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Lead generation is one of the most important parts of business success. Any business needs customers and clients, which means they need leads to convert. Let’s look at six of the best B2B lead generation business strategies to boost your reach.
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1. Email Marketing for Lead Generation
Some consider email marketing old hat, but the truth is it still works. It’s tried and tested and one of the only old strategies that still works. Emails have been around for more than two decades. However, they still represent one of the best lead generation strategies around.
Marketing automation is the new strategy for email marketing campaigns. This is essentially when you automate your customer relationship management system (CRM). Then you automatically send out personalized and targeted emails to leads. These emails are highly effective. Moreover, because they’re automated, you don’t need to worry about sending anything yourself. Automation is a key part of any kind of effective marketing strategy.
While it’s true that traditional emails and newsletters still have their place, being able to capture data about users and behavioral triggers has given B2B marketers the chance to be smarter about who they target—and how they do it.
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing has proven to be very successful for everyone who has tried it. For example, Xerox created their own microsite and offered tips and advice to business owners. What’s more, they leveraged the site into 20,000 new contacts worth more than a billion dollars. Not everyone is going to be that lucky of course, but B2B companies should never overlook the power of content marketing for lead generation.
There are plenty of common approaches, such as using social media and running a blog. However, don’t be afraid to experiment a bit and go outside of the norm. There’s a benefit in being unique and not doing the same thing as everyone else. It will make you stand out more.
Whatever path you choose for content marketing, remember there is always value in diversifying and experimenting. Understand your audience and build your strategy around them for the best growth opportunities. Stay on top of how your reports, infographics, blogs, and microsites do and your content marketing can’t fail.
3. Search Marketing as a Key Part of Lead Generation
Search marketing—in particular, organic search engine optimization or SEO—will always be a key part of lead generation. It is far more difficult to get to the top spot on Google these days. However, ranking on the first page if you can will do a lot of good for your business.
SEO is one of those things that is so complex you will need an SEO expert on the subject. You can do it yourself if you want, but that would mean doing your own research and educating yourself about what does and doesn’t work. This is because SEO involves a lot more than just optimizing your content. It’s also about the design and performance of a website and its off-page optimization.
To rank your website higher in the SERPs (search engine result pages) you need a lot of high quality and contextually relevant backlinks (like guest posts, editorial posts, resource links, and so on) that in turn link to your main key pages on your website. Acquiring these can be difficult and incredibly time-consuming. Consequently, we would advise to look into hiring a reputable SEO service such as SEOlutions.biz. They can help you with this endeavor.
4. Lead Generation on Social Media
For some, social media as a B2B marketing and lead generation strategy is a controversial issue. Social media has scored both good and bad for marketing. Ultimately, it’s not inherently a bad idea though. The reason that it is gets rated poorly at times is because people aren’t implementing it properly. People don’t succeed with social media because they don’t use it properly, and then they claim it’s no good.
The wrong way to use social media is just to blast out endless reams of marketing materials. Don’t do this. Instead, look for companies that are doing lead generation properly on social media, and see what they’re up to. In other words, learn from the minority rather than the majority.
There are lots of examples of companies that do it right. For example, companies like Wendy’s are a smash hit on social media because they interact and have fun with the audience instead of just promoting things to them.
Social media marketing should also be considered a part of search marketing and content marketing, as well as lead generation. Having people on social media improves the power of your infographics and blogs and makes them way more visible. It all goes together to create an overall marketing strategy. Having content that you can link to on social media makes the process easier, too. It gives you something else to post about instead of flashy marketing that is only going to turn people off.
5. Referral Programs
Referral programs have proven to be effective at creating leads for B2C. What’s the first thing most people do when they want something? They ask their friends and family for referrals. It’s clear why it works so well to generate leads like that. With that said, how do referral programs work (and how well do they work?) for B2B lead generation? The answer is “surprisingly well.”
Referral programs provide incentives to businesses that send people your way or vice versa. It benefits both of you. So work to develop good incentive programs aimed at businesses that take advantage of your services.
This is also tied in with understanding your audience and creating a mutually beneficial relationship that both of you stand to gain from. That’s why people interact with businesses in the first place. They have a need that the business can fulfill. People get into business to fill that need.
6. Put It All Together
It’s always going to be easy to answer the question, “What is the best marketing strategy?” The answer: It’s a lead generation strategy that combines different strategies such as content marketing, emails, campaigns, and content marketing. Many businesses have utilized such strategies to make the most returns on their investment.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, great lead generation is all about being unrelenting in your willingness to experiment. Try again with different tactics and try out combinations across different channels to see what works—and what works best.
For example, you could even give your best clients personalized water bottles by Igo Promo. Giving a special gift such as this will help them remember you when they need your services.
It’s only through experimentation that you can understand what does and doesn’t work. Once you have a better understanding of that you can better use your budget and time effectively to generate great returns on investment, which will mean that you can get better lead generation results.
We hope that this post has given you a good idea of how to approach B2B lead generation for your business. By reading our guide, you should have a better understanding of where to focus your lead generation efforts. Try out a few different channels and combine them into an overall strategy to see what works best for your business.
As you experiment your way to a lead generation strategy that works for your company, be sure to check out our blog often. Here you’ll find great ideas and inspiration.
