18 Jul
Lead generation is an important KPI for the marketing team to measure ROI in B2B marketing. There is no magic button you can push, you already know that.
You already have gone through a handful of articles, blogs, and videos, giving you a list of things to try generating leads without much context. You can also find a list here, and I want to add some context before going directly to the list.
Qualified Leads are the driving force for every B2B marketer or salesperson.
What is Lead Generation?
Let’s take a look at the definition given by Webopedia: It is a marketing activity that collects valuable data to create a list of potential customers.
Lead generation channels can be divided into two parts: online and offline. Examples for an online lead generation would include blogs, websites, ads, and SEO. Offline lead generation includes cold emails, trade shows, and direct mails.
The number one metric in lead generation is Quality Leads. For any business quality, leads are important for its success.
But How to find quality leads?
Best Sources to Find Leads
Every B2B marketer or salesperson spends a lot of his time in team meetings, on Zoom calls, discussing where to find quality leads or where existing leads are coming from.
Want to know another secret? Even the top companies don’t know where their quality leads are coming from. Well, if you don’t know where your quality leads are coming from, you’re not alone. There are several attributes like different devices, browsers, and machines, making it hard to find the source.
It is easy for your marketing team to waste much of their time to find out the real source of the lead, isn’t it? Utilize the time to plan the next move instead of finding the source of lead.
Remember one thing, B2B lead generation is a sum of many parts, relying on planning and a ton of effort. Every time you hear of an “overnight success story,” remember there are tons of stories that are results of consistent efforts.
B2B Lead Generation Strategies
Here are some ideas to generate leads in the digital world. It’s worth reminding that the answers to some questions are less complicated than they seem.
Good Email Marketing
We see a lot of conversation going on around business people looking for some marketing tips, and the common question goes-
“I don’t have much time to do marketing- what can I do to generate quality leads without spending a lot of cash?”
Well, I would suggest quality content and emails. According to Emma, 59% of marketers say email is their best source for revenue generation.
If you already have subscribers to your email list, they’re already your potential leads, but email is vital for establishing whether the lead is viable.
And then comes the important channel Cold Emails, smart marketers know to put effort when using cold emails to reach out to their leads. The first thing on cold email is to build a quality lead. You can use various tools or explore ways to find people’s email addresses. To get a good result with cold email is to first build a quality list.
Blogging
The most common complaint I hear mainly is that blogs don’t generate enough leads for me. The most common reasons might be the blog is not generating traffic or the traffic generated is not of quality leads.
Well, here’s a common tip, but somewhat necessary:
Improve the plan and make it correct. Stop copying the ideas of others and share your own experiences. Write a message as an individual so that others can read it. Great content takes time but, with consistency, it can become a pillar for your B2B lead generation efforts.
Using Online Social Media Communities
Generally speaking, social media is a bad platform when it comes to B2B lead generation. The truth is that when you know where to look, social media is an important source of potential customers.
The best option to find potential customers is through the social media community where the potential target is located.
How do you use social media communities to generate potential customers? Find the group related to the problem you are trying to solve.
Think-Find-Act
Where are my potential customers?
Take a look in some groups, get subscribed, and start engaging with your audience. Ask questions and answer other people’s questions. A lot of groups you will find, people are looking exactly, the thing you’re offering.
Optimize Your Website
The homepage of your website is your presentation. This is an opportunity to attract the attention of visitors and turn them into high-quality potential buyers. While some minor errors might not end the world but, making sure that the website is fully functional and loads quickly are important.
And while we’re on the subject of load time. It’s no surprise that longer the loading time of your page, probability your visitor leaves before they get good stuff to buy. The avg. Loading time for any website is between 2 to 5 seconds, every second beyond 2 seconds increases your bounce rate and a visitor may leave before your website loads.
Give Away Your Products & Services
One of the biggest names in business got their names by giving a free tool: Hubspot.
While it wasn’t the main product of Hubspot but, it was useful for the people to be willing to hand their contact details over again and share a link for the tool itself.
They first started providing a free tool namely website grader, and then rolled out more and more. That off-course paired with a pretty feature-rich trial that was enough to build a sales pipeline for them.
Then they nurtured these leads, with seeming contents, to convert them into potential customers.
On the Final Note
As a B2B marketer, a lot depends on how many and the type of leads you can generate. If you produce a ton of leads but, none are converted to potential customers, the leads are poor. On the other hand, if you provide high-quality leads but, your business pipeline is dry, you’re doing no good for the business.
The B2B marketing and sales are quite long, and that’s why quality and quantity of leads are vital for lead generation.
