Start driving better conversations.
Novocall will be your new favorite business phone system.
We have already established that having a great lead generation strategy should be at the very core of every business.
However, it should be noted that B2B businesses generate leads very differently from B2C ones. While B2C businesses focus more on branding marketing, B2B businesses focus more on creating practical solutions to their target audience’s faces.
Let’s quickly take a look at the core components of a great B2B lead generation strategy before going through the top 13 strategies you need to implement in 2021!
Contents
Core factors that create effective lead generation strategies
Capture leads
The main focus of many good marketers is to capture as many leads as possible.
As you’ll see later in our top 13 list, you’ll see that a lot of the lead capturing methods revolve around the contact information of your leads.
Inbound B2B lead generation focuses on collecting contact details, while the outbound method focuses on reaching out to the right people.
Qualify leads
It is essential that businesses balance their emphasis on lead quality and quantity.
While it is important to attract as many leads as possible, you don’t want to end up attracting unqualified leads. Imagine having over 50% of your leads become customers because they aren’t the right fit for your business.
All that effort put into lead generation went down the drain just like that. Know your target persona very well and make sure you qualify them.
Nurture leads
Lead nurturing comes right after a prospect has converted into a lead. Think of it as the final step in the entire process.
Note that different people enter your sales funnel at different stages. Naturally, it will take more time and effort to nurture some of these leads and drive them down the funnel. Generally, these tend to be those higher up in the funnel.
Nonetheless, it is essential for B2B companies to engage in lead nurturing to convert leads to paying customers.
Best B2B lead generation strategies
Content Marketing
1. Use SEO-friendly blogs to attract online traffic
Research has shown that content marketing can produce three times the lead generated by conventional marketing campaigns but costs 62% less. It’s definitely something that all businesses should try!
In order to execute a great content marketing strategy, B2B businesses first need to understand their target audience’s search intent. In other words, they need to know what kind of questions their target audience needs answered.
Novochat, an omnichannel messaging platform, uses an SEO strategy on its blog. In the examples seen above, the articles it posts are related to messaging apps and their related queries.
The more you are able to create content that answers the questions your target audience has, the more organic traffic you are able to attract to your blog.
You can then convert some of these prospects into leads by capturing their contact information. We will discuss some of the methods later 😉
2. Engage in link building to improve content visibility
Building backlinks is a very important factor when it comes to ranking your content on Google’s search engine results pages (SERP).
A backlink is essentially a link to a webpage on your website from another website. To the Google algorithm, backlinks are an indicator that your content is trustworthy and of high quality.
There are several ways to build backlinks such as guest posting.
Backlinks build on a great SEO content strategy and push your content higher up Google’s SERPs. This can attract larger organic traffic and capture their contact information via methods such as lead forms.
3. Create gated content to collect more contact information
Gating a piece of content involves applying a lead capture form on top of it. This prevents site visitors from accessing the content without submitting their contact details via the lead form.
Content gating is usually done to types of content that required more time and effort to create. This includes research-heavy content such as ebooks, white papers, and even recorded webinars.
When you gate content, you lock out the search bots as well. So make sure to allow search bots to access some of the information (preview or content) to help with indexing.
Gated content serves as a great lead capturing method. You can create them as either a blog post or a landing page. If you are going to gate your content, make sure it is valuable enough. After all, you don’t want your site visitors to download your gated content only to realize that it’s a piece of lackluster content.
Video marketing
A survey by Software Advice revealed that 92% of B2B marketers state that videos were one of the most commonly used B2B lead generation tools.
And it’s no wonder too. Videos are so animated and are both visually 👀 and auditorily 👂 stimulating. Let’s see how you can use this to your advantage.
4. Use YouTube cards to encourage viewers to take action
YouTube is a great platform to use to generate leads.
This website is the second biggest search engine and the most visited website in the US. If your company is still not leveraging on this platform, then you are surely missing out on a lot of potential leads.
Along with great content, to make the most out of YouTube videos, make sure to add Call-to-action (CTA) and YouTube Cards.
YouTube Cards are essentially links that show up on the top-right hand corner of the video. They can link to other videos, a website, or webpage you want to promote, and can even be used for polls (talk about engagement!).
A great way to use YouTube Cards is to direct your viewers to a page on your website where you can capture their contact information and convert them to leads. This way, YouTube not only serves as another content distribution channel but also a great B2B lead generation channel.
5. Upload recorded webinars
Keep in mind that the topics discussed are generally associated with your business as these topics tend to be related to your audience’s search queries. HRtech platform Workstream, which helps franchise owners hire hourly workers better, hosts weekly webinars regarding topics their target audience will find helpful.
When you upload your recorded webinar onto your website, you can even choose to gate them and use them as a lead capturing tool.
Tap into social media platforms
Social media serves as a great content distribution tool. It is also a great channel to direct your social media followers to your website by clicking on the links.
