The 5 Best Kept Secrets Of B2B Lead Generation
- Gated content only works if you’re offering something exceptional, exquisite and of recurring value.
- Case studies are direct and effective. Use them often and wisely.
- Emotion always trumps logic, even in B2B marketing.
- Keep your B2B lead generation and marketing teams separate. Better yet, outsource contact data generation to experts.
- Build a community on social media; everything else comes automatically.
- What You Must Know
Consumers and businesses have become somewhat restrictive in their decision-making process. The options are endless, and innovation is rapid.
While Yellowpages, flyers, sales associates and emails were enough to draw attention earlier, they do not necessarily convert to sales anymore.
Therefore, lead generation is imperative to any business if they want to continually push their products as well as stay relevant in their industry. Brand awareness and recognition, product outreach and brand loyalty can only be built by tapping on the right audience at the right time.
The concept is relatively simple and makes perfect sense. The application, however, is a whole other ball game. Unfair competitive practices, experienced buyers and narrowing profit margins can often leave companies struggling to make ends meet, even in a market that is lucrative and substantial.
Hence, we’ve come up with some B2B lead generation secrets that no one tells you about.
1. Gated content only works if you’re offering something exceptional, exquisite and of recurring value.
Any data made available to a user only after receiving their details is known as gated content. The barter is quite simple. Once they offer their information, the potential client will have access to the content they seek, while you shall have a prospective lead.
Gated content is catered to a specific audience and creates a sense of ‘exclusivity.’
It goes without saying that since the user is giving up their anonymity to access the data, the content you provide should be value-driven. Gathering miscellaneous information from the internet and putting it up behind a form is simply not going to cut it.
That being said, gated content can help establish thought leadership in the market. There are only three requirements here. It should –
- Be personalised to a section of your audience
- Drill down on their industry challenges
- Deliver comprehensive and actionable solutions
Once everything is in place, the data acquired from gated content shall serve as a list of warm leads that are not only interested in what you have to say but also what you have on offer.
2. Case studies are direct and effective. Use them often and wisely.
Case studies are a way for your company to prove that it is good at what it does. Through a few years of experience in your respective field, you must have built a customer base that swears by your products.
You can use this relationship to build a case study that directly pitches your capabilities to prospective clients. Start with a focused line-up where you address the client issues, explain your project approach and finally deliver on the key business benefits.
The end goal here is for your audience to find a sense of relatability with your current clients and to perceive you as a holistic solution provider.
Case studies can be pushed as gated content as well, accumulating warm leads directly from your existing network.
The content form is an underrated but extremely efficient tool, especially in the B2B arena where most clients would like to see – “Where has this worked before?”
It will also help your company grow and develop a signature style while allowing your consumers to grasp the challenges you are capable of handling.
Win-win.
Get started with Datagenie B2B prospecting platform
emails in 15 million companies.
3. Emotion always trumps logic, even in B2B marketing.
What divides us from other species is our knack to make decisions based both on logic as well as emotion. However, if required to choose between the two, we surprisingly prefer intuition and emotion.
Similarly, even in B2B marketing, your brand story matters. Striking an emotional chord with your seller is essential for them to take the plunge and trust you the first time. This is because any back story that stems from a place of passion and purpose always gets ahead.
Why? Because they know your company is driven to deliver to the best of its ability and for a cause.
The key here is to tap on the emotional quotient of your audience by bringing forward the core possibilities that your product or service can offer. Again, there is a three-step process here to get your leads right away.
- Awareness of the brand
- Relatability with your company’s proposition
- Recall when put in a similar situation
Using rational and factual arguments will work, no doubt, but the thing with this thinking is that its … bland. The same principles that are used for a B2C product should be employed here, on a slightly watered down level.
To solve this, the crux of your sales pitch must remain based on facts but should be coupled with emotions that act as the end goal.
For instance, a CRM product could be marketed as – “The one product that keeps your bosses and customers happy at the same time.”
4. Keep your B2B lead generation and marketing teams separate. Better yet, outsource contact data generation to experts.
Even though B2B lead generation and marketing sound similar in theory, their execution is worlds apart. While one is tasked with pushing for aggressive campaigns, the other is responsible for accumulating all the data to engage your prospects towards the next step. The two working together will lead to invariable confusion between the roles each must play to help turn a profit.
A simple solution is outsourcing contact data generation. Several companies specialise in this field. They tabulate and consolidate the data for you while keeping a close look at changes in trends as well as responses.
You’ll essentially be looking at various prospective clients that can be segmented for marketing, sales and promotion, respectively. With the help of these experts, the chances of your product reaching the correct customer get unlocked tenfold.
5. Build a community on social media; everything else comes automatically.
Let’s face it. Social media has a very pivotal role to play in our lives today. The key to many businesses’ success and failure has been the ease and resistance to embracing social media platforms and their many benefits. Hence, an effective method of lead generation is the use of applications like LinkedIn.
The shift to digital has been progressing for a long time, but the pandemic gave it the much-needed push. Consequentially, B2B customers moved online faster than companies could keep up. And those that managed to get a head start banked on the open markets right away.
Today, your company must work to build a significant social media presence that interacts with and reaches out to customers online.
- Create an attractive logo, a punchy tagline and leverage your mailing lists
- Ensure that all the relevant keywords are covered such that a simple search will make your company’s name pop up
- Your branding must remain unique, politically correct and inclusive, one which makes the customer feel welcome and safe doing business with
- Support your pitch with customer testimonials and reviews
If your business fits the ‘tried and tested’ spectrum, it will manage to grow with ease as long as you keep up with the trends and innovate to keep yourself ahead of the pack.
What You Must Know
While you may have read about these ‘secrets’, they are seldom employed by businesses in their B2B industry. That being said, the only way a company can grow is through holistic lead generation — which in itself is simpler said than done.
Using thesetactics, you can stay ahead of the curve and keep your company relevant as well as aspirational.
Yes, it involves detailed research and follow-ups, but it also gives you a complete roadmap to finding your audience right where they are.
So, the sooner you begin, the better are your chances of success.
And if you need to kickstart the process, DataGenie superpowers your marketing efforts with hand-sourced global prospects that can be downloaded onto your CRM to generate business almost instantaneously.