Having trouble getting more leads into your pipeline? You’re not alone. According to HubSpot, 61% of marketers say traffic and lead generation is their top challenge.
So marketers are implementing different B2B lead generation ideas to grow more conversions. But this requires a bit of trial and error to see what works. The methods you use will depend on your target audience and their preferences. Those using video on their landing pages are seeing as much as an 86% increase in conversions. Other B2B marketers using blogging are 67% more leads than those that don’t. The key is finding the best B2B lead generation strategies for your business. We put together a list of 59 B2B lead generation ideas you can try.
What Are the Best B2B Lead Generation Ideas? – B2B Lead Generation Services
It’s time to look for lead generation ideas to enhance your B2B marketing efforts. There’s a long list to go through, so let’s jump right in! IT Lead Generation
- Add Exit-Intent Popup Forms to Gather Leads Sometimes, visitors will leave your site before converting. So to help capture their information before they go, you can use exit-intent popups. These appear whenever a visitor is about to click away from your window. The goal is to entice them to share their information before they go. You can offer a free download or discount code in exchange for their name and email address.
- Use On-Site Retargeting to Re-engage Leads Another way you can use exit-intent popups is to use retargeting methods. This involves using the visitors’ past site behavior to make recommendations. For instance, when a visitor is about to leave, you can have a popup appear showing a discount for a product they viewed.
- Automate Your Email Marketing Campaigns As a B2B marketer, you likely don’t have time to sit around sending out emails each day. And nor should you have to. With email marketing automation,
you can drive traffic to your business with little effort. Just take a week to set up segments, write the emails, and choose activity triggers to determine when they send. For example, those who sign up for your newsletter will be placed in the lead nurturing campaign. Then a returning customer may receive an email with a discount code if they abandon their cart. - Use Case Studies to Encourage Purchases Some of your leads are on the rocks about buying your product or service. What can you do to convince them to convert? One way is to show proof of your product’s benefits. Case studies are excellent tools for proving the worth of your products and services. Consider adding them to your email campaigns, blog posts (as links or stories), and social media marketing (i.e., boosted posts or social ads).
- Create Ads On Social Media to Drive High-Quality Leads Do you know which social media outlets your target audience uses the most? It’s time to take advantage of this knowledge by creating highly targeted social ad campaigns. Develop segments for the personas you’re targeting to create messaging and offers that resonate with each.
- Publish Social Media Posts Regularly Social media platforms are excellent to use because millions of people use them daily. And it’s the same among B2B customers. You’ll find 55% of decision-makers using LinkedIn to vet organizations. So having a business profile filled with helpful posts will establish your company as a thought-leader. This may entice visitors to convert into leads and
eventually into buyers. - Build a Business Blog to Drive More Interest Blog content works because, when done right, it helps your audience to make decisions. Educational blog posts, such as how-to’s, tutorials, buying guides, and listicles are widely viewed because readers value them. By offering insights, you can build interest in your brand by becoming an industry expert.
- Create More Content to Build More Traffic Focus on generating more content for your blog to drive more engagement. Just make sure not to sacrifice quality and depth. Continue adding value to appeal to both users and search engines.
- Optimize All of Your Content to Improve Your Ranking Google and other search engines pick up all sorts of digital content. This includes press releases, blog posts, guest articles, photos, memes, videos, and infographics. Whatever content forms you use, optimize them all with relevant keywords so they’re ranked and found by your target audience.
- Share More Long-Form Content to Engage Readers B2B customers enjoy long-form content because they’re more likely to be highly informative. This is why you’ll find long-form posts between 1,900 and 2,000 words performing the best on LinkedIn.
- Add Push Notifications to Extend Reach The beauty of push notifications is it gives brands permission to reach out to website visitors on mobile devices. So after a mobile user leaves your site, you can continue sending notifications about deals and new blog posts to get visitors to return.
- Write Q&A Style Blog Posts to Build Expert Status Add Q&A style posts to your lead generation strategy. You can find questions on Quora, social media, comments, and from your customer support team.
- Perform Market Research to Inform Your Audience Your audience should turn to you when they want information and advice. By offering market research reports, you can showcase your brand as a trusted industry leader and advisor.
- Add Testimonials to Your Content for Social Proof There’s nothing like having social proof to showcase the quality of your products and services. Consider adding testimonials to your email campaigns, website, landing page, and social media profiles.
- Develop Lead-Gen Offers that Are Irresistible If you study your B2B audience’s habits and interests, you should know what they need (and want). Use this information to create a lead magnet they’ll want to download (i.e., guide, checklist, template, eBook, course, etc).
- Create PPC Ads On Google to Drive More Traffic Google continues to reign supreme as the go-to search engine. Consider creating PPC ads here to drive more leads to your business. Be sure to optimize your landing pages for each target group.
- Use FOMO to Entice Leads to Convert The fear of missing out (FOMO) continues to be a driving force for converting leads. You can do this by adding timers to your emails and website that contain offers. Or you can offer limited-time discounts or products.
