The Wild World of B2B Lead Generation Strategies

 

The truth about B2B lead generation – what really works!

Want to know the greatest challenge in B2B marketing? And I swear it has nothing to do with what color dress one should wear in a presentation. The answer is “leads.”

Lead is a universe where it all begins. Without leads, there is no revenue, no clients, no raison d’être, no nothing. Without leads, you are a black hole in the universe.

And there arises a question – how do I get leads?

To produce B2B leads, marketing departments need to take a multi-channel approach.

Following are the lead generation strategies and channels for B2B businesses:

·         Social media marketing

·         Website optimization

·         Content marketing

·         Paid advertising

·         Email marketing

·         Referral traffic

Lead generation is an essential component of a well-oiled B2B sales and marketing operation. To attract more clients, it is necessary to do marketing of products and services first. A B2B lead generation company is the one that is interested in finding ideal consumers for your service or products. Also, content syndication plays a vital role in promoting thought leadership and create an effective relationship with a target audience.

Content syndication marketing – expand reach and win trust!

Content syndication marketing plays an essential role in lead generation. It helps tap a new audience or existing consumer, develops a positive perception of the brand, and adds visibility and authority that leads to qualified business inquiries.

The questions you must think upon

Is your website driving leads for your business? Is your website generating high-quality leads that your sales team can close?

Nowadays, buying journey is getting more complicated as we spend more time learning independently online than anywhere else. But the real success of a marketing leader is proven when the sales enablement services manage to convert, generate, and manage business leads and unlock new growth opportunities.

Concentrating on B2B demand generation and sales enablement services could help marketers develop a strategy to support lead management, enhance sales partnership, and develop strategic account-based marketing programs that could help buyers buy. Also, marketers must ensure that buyer enablement is available to all consumers across seller and digital channels.

Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory at Gartner, said: “The hardest part of B2B solutions isn’t selling them‚ but buying them. Today’s buying journey has effectively reached a tipping point where it’s become nearly unnavigable without a significant amount of help.”

Demand generation marketing has so many things in common with lead generation. It acts like an umbrella covering marketing and sales initiatives from every touchpoint in the consumer’s journey – from initial prospect interest to upselling consumers.

Strategies used by demand generation agencies

·         Creating awareness amongst the target audience

·         Monetizing and converting the present in-market demand

·         Connecting sales and marketing teams for better results

Do you know?

Where do online leads come from?

The answer is your website. Here is the basic flow of how B2B website leads are produced online:

·         Traffic (visitors)

·         Website

·         Leads

Once a lead is generated and the consumer is in the target market, the lead becomes a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). The digital marketing team will then begin promoting the lead via marketing campaigns.

Sales enablement – a key to unlock Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Usually, lead generation models, sales, and marketing teams work together as a relay team. Marketing increases the number of produced leads, nurtures them, and hands them off to sales.

Account-based marketing transforms this process and links inbound and outbound marketing with sales to create demand in targeted accounts. Further, these coordinated account-based marketing campaigns engage and convert target accounts at every purchase journey stage.

A sales representative with a combination of account-based marketing and sales enablement becomes a social seller, engages targeted clients, and delivers insightful and powerful content that helps in the decision journey.

Takeaway

Today’s world of information overload has radically changed consumer behaviors and how they want to connect with brands. Gone are the days where marketers could rely on their product, brand, or service to attract and retain consumers.

“At the end of the day, consumers don’t just want you to show them that you know them; they want you to help them get something done,” added Adamson. “Proving you know the customer in the absence of helping them can do immense damage.”

All in all, a lead generation strategy leverages quality of content and thought leadership.

How to Generate an Ocean of B2B Leads at a Fraction of the Price

 The challenge

The renowned entrepreneur Bill Gates once said, “If I was down to the last dollar of my marketing budget, I’d spend it on PR.”

Getting these lines from a multi-faceted personality like Mr. Gates gets us all thinking about the intensity of marketing as a function and the area where we as a business should prefer to spend the last marketing dollar.

Today, as we understand the force of competition and alternatives available, it still so happens that a lot of entrepreneurs and industry giants try to curb their marketing budget.

We understand that marketing is the only space that gives room for tweaking the budget compared to any other function or activity in the organization.

So, now that we know that the marketing budget most often is compromised, why not play smart and generate an ocean of B2B leads at a fraction of the price?

The face-off

B2B lead generation is inevitable for business success. But is it wise to deploy an in-house workforce whose primary KRA is to crack a deal and generate ROI and not leads?

Investing in in-house demand generation activities many a time is a failure and extremely expensive for a business. However, the wisest thing here is to sign up with a demand generation solutions company.

PS: We will also tell you how it saves on the marketing budget and offers more in less.

The solution

B2B demand generation is one of the essential fuels that power ROI.

Therefore, outsourcing the requirement for high-quality leads to a demand generation solutions company is the most recommended method to make most of every marketing dollar spent.

Talk to those who matter

Lead generation is tedious. It demands time, money, skills, and a valid database that comprises information about prospects.

Investing money in-house to get all this just to find leads indeed is a time taking and expensive format.

Considered one of the most essential marketing strategies, B2B appointment setting services help businesses acquire customers by arranging qualified and promising appointments. By doing so, the business saves money by just paying for services that deliver potential business opportunities and increase ROI.

Pay extra attention to promising leads

Data nowadays is omnipresent. But it is essential to understand which data is useful for growth.

Working on these principles and modern software,  intent-based marketing solutions make a significant difference to the bottom-line.

Designed to enable clients to allocate more budget to a section of the target audience who is more likely to buy, it does complete justice to the concept of intent-driven marketing and saves businesses a lot of money.

Bet on qualified leads

For sales and marketing to be extremely useful for a business, both teams need to work in tandem. However, sourcing these teams with quality leads by running marketing qualified leads campaigns is inevitable. This process helps align the balance between marketing and the sales-pipeline and impacts ROI by keeping a check on which marketing techniques and strategies work and which ones need to be discarded.

Essentially, it saves businesses a big chunk of money by getting rid of obsolete marketing strategies.

Market to people

People-based marketing solutions, also known as cross-device marketing, serve clients by leveraging technology to market to people across various channels. Remember, it is people who buy products and services and not devices. Hence, investing in people-based marketingsolutions eliminate the chances of wasting money in duplication and adds to return for your business efforts as it deals with real humans.

It’s a wrap/disclaimer

When we say, “generate an ocean of leads at a fraction of the price,” it does not mean look for solutions or services that cost less or involve in in-house activities. The fundamental is absolutely clear, and it is highly recommended to invest in solutions that have the capacity to build higher ROI, which eventually bring down the cost per lead.