When it comes to B2B digital marketing, lead generation is the name of the game. By generating leads, you’ll set up your sales team to earn more business and better meet the needs of your customers.
On the marketing side, it’s a dance. There are dozens of factors that determine whether a prospect will opt-in to your offer and share their contact information with you. And even then, your work isn’t finished since it remains to be seen whether you’re attracting the right leads.
Because we see so many B2B businesses seek shortcuts in this process, let’s discuss the must-haves for every lead generation campaign:
Start with your goal
It’s not about how many leads you can gather. It’s about how many leads you can get to take an action that impacts your business.
Defining that action is unique to your brand, whether it’s positioning your business as a thought leader in your industry or putting more quality leads in front of your sales team.
Either way, it would be a mistake to spin up a B2B digital marketing campaign without clearly defining your goal upfront. The reason? B2B isn’t a one-off transaction. Businesses don’t make buying decisions based on a single interaction, and any decision often includes multiple decision makers.
That’s why it’s vital that you reverse engineer your marketing funnel and determine the messaging and tactics that are required to guide a lead to your desired business goal.
Use lead magnets to gain opt-ins
In the history of online marketing, no user has ever sought more emails from marketers or more invitations for virtual coffee with a sales rep. If an individual is going to share their contact information with a business, it has to be earned through content marketing.
That’s where lead magnets come in. Lead magnets are content or promotions that offer something of value to a prospect in exchange for an email address or phone number. The lead magnet could come in the form of an eBook, checklist, quiz, infographic, blog post, or even a webinar. But no matter what form it takes, your lead magnet’s success depends on how well it educates your target audience and fills a need.
Perhaps it goes without saying, but your lead magnet needs to be compelling. If the offer is something that a prospect can live without, don’t expect leads to begin flowing in. And if the lead magnet turns out to be mediocre at best, your lead will already feel cheated that they shared their contact information. (Clearly, this isn’t a great way to start a business partnership.)
For that reason, it’s always best practice to consider your ideal customer and their pain points before developing a killer lead magnet. Drop the platitudes and produce insights that will help your prospect.
Qualify your email list with a CRM
Not all leads are created equal. Some may have downloaded your lead magnet simply because they wanted to pluck some information from your report, and others may not be in the market for your product.
That’s what makes a CRM software so valuable to your business.
In the B2B world, the majority of your leads aren’t ready to sign the dotted line. They’re still learning about what you offer, and learning about the alternatives available in the market. Who can blame them? None of us want to explain to our boss that we didn’t make an informed buying decision before committing to a long-term contract.
At this point, it doesn’t necessarily make sense for your sales team to start bombarding your email list and pushing your product or offer. Instead, with the use of a CRM, you can begin qualifying those leads to determine if they’re even the right fit for your business. Are they in the right price range and industry for your offering? Have they engaged with any of your content beyond your lead magnet? Can your team actually solve their needs?
By asking the right questions and monitoring how a lead interacts with your business, you can pick up the right signals and identify the leads who are most interested in what you have to offer.
Drip campaigns should be personal
It should be considered a crime to send your leads an email that doesn’t consider their recent interactions with your brand or their online behavior. Not to mention important details like a company’s size or industry.
Instead, you should take everything you’ve learned about your lead and deliver a message that’s relevant to their needs. Consider your series of emails an ongoing conversation instead of crafting more email blasts. Take what you know about your lead, and make it all about them. Show them why your service or solution will benefit them.
Make your value proposition digestable
If lead magnets are used to attract prospects with useful information, your value proposition is what gets them to stick around. A good value proposition will establish your credibility and show your prospects how you’ll be able to resolve their biggest pain points.
That means spelling out your value, product or service in the simplest way possible when engaging your leads. Describe your services the same way that your prospects would describe them. And if your offering is more complex, make it easier for your prospect to understand it by using visual mediums like video.
The point here is that your lead shouldn’t come away confused about what it is that you offer. If you can’t deliver clarity, it makes it easier for your prospect to walk away.
Retarget your leads
It’s worth repeating: It’s rare for a business to make a buying decision based on input from a single individual.
It’s far more likely that your lead will pull other stakeholders into the decision-making process, and share what they’ve learned about your product or service. When those other individuals learn about your brand, they’ll begin visiting your website and other digital marketing channels to conduct their own research. Why not share valuable content through retargeted advertising that will help them with their recommendation?
Retargeting also benefits your existing leads. If a lead is truly interested, they’re more than likely going to make repeat visits to your site in order to finalize their decision. In this situation, it might make sense to enhance your offer to close the deal or to share the results that you’re producing for another business.
Retargeting is simply a great way to help drive your lead further down the funnel and convert them.
Ready to start growing and nurturing your own leads? Learn how WiredViews can help you connect the dots.