- Run A/B Tests to Improve Lead Conversions Some headlines, copy, and offers work better than others. The best way to find out is to run A/B tests to see what performs best. Do this for your web copy, ads, email campaigns, and CTAs.
- Create a Free Course as a Lead Magnet to Entice Leads B2B customers value education, especially when it’s free. How to achieve a result using your product or service.
- Make Your Newsletter Valuable with Insider Insights You want to collect leads for your email campaign. If you offer credible insider insights, then that’ll make it worth their while.
- Repurpose Content Into Other Formats Some people enjoy reading blogs, while others like videos or audio content. So consider repurposing videos into blogs (and vice versa), videos into audio, and podcasts into audio snippets. Share them across social media and your blog to connect with leads.
- Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices Did you know 80% of B2B buyers use mobile while working? Over the past few years, 70% of B2B buyers increased mobile use significantly.
- Get Featured On Guest Blogs to Extend Reach Find non-competitor blogs in your industry to write guest posts for. Doing so can potentially drive more leads to your website. Your post should be long-form and high-value to entice readers to check out your blog and site. This gives you the chance to connect with leads you otherwise wouldn’t have.
- Build a Chatbot for Your Website to Engage Visitors Chatbots are widely accepted by B2B buyers, especially when they’re helpful. And according to Drift, 27% of American adults are ready to buy through a chatbot. This is why 28% of leading companies use chatbots for marketing.
- Write Whitepapers to Showcase Product Benefits Create whitepapers to showcase how your product or service can resolve their problems. Listing all the benefits and discussing real-world results will get more leads trusting your brand.
- Attend Online Events to Expand Network With the pandemic locking down cities and preventing live events, more brands are hosting online events. You can take advantage of this by attending these events and networking with attendees. Focus on events within your industry so they’ll attract your target customers.
- Host Your Own Webinars to Attract Leads At the end, you can ask attendees to convert into customers. Either way, you have information on all of your attendees, which you can use to nurture those that don’t convert.
- Host Live Video Events for Better Engagement You can turn these into Q&A sessions, expert interviews, or product demos. Consider repurposing the video into social media posts and blog content.
- Create SlideShare Presentations to Demonstrate Expertise Another way to establish your brand as an expert is to create SlideShare presentations. B2B buyers regularly view these, especially when they contain information and stats. Consider turning information from your webinars and videos into presentations.
- Develop Fun Quizzes to Engage Leads Another way to engage prospective customers is to develop fun quizzes for them to take. Of course, the quiz content should be relevant to the customer and industry. For example, you can have a quiz asking questions to see how well they’re growing, marketing, or operating their business. The results could be helpful in coming up with content and product/service ideas.
- Build a B2B Podcast to Target Audio Lovers The key to being high-value is to offer great information, but in an entertaining way. Focus on interviewing industry experts and creating conversations that carry over to other channels, such as social media.
- Add CTAs in Your Podcasts to Grow Leads You’re having great conversations on your B2B podcast. What can you do to turn more of your listeners into leads?
- Be a Guest On Other Podcasts to Expand Reach One way to grow your listeners is to tap into other podcasts’ audiences. Make sure to share the link to the episode on your social media accounts.
- Create Infographics for Your Audience to Share Visual content performs exceptionally well. In fact, over 40% of marketers say original infographics are the best-performing visual content. There are various tools you can use to create infographics. Or you can work with an expert to create them for you. The idea is to create infographics that contain survey results, steps in a process, or other informative/educational content your audience will use and share. You may even get backlinks to it from blog posts that feature them.
- Ask Your Customers for Reviews for UGC UGC (user-generated content) is another form of social proof. This includes online reviews, testimonials, and customer story videos. If there’s anything we know about customer reviews, it’s that they help leads make buying decisions. By asking customers for reviews, you can gather social proof to add to your content, such as emails, blog posts, and social media.
- Ask Your Best Customers for Referrals Wouldn’t it be nice if you could duplicate your best accounts? There’s an opportunity to do so by asking these customers for referrals. Chances are they’ll know one or more prospects who would make great opportunities for your business. Try offering incentives to get more customers giving referrals. For example, a free month off a subscription or discount on their next purchase in exchange for 3 referrals.
- Offer a Free Consultation to Build Trust Some B2B buyers are wary about hiring a service provider without knowing if they’ll get results. To build trust, you can offer a free consultation. Consider using a simple booking tool to make it easy for leads to schedule a call with you and your team.
- Create a Free Interactive Tool to Engage Visitors You can consider interactive tools as another
lead magnet. Just make sure to gate it, so leads will have to insert their information to access the tool. - Offer a Free Trial to Create Interest Another way to build trust with prospects is to offer free trial versions of your product. You can either provide full access to see why they should opt for a paid or higher-tier version. Or you can only allow them limited access to entice them to upgrade.
- Create a Buyer Converter Product A buyer convert product is a smaller tier product or service that’s cheaper and less comprehensive than your staple products. The purpose of these is to build
relationships with your customers and potentially get them to upgrade to higher-tier products. An example would be a low-ticket product for $5/mo compared to your $75/mo product. - Give Special Offers to Create Exclusivity People love feeling special, so why not offer leads a VIP deal? Exclusivity is a powerful driver of conversion, but only if the offer is enticing. For example, you can offer a discount for a yearly subscription. Or an inside look of a new product, delivered to their front door. Being the first to use something new creates interest and can build visibility if you allow them to create a blog, podcast, or video about it.
