To grow a successful B2B business, you need to be consistently attracting new leads and converting them into customers. With the mass amounts of information available online, it can be difficult to grab your audience’s attention and hold it long enough to get them into your sales funnel.
Running a B2B business introduces new complications to lead generation. A company typically has many decision-makers in charge of making purchases. You can’t appeal to just one individual if you want to increase sales. To boost leads and keep a high conversion rate, you need to know exactly who you should be targeting.
There are a few lead-generation methods that work best for B2B companies. If you’re looking to improve the amount or quality of leads you’re attracting, here are four techniques you should try.
1. Use Social Media to Expand Your Reach
The number of leads you can attract will depend on the number of people you can reach. While you don’t want to draw just any leads to your company; you want to put your name, business, and content out there. This will ensure you’re visible to people who may be interested in your products or services. By expanding your reach, you can also increase your number of leads.
One of the best ways to expand your reach is through social media. It’s a powerful tool that allows you to connect directly with your target audience and potential customers. Social media gives you the opportunity to put your information in front of new customers. It also allows your customers, clients, and fans to share your content, putting your information in front of their network.
To grow your number of leads, you need to create a strategy that helps you reach the right audience members and make a lasting connection. If you’re only posting links to your website, content, or products, you’re going to find your posts frequently ignored. Most users aren’t jumping on a social media platform to be sold to. Instead, they’re looking to engage, connect, and find entertainment.
When creating a social media strategy to attract new leads, consider what your user is doing when they get on specific platforms. In most cases, your audience isn’t going to be looking for the same information on Twitter as they would on Instagram. Knowing what kind of content they’re likely to engage with on each platform will allow you to develop a strategy more likely to grab their attention.
You also want to consider how a user will get from a social media profile into your sales funnel. Make it easy for your target audience to sign up for a newsletter or subscribe to your email list. The easier it is, the more leads you will be able to capture. Always keep your user’s experience in mind when developing strategies.
2. Develop Content Marketing to Capture Leads
Before a potential customer makes a purchase, they’re most likely going to hop online to do a bit of research. Whether they know what they’d like to purchase or are still looking at their options. They’re going to comb through products, reviews, descriptions, and blog posts to find the right purchase to fill their needs. To contribute to their research and help them make an educated purchasing decision, you need to have a robust content marketing strategy.
Content marketing efforts should be designed to capture leads by providing your target audience with the information and resources needed. As the foundation of everything you do online, your content should fuel and support each piece of your marketing strategy. That means you need to make a lasting impression on your target audience. To do so, you must fully understand what your client is looking for online.
How to successfully capture leads
You’ll need to understand what questions they have, what problems they’re facing, or what entertaining content they connect with. Once you have a firm grasp on the types of information your target audience may be looking for. You’ll have a better chance of creating something they will remember.
When trying to capture leads with your content marketing, you need to go beyond traditional blog posts and articles. While these are essential staples in any content marketing strategy, they only target a specific group of people. To attract individuals who may not like reading content, you need to consider including infographics, videos, podcasts, and more.
Pay close attention to the content with which your target audience identifies. The better you are at understanding consumers needs, the stronger the material you can create will be. Listen to what they’re asking for, test out new strategies, and continue to refine your plan. You’ll then be able to create pieces that speak directly to the audience you’re trying to attract.
3. Get New Attention Through Search Engine Marketing
Search engines are one of the most powerful tools for bringing high-quality leads to your website. Individuals who use search engines are looking for a specific product, solution, or an answer to a question. They’re already alert and ready to retain information. That means you don’t need to pull their attention away from something else to get them to engage in your content.
While search engine optimisation seems to be the most popular strategy for attracting new leads searching for content, it isn’t the only way. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an organic way to bring your content to the top of a search engine results page. Although, you can also pay to have your content posted at the top of search engine results. This type of paid search engine marketing can help you see results faster.
When creating a search engine marketing strategy, you need to consider how paid rankings and organic rankings can work together. Traditional SEO can take some time before you start to see results, you can use paid search engine marketing techniques to ensure you’re still getting attention from searchers. However, keep in mind that users don’t always react to paid advertisements the same way as organic results.
It’s important to remember that potential customers frequently ignore paid posts because no one likes to know they are being marketed to. Instead, potential customers are more likely to go for an organic posting than they are a sponsored one. As they feel they have discovered your website themselves. However, paid placements can still help improve awareness, which can help you attract new leads in the future.
To use search engine marketing to attract new attention, consider how your target audience uses search engines and when they may be most likely to click on your content. Providing information that is relevant, helpful, and informative can help you develop a solid group of new leads.
4. Create In-Person Relationships at Trade Shows and Conferences
When you’re trying to generate new leads for your business, you may be focusing on how you can do this online. Whole attracting leads online is an integral part of growing your business, it isn’t the only way to do so. Sometimes the traditional way of developing in-person relationships can create stronger leads. Or even better, have a strategy in place that allows your online marketing efforts to work with your offline marketing.
Networking in person at trade shows, events and conferences can be a great way to capture new leads and alert people about your business. To network efficiently, you need to take some time to think about why you are networking. What you are trying to achieve and develop a memorable elevator pitch. One of the significant benefits of online lead generation is that the individual can input their information right then and there. Although when you attract in-person leads offline, you need to be even more memorable.
Many companies turn to business cards and promotional marketing material to help stay memorable at an event. By handing out a useful item that features your logo, company name, and maybe your website, you’re sending reminders with which to return home. When they use the item, they’ll be reminded of your interaction and jump online to follow through on your connection. It is at this point that you can successfully enter this lead into your sales funnel.
Before heading off to a networking event
Think about what may stand out with your target audience. While traditional business cards are a practical and classic go-to, they are also quickly forgotten. If you’re trying to hand out business cards in the hope of attracting a new group of high-quality leads, you may struggle. Instead, consider items they may use in their daily lives that will provide genuine use.
Communicating with potential leads
Always take the time to genuinely listen to their needs and provide them with clear advice or guidance. You may be thinking about how you can pitch to them, but making a genuine connection based on help and trust is stronger than any sale. Even if they’re not the right lead for you at that moment, they can tell their friends and family about you, or at least remember your company if they ever need your products.
Generating new leads is one of the most important parts of growing a business. To ensure you’re bringing in a steady stream of new leads and clients, you need to understand what will attract your target audience’s attention. With these four lead generation techniques, you can draw new customers and grow your B2B business.