One of the biggest challenges for B2B companies is to figure out how to generate qualified leads that will convert to sales. In an ideal world, it’d be amazing to throw up an ad that’s tied with a targeted landing page that then generates a crazy amount of qualified leads, right? I mean this would be every marketer’s dream — to be able to yield positive results in a short amount of time and actually generate revenue that can be attributed back to marketing’s initiatives.
In today’s blog post, I will highlight three specific marketing strategies that will foster growth initiatives. However, before we dive in, let’s take a look at some stats you should be aware of:
- 53% of marketers spend at least half of their budget on lead generation.
- Outsourcing lead generation generates 43% better results than in-house lead generation.
- 80% of marketers think marketing automation generates more leads (and conversions).
- 66% of marketers generate leads from social media after spending only six hours per week on social marketing.
- Linkedin is the most effective social media channel for B2B lead generation.
Let’s get started…
1. Invest in content marketing like it’s oxygen
Okay, that probably sounded a bit exaggerated, but the truth is, content builds value, credibility, and trust and could very well be your secret weapon to funneling in tons of qualified leads. More specifically, content marketing generates 3x as many leads as outbound marketing at less than half the cost.
So here are some key steps you need to consider:
- Know who you are writing for.
- Know the problems you solve.
- Put science to the writing, meaning you put in the due diligence to ensure the topics you pick will boost search engine rankings while also meeting the searcher intent.
- Contextual relevance is super important and will help you build greater value.
- Develop specific content clusters that you can write about for more authority.
- Don’t shy away from diversifying your content assets (e.g. videos, infographics, blog posts, webinars, downloadable guides, ecourses, etc.).
Point here is that you need to make sure content is held with high priority because it is going to be one of the strongest ways you will be able to drive awareness, targeted site traffic, leads, and sales. Make sure you are also tracking and measuring every piece of content you push out so you know which ones are driving awareness vs the ones that are driving conversions.
2. Implement automated email campaigns
79% of B2B marketers think email is most effective for lead generation and more importantly, for every $1 spent on email, you can expect a $42 ROI. What this should tell you is that you absolutely need to figure out a way to integrate email throughout all of the touch points within the buyer journey.
Doing so will help you navigate different ways you can engage with prospective customers and even retain existing ones. But you then can holistically understand exactly where the gaps are in your marketing executions as well as the messaging and content that’s driving the best results.
In order to ensure you setting up the effective email campaigns, look at the following:
- Segment by persona and lifecycle stage.
- Content and messaging should be leveraged to funnel people further down the funnel.
- Consider testing send times and days so you know which one drives the highest engagement.
- Look at setting up drip campaigns that have at least 5-7 touch points. This will give you more data to work with overtime.
- Get creative with your CTAs to get people to take some sort of action.
- Setup automation where needed so you can focus more on the high-value, strong results-oriented emails.
Just as you would any of your initiatives, you will want to continue testing as much as you can. The more you test, the more data you’ll collect, which will then help you better understand what it is that your target customers are looking for and you can best serve them so they become a paying customer.
3. Run LinkedIn ads
Linkedin is going to be one of the best ways you will be able to generate qualified leads that will turn into opportunities for sales to follow up and eventually close.
I work a ton with B2B SaaS companies and running LinkedIn ads has been the top performing channel for lead generation. Let the stats speak for themselves:
- A study from Hubspot shows that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than other social media networks.
- Of all leads generated from social media, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.
- 79% of B2B marketers agree that LinkedIn is an effective marketing channel.
- 46% percent of social media traffic coming to B2B company sites is from LinkedIn.
- 43% of marketers surveyed have gotten customers from LinkedIn.
- 92% of B2B marketers specifically prefer LinkedIn over all other social platforms.
- 79% of B2B marketers view Linkedin as an effective source of B2B leads.
What will separate a great LinkedIn campaign from an average one really boils down to the creatives, messaging, targeting the right audience, and not letting the ads run on cruise control. The more you take time to optimize and collect data to help you make better decisions, the more you’ll be able to drive real results.
Additionally, make sure that every single ad you run is tied with a targeted landing page so that everything lines up and keeps people interested all the way through until a form is submitted. Maintain similar messaging as well as CTAs because this will create a higher sense of consonance from click to conversion.
Over to you
These three B2B marketing strategies aren’t anything new but what will ensure you do drive results with your efforts is that you consistently test out as many variables as possible until you’re able to see exactly what’s working the best. All of this will take time so be patient with the process as well.
Finally, make it a goal to ensure that you reduce as much friction from the moment your target audience is exposed to an ad to the second they fill out a form to get more information. Building out automation to handle specific requests and nurture until they are sales-ready should be seamless the entire way through.