That said, each platform has its own unique strengths when it comes to social media lead generation. Let’s delve into them!
6. Facebook lead ads
These aren’t your typical Facebook ads. These ones are integrated with lead capture forms. When someone clicks the ad, a lead capture form will show up and will ask the person to key in some information.
Take Novocall’s Facebook lead ad integration for example. This type of ad allows you to ask lead qualifying questions which help businesses filter out unsuitable leads. With this feature, businesses can cast a wider net and reach out to a wider audience and generate more leads.
7. Use LinkedIn ads to target large enterprises
LinkedIn is a fantastic social media platform to use for generating leads. In fact, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.
While LinkedIn ads are more expensive than your average social media ads, it has its perks too. And a really good one, if I might add. Because it is a professional social networking site for business people, you can directly target decision-makers from large companies.
This way, the leads you generate are worth more than that of other social media sites.
8. Share lead generating content on Twitter
With 330 million monthly active users, sending around 500 million tweets daily, Twitter is a platform you shouldn’t ignore. Twitter can be a robust way to communicate with new audiences.
The unique thing about Twitter, when compared to other mainstream social media platforms, is its conversational nature. Many people seem to prefer to engage businesses on Twitter. Sharing links to gated content can help direct your social media followers to your webpages which capture lead information.
Email Marketing
Emails are a great tool for both outbound lead generation and inbound lead nurturing.
For inbound strategies, once you have captured the contact information of your leads, they enter an automated email sequence in which they routinely receive helpful content from you. For example, to build your email list, you can organize giveaways and use online tools for no investment merch creation to give a gift to every 100th newsletter subscriber.
Meanwhile, outbound cold emails are a great way to reach out to your prospects and engage with them. Let’s see how each of these is carried out.
9. Value-packed newsletter
Newsletters are an effective lead nurturing tool.
Once a lead has converted by providing your business with their contact information, you can start sending them relevant content suited for leads at their particular funnel stage. For example, if a lead signs up while at the middle of the funnel stage, the types of content you will send are those that talk about the variety of available products that solve a particular problem out there.
Don’t overly self-promote. Be a problem-solver instead. Take into account the interests, funnel stage, and search intent of your readers when putting material in your newsletters. Use the information to segment your leads so that different segments receive different types of content that are relevant to their specific needs.
Once a lead has shown indication that they are still interested in your business or product (you can measure open and click rates to find out), you can ‘push’ the lead down the sales funnel by sending them content more related to what people at the lower half of the funnel are interested in.
10. Offer a coupon or discount
Business people will likely be pleasantly surprised to find a ‘Cyber Monday Software Promo Code’ email from you.
Doing so utilizes one of the best ways to distribute coupons. Make them time-sensitive. By generating a sense of urgency and inducing fear-of-missing-out (FOMO), limited-time provides an opportunity for customers to make prompt decisions about potential purchases.
11. Sending cold emails
Cold email is among the most cost-effective outbound B2B lead generation strategies. Cold email enables you to develop prospect lists and promote them to hundreds or even thousands of individuals.
Unlike cold calls, you are not bound by time and can send an email at any hour of the day. This ensures that your prospects will not miss out on your outreach attempts. Also, make sure to verify the email addresses before you hit send so you know you are actually reaching out to the right prospects.
Make sure your emails get the attention of your prospects. Your emails should be interesting, interactive, and make people want to open up and respond to them. After getting past the obstacle of reaching their inbox, your next goal is to grab their attention through a well-written email subject.
12. Cold calling
69% of buyers accept a cold call from a business. And 82% of buyers would accept a meeting with a rep after speaking with them through a cold call.
There’s solid evidence that your phone is still a useful resource for your marketing functions.
There’s no simpler way to speak directly to the prospect, granted that your direct dials are correct and your cold call script is polished. Being able to connect with your prospects in a more personable way can make it easier to help convert them into leads.
13. Live chat on your website
79% of consumers enjoy live chat because of the spontaneity it provides relative to other platforms. Live chats allow businesses to respond immediately to questions their site visitors have.
This can play a role in helping your company close deals swiftly. It is easy for your site visitors to have their queries responded to.
This allows them to quickly get all the information they need to make quick decisions.
Conclusion
When it comes to B2B lead generation strategies, there’re a lot of methods you can consider.
At the very least, the methods you pick should be great in helping you capture, qualify, and nurture your leads.
We hope that this list has been helpful! For more useful sales and marketing tips, check out the rest of the content on our blog, or subscribe to our newsletter today 👇 (see, this is how you direct people to sign up 😛)!
Nigel Seah
Nigel is a Digital Marketing Executive at Novocall where he specializes in SEO. Prior to this, he had written for several SaaS companies including Workstream and the now defunct Hatchme. In his free time, he engages in strength training and is a lover of languages.
Discover more
Subscribe to our blog
Get insights & actionable advice read by thousands of professionals every week.