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Before Covid-19 hit, marketers thrived in face-to-face interactions. From conventions to sports tournaments, tradeshows, and networking events teams leveraged these occasions to meet prospective customers.
Post-pandemic, buyers feel less inclined to meet sales and marketing teams in person. If anything, they prefer keeping most interactions online until they’re ready to close the deal.
Marketers on the other hand discovered that in-person meetings weren’t an “absolute” in the sales process. They found that they can use the web and social platforms to add leads to their pipelines, build relationships, and close deals.
But how exactly do they generate these leads? We discuss leading B2B lead generation practices worth considering.
Revamp Your Content Marketing Strategy
With more people turning to the internet for answers, we’ve seen an explosion of marketing content rising up to meet this need.
A search query on Google will likely generate tons of pages with something to say about the query. It’s becoming tougher for brands to garner the kind of visibility they need to appeal to buyers, expand market reach, and develop brand affinity.
What can you do to overcome this hurdle?
- Determine your audience’s needs. What do your customers and prospects want to know more about? What would compel them to read your content and act? What pertinent information can you package alongside a captivating story?
- Partner with another reputable and complementary brand for backlinks. Most people will go for industry-relevant authoritative websites, and that’s fine. Why not expand your reach to include building partnerships with other brands that you can tag in your posts and they return the favor as well?
- Multi-layer your content. Text-rich content is less attractive than articles that include images or videos. Consider compiling your data or content attractively to capture interest, pass information quickly, and encourage readers to share it.
- Spy on the competition. How’s the competition tackling their content strategy and what they have incorporated that you can “borrow.”
Consider Lead Generation Software
We often accredit lead generation software with saving the time teams would otherwise spend prospecting manually. This isn’t the only benefit you can derive from these tools.
Besides automating and tracking marketing campaigns, the software allows you to see who’s visiting your site and the pages they frequent so you can personalize outreach.
It can also analyze your social media content to determine what content attracts more attention.
When choosing lead gen software consider the following:
- Integrations. You probably have other business apps running. Ensure that your preferred software integrates with these systems to allow smooth data operation.
- Usability. From a user-friendly interface to easy navigation and automation capabilities. The more efficient your lead gen software is, the more control you can have over your team’s activity and time usage.
- Analytics. Access to comprehensive analytics is crucial to evaluating performance and effective decision-making.
Remember, what you pay for, or don’t pay for determines what you’ll get. Check what features you can access, the plans available, and whether they are worth paying for.
Leverage Social Proof
Your team may have followed all the “best practices” to the tee but find that some buyers still find it difficult to believe you. To believe that your solutions can perform as per your claims.
And here’s where social proof can provide the much-needed boost. With social proof, past customers vouch for you by sharing their experiences with your solutions.
Here are social proof types that may help turn the tide
- Customer testimonials. When customers share in their own words the difference your products/services made it can help you gain traction, earn trust badges, and credibility. You can switch things up by adding the customer’s name and brand to increase relatability.
- Expert endorsements. Partnering with an industry-relevant influencer on content production or receiving a mention on their social pages or webinars can boost your value. The endorsement is likely to drive traffic and engagement.
- Customer company logos. This silent endorsement speaks powerfully of your capabilities. Displaying the logos of customer brands you’ve worked with, can also help draw in competitors keen on duplicating the former’s success.
Make Cold Calls
Like cold emailing the cold calling strategy involves making unsolicited telephone calls to influential people to market products/services.
There are several upsides to making these calls. Humans crave human connections and by making calls you can meet this need, share some humor, and gauge the prospect’s personality.
Besides, there are chances that a potential customer doesn’t know you exist but still needs your solutions. Cold calls allow you to heighten visibility and reach new customers.
Best practices include
- Focusing on the difference your solutions can make not the features. People buy value and you need to detail how your solutions can offer it not share a long list of specs. Once you’ve hooked them, you can now share those specs.
- Get a little personal to warm up the call. Dig up some info about your contact person or their company and share what you appreciate about them. Genuine friendliness puts people at ease and they are likely to listen.
- Leave voicemails. You’ll encounter many, so you might as well use them. Introduce yourself and state your reason for calling. Aim for under 15 seconds to ensure the prospect listens to most of it. We recommend practicing your sales pitch to ensure it fits this time frame.
Work on Your Landing Page
The ultimate goal of your landing page should be to engage potential buyers, build trust and turn them into customers. An effective landing page will require
- An effective headline that ties in with your CTA
- A description of your offering clearly describing the benefits
- A short form to capture the visitor’s information
- Social proof that may include testimonials, security badges, customer logos, etc
Best practices include
- Let your content revolve around solving a business problem. Decision-makers don’t purchase for the sake of it, they look for purpose. The tool should either improve operational efficiency, keep overheads down, or boost growth. Your landing page should communicate what you solve early on and effectively.
- Use symmetric messaging. How did your prospect arrive at your page? Through an ad, social media post, or email? Let the message (including font, colors, and tone) remain consistent to make the transition from one point to the next seamless.
- Avoid using multiple CTAs. The copy that brought your prospects to the landing page had a specific goal and it’s what they are looking for. Avoid confusing them by providing multiple CTAs for different offerings. Further don’t share the CTA button in multiple places, one is enough.
- A/B Test your pages. Test different variables (separately) from the CTA button location to page layout, headlines, images, and copy. Check visitor interactions and adjust accordingly.
