The business-to-business industry has its specifics bringing new challenges before marketers and companies. Despite the changes in the digital landscape and marketing processes, B2B lead generation continues to follow certain principles, focusing on expertise, quality content, and relations.
But how to do it right when everything is changing so fast? Well, one should stick to the basic concepts, see the difference between B2B and B2C, and implement the tactics with the industry shifts in mind. Read on to learn about the essence of B2B lead generation strategies and the lead generation tactics that B2B specialists usually apply.
Business to Business Lead Generation: Definition and Difference
B2B lead generation is concerned with the identification of the people who are likely to be your customers in the future. The important part of any lead generation strategy is the initiation and development of interest. This entices further engagement and moving on to the next step of the customer journey to purchase the service or product.
However, how is the B2B lead generation strategy different from B2C? Well, the distinction lies in the decision to buy a product and the actors making it. Considering that one business actor produces a product for another business company, the first aims to provide or help with a solution affecting departments, processes, and revenues of the latter.
Thus, the business actors affected by B2B marketing require time and research to pick the right option, consider alternatives, and identify the possible effect on their business. They are more attentive to details and compare other options a lot.
Taking into account these peculiarities, one can see that the lead generation process for B2B marketers can be long and tedious, where leads are not so easy to affect.
Lead Generation Techniques for B2B Companies
So yes, the B2B lead generation process starts with raising awareness and developing interest, meaning you should focus on the things that business actors value. For many, they refer to sharing expertise and solutions that can contribute to the attraction of leads and impact their future actions.
Yet, there are other lead generation tactics B2B specialists apply, like using social media, email marketing, cold calling, holding events, blogging, and building communities. Check out these B2B lead generation tips to start the process.
Level up your email marketing game
Before all, be ready that email marketing will be your primary channel for producing B2B leads. Why? It’s the main form of communication in the business world, granting lead specialists a direct connection and specific reach. Nonetheless, getting someone’s email is not easy, especially as many try to hide it. So, what can you do?
- Use lead magnets to get email addresses
- Guess their corporate addresses
- Find some with email finders or databases
If you choose the first two options, you can solve your deliverability concerns with a free bulk email validator designed to verify corporate email addresses. Next, you can start a B2B lead generation strategy with an outreach campaign or a personalized email sequence.
Importantly, applying various automation tools will grant you a significant advantage. For example, certain specialists use email finders, email marketing, and referral software to generate SaaS leads that many refer to as B2B leads to optimize the process and maximize efforts.
Create meaningful and actionable content
At the same time, neither email marketing nor social media will be effective if you have poor content. Thus, it is vital to produce content that will educate the leads and help them with something. You can make use of videos or beautiful informative Infographics in your content as well. You should also find out how to find micro influencers, and they can help you build your marketing.
You should research trends and create pieces that will answer their pain points. The online B2B lead generation is impossible without stating issues and providing solutions. If your articles do not answer the problems, they should at least touch on them to develop a specific interest and raise awareness to engage later.
Effective lead generation tactics share helpful information and encourage people to visit your landing page or subscribe to the newsletter. That way, the B2B marketer identifies who is interested in their product and can qualify them as a prospect.
Focus on expertise
Being an expert is essential when engaging with B2B leads. Acting as an opinion leader and exerting the expert’s authority is one of the B2B lead generation techniques applied on social media. It can help you improve trust and get attention from leads. They seek insights and solutions that you can produce.
To create an image of the expert, you can collaborate with the professionals or share pieces of research with them. One of the methods to get to niche specialists is via email outreach. First, you apply the GetProspect email finder on LinkedIn to extract corporate emails. After that, you can create a pitch and send it to proceed with the collaboration.
Run tests
Among other B2B lead generation tips that can be useful, doing tests is a universal one. These tests include PPC, social media targeting, email marketing, and landing page improvement. You need to test various messages and analyze how they affect the audience.
Try to segment your leads and send them different emails or ads. Besides, consider changing the CTA for multiple groups. The more you test, the more insights you may have.
Back your efforts with social media presence
Social media is an excellent place for generating leads. First of all, your B2B lead generation processes can be significantly supported by it.
In particular, you can:
- Use the email finder plugin mentioned above and get emails from people’s personal LinkedIn pages to contact them
- Or set the targeting campaign with a link to your landing page and blog.
Simultaneously, you have an alternative of engaging or connecting with people right on the platform with the goal of offering the services or goods.
In this regard, you have the following options:
- Sending invitations, direct messages and InMails
- Sharing posts and stories
- Directing targeted messages to their inbox
As a result, your B2B lead generation strategy can be more diverse and either start from social media or be supported by it.
Create communities
Lastly, creating communities can bring you a lot of quality leads in the long run. Even though this technique is different from other lead generation tactics B2B specialists apply, it allows for getting social proof, building solid relationships, and retaining customers. Firstly, communities are the best way to engage with the experts and do social listening.
Secondly, you can educate leads from there, and after, they may talk about your products and solutions. At some point, these guests or newcomers can find your content and recommendations useful and become your prospects or customers. However, where should one build a community? You can turn a social media group, a forum, or a blog into such a place.