4 Surprisingly Simple Ways B2B Companies Can Generate Leads

In the world of B2B—business to business—marketers often find themselves scratching their heads trying to come up with some complex strategy to generate leads. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be any more advanced than some of the strategies used by B2Cs (business to consumer). You just need to make a few tweaks and changes to make it work for your industry. Remember, at the end of the day, you are ultimately selling to people and therefore people are making the decision to buy or not.

There is a ton of different ways to generate leads, however, focusing on the most cost-effective and efficient ways will ultimately save you money and time.

Here are four simple strategies that you can implement for your B2B company that will get you the most leads and generate more business for your company and helps you succeed in the digital era.

Email Marketing

Email is about 25 years old, and still to this day it is one of the best forms of marketing. That’s pretty impressive considering how much the world has changed during that time span. A lot of B2B companies severely underestimate and underutilize this powerful form of communication. What they are missing is not only a strategy but also using a marketing automation system. Integrating your CRM with an email marketing system can potentially increase your lead generation exponentially when done right. What you gain is data and data can help you create more targeted campaigns that will increase your conversion rates.

Sending out a newsletter is not email marketing. No one wants to read your newsletter about how your company just celebrated its 50^th anniversary. You need to be sending out things that are valuable and relevant and then pairing your emails with a call to action so other businesses know what to do next.

Not sure how to create your email marketing strategies? Check out 23 reasons why you should use marketing automation.

Social Media

Businesses often see social media as a waste of time, especially when it comes to B2B. They think it’s something they don’t need to be investing in, sadly, they are very wrong. Generating leads from social media is all about finding out where your audience is online. Using the different platforms to connect and add value is where businesses can stand out and establish themselves as an authority within their given market. Your social strategy should be a mix of entertainment, insights, tools, facts, product/service promotion, and anything that will keep your audience engaged.

Most B2Bs fail at social media because they are constantly self-promoting. After a while, people begin to tune them out. Think about it, if you had someone all day long standing outside of your house yelling “buy from me” over and over again, you’d either ignore them or tell them to leave.

There is such a thing as too much, so you need to find a balance. In addition, businesses need to use the platforms as they are intended and use the features that are available. Use Facebook Live to give a behind the scenes look. Use LinkedIn to connect with businesses and grow your network.

Use Instagram to showcase the different products and services your business provides.

Content Marketing

Content is king, and the more you have the better—if it’s great. Businesses are searching for solutions online and when they come across your business, it’s important to show some of the solutions you provide. Writing out your services and products is NOT content. You need to create different pieces of content for the different stages of your buyer’s journey. What does that mean? When a business first starts looking for a solution that doesn’t necessarily mean they know exactly what they are looking for.

It’s important to have content that engages people at different stages. Maybe they are simply at the discovery stage or maybe they know exactly what they are looking for. Creating content that adds value at these pivotal moments can influence someone’s decision to investigate further or look elsewhere.

Here are a couple ideas for content you can create. Remember, it’s all about how you distribute the content. Find the places where your audience is most likely going to interact with it. (Click here for more content ideas)

• Infographics

• White Papers

• Webinars/Webcasts

• Videos

• Case Studies

• Blog Posts

• Research Reports

• Content on your social media

Search Marketing

Being found on search engines can be a great form of lead generation for B2Bs, but it also comes down to what happens after searchers click on your business website. If your business website doesn’t capture someone’s interest right away, they will bounce right off and go somewhere else. A few years ago, getting ranked on Google was a lot easier. Now it takes a lot more work. Integrating all the strategies listed above can definitely impact your ranking. Don’t become discouraged when you don’t reach the first page of Google though.

SEO and Search Engine Marketing are a long-term strategy, which is why it is so important to invest time into other channels that can start build brand awareness of your business.

Your lead generation strategy is not singular and therefore you need to really fine-tune where your dream customers exist.