to your company creates confidence and trust. It demonstrates your expert knowledge on a particular subject and has the ability to impact customer choices. Social media influencer, Mari Smith, says that live broadcasts of many of her speaking activities and conferences offer her fans a live look at the day to day workings of her company.
25. Choosing the Right Channel
Your 20 percent effort yields 80 percent of your achievements. Knowing where your crowd is, is a significant component of your social media achievement. B2B companies often don’t have the time and resources to spend a lot on social media, so it’s even more important to know where your audience is. Channels that don’t show measurable returns should be removed from your advertising pile.
Too often we see business feeling the need to be on Channel[X] just because it’s the hip thing to do. As an extreme example, a mining company doesn’t have to be on Snapchat. I doubt there’s many of their crowd busy publishing dog nostrils selfies! If your forays into social media are spread too thinly, remove what’s unnecessary and stick to what produces some asset yield. This could imply sticking to the most traffic-returning channels or the one that generates the most returns.
26. Exit Popups
Especially if your advertising has directed traffic to a landing site, there are few tricks that will increase your PPC ROI instantly compared to a popup exit. That’s because exit popups are only activated when a user’s computer detects JavaScript that they’re about to quit and trigger a popup with a particular bid at that point.
While conversion rates on exit popups aren’t going to be extremely high, you’re going to generate more subscribers and click through more unobtrusively than you would otherwise have without them. Look at an ecommerce shop exit popup that prompts customers with a 10% discount as they try to leave their item site.
27. Click Popups
The first thing individuals tend to think when we talk about a popup is a box that hovers over their screen stopping their browsing experience. However, this is not the situation with click popups. Because click popups are activated only after a customer clicks on a key, inline text, or CTA, they are not at all intrusive and have a relatively elevated level of conversion.
28. Entry Overlay
One of the highest effect and most efficient instruments in the industry when it comes to capturing a user’s attention and getting them to convert is an admission overlay. Basically, an overlay is a very big popup that consumes the whole display. At Wishpond, we experimented with incorporating an overlay a few months ago and were blown away by the outcomes we achieved with such an easy instrument.
29. Entry Popups
Consider adding an application popup that offers either a magazine membership or another type of lead magnet that can function as an introduction to your material for fresh visitors to your blog or website. Because entry popups are triggered as soon as the user loads your page, they will get the most views of any popup. Be sure to limit the number of times it is triggered so you don’t annoy your visitors.
30. Social Video
Social networks such as Facebook are expected to become 90% video content in the next few years. The progressively reduced number of entry obstacles render it simpler and less expensive to create internet video. Video as a media type is in line with most internet users’ fast-paced, low-attention nature. It receives points quicker and with greater importance for amusement.
Watching an expert talking about a dry subject like conversion rate optimization is much more approachable than reading a lengthy pdf about it, particularly if it is accompanied by pleasant graphics. Vision Critical utilizes video on its social platforms in a number of engaging ways. Being a B2B company Vision Critical understands that its clients enjoys and respond to well-made video.
31. Sharing Widgets on a Blog
A small addition of a widget on your website for social media sharing can make all the difference. It makes it very easy for visitors to share papers with their network immediately. We use a small share widget on the Wishpond website that sticks to the left side of our blog posts. This allows a reader to choose at any stage to share the post. A greater share count implies more traffic, and for new visitors it helps to have some proof of worth around your material.
32. LinkedIn Groups
You might want to consider establishing a LinkedIn group within your niche, similar to establishing an Udemy course for lead generation. This can be an excellent tool to draw your target crowd while creating a dialog on subjects linked to your business at the same time.
It should be noted that LinkedIn has altered some of the respects in which LinkedIn organizations have been working in recent years and group administrators are no longer allowed to exchange group members’ messages. That being said, LinkedIn allows you to submit to everyone apart from your community a restricted amount of internet mailouts through LinkedIn.
33. Dedicated Landing Pages
Dedicated landing websites may seem like an easy approach for lead generation, but the number of marketers who fail to conform to this fundamental best practice may surprise you. To make sure you get the most out of your PPC spending and product advertising attempts, always use a devoted landing page to make sure your offer is transparent and to give your customers the greatest chance to convert.
Conclusion
The strategies and the ideas that you’ve just gone through have been proven to be very effective. It’s not late to start giving them a trial run. Implementing these strategies will certainly increase your lead generation. Some might work faster than others but you can be assured they are all effective.
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