- Optimize Your Opt-In Popup Forms to Improve Conversions If you’re not getting as many signups for your newsletter, then it could be an issue with your opt-in form. The shorter your forms, the more likely people are to use them. Focus on name, company, and email.
- Split Test Lead Magnet Offers to See What Works If you’re still struggling to get visitors to sign up for your email newsletter, then maybe it’s your lead magnet. You should test different downloadables to see which performs the best. Perhaps a checklist won’t do well, but a step-by-step guide will. Another option is to beef up your offer with several downloads bundled into one. An eBook guide, to-do list, and a workbook. Note that actionable content is high-value to B2B audiences.
- Segment Your Lead Magnet Campaigns The lead magnet that entices one group will likely differ from other groups you target. It’s vital to create lead magnets based on the segment you’re targeting.
- Turn Out-of-Stocks Into Opportunities It can turn into an opportunity to capture leads. This does two things– it captures leads and boosts sales by getting visitors to return to buy as soon as it becomes available.
- Personalize Email Campaigns to Drive Leads Using lead insights and lead scoring helps identify who to target, when to target them, and with what content. By creating email campaigns around these triggers, you can create personalized experiences that convert. Sending an email with an offer after a lead views a product page.
- Conduct Surveys with Leads and Customers The more you learn about your audience, the better you’ll become at marketing to and converting them. You can do this by segmenting your surveys based on topic, so they’re highly targeted.
- Build a Network On LinkedIn And this couldn’t be any more true in the B2B industry. LinkedIn enables businesses to easily build a network of industry professionals within their market or niche.
- Conduct Regular Website Audits to Improve SEO When’s the last time you performed an SEO audit for your website? It’s common for businesses to treat their website like a set it and forget it deal. Leaving your website to collect virtual dust will only hurt your inbound marketing strategy. Not only does it become outdated over time, it can also hurt its ranking when you don’t continue to optimize it. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, so it’s critical to maintain a properly optimized site, or your ranking will suffer. SEO is vital to getting more organic traffic to your website. This is important because organic leads have a higher chance of converting because they are looking for what you offer.
- Partner with Influencers to Grow Visibility The role of an influencer is to generate views, engagement, and followers. This is their currency for getting business deals with companies like yours. They do this by creating content their audience gravitates to. In the B2C industry, this may be doing product unboxings, doing tutorials, and offering tips. You can take advantage of their hard work by partnering with them. In an influencer relationship, you pay them to create content that promotes your brand or product/service. The idea is to choose influencers in your niche so their followers are likely to check out your website and maybe even convert. You can provide a discount code to track how many conversions your influencers generate.
- Get Rid of Broken Links Over the years, pages are removed or relocated to a new URL. If you fail to change the links pointing to these pages, then you’ll potentially send qualified leads to a broken page. These 404 pages hurt your SEO and frustrate visitors. It also damages your reputation and user experience. You can use tools and services to find broken links and pages so you can replace them quickly.
- Send Corporate Gifts to Prospective Customers Receiving a gift from a brand can make a great first impression of that company. Taking the time to choose, personalize, and ship an item speaks volumes of the business. And it’ll make a lasting impression in the minds of prospects. This is what makes corporate gifting excellent for lead generation. You can use virtual gifts like gift cards or physical gifts like baskets to entice prospects to contact your business. For example, if you learn a client enjoys a particular wine, you can send a basket of it with a hand-written note. Then the next time you reach out via email, you can ask about their gift and whether they ‘d like to schedule a demo. There are corporate gifting platforms like Sendoso you can use to monitor your gifts from concept to reception.
- Build an Online Community Using Groups And one of the best ways to do this is to create a community. Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to create groups. Use these to create start conversations with your target audience. Focus on bring value, not promoting your brand or products.
- Answer Questions On Quora to Build Leads Quora is a resource people use to learn about various topics. You can use it as a tool to position your brand as an industry leader. Create an account on the platform and then answer questions relevant to your niche.
- Host a Contest or Giveaway to Generate Buzz Have a new product or service launching soon? Then offer a contest or giveaway to give a lucky winner free access when or before it hits the market. The contest can be something like sharing a story or creating a post with a snapshot or video of them doing something, then the people vote. Try to make it relevant to your audience and industry, so folks are more likely to participate.
- Offer a Freemium Option to Hook New Customers Another way to generate leads is to use freemiums. This is an alternative to free trials, but this option lasts longer. Free versions of a tool never end, like with a 2-week trial. This is a great lead-gen solution SaaS companies use. You’re capturing leads this way, so use their contact details to entice users to upgrade to your paid subscriptions.
Other B2B marketers using blogging are 67% more leads than those that don’t. Consider using a simple booking tool to make it easy for leads to schedule a call with you and your team. Using lead insights and lead scoring helps identify who to target, when to target them, and with what content. Another way to generate leads is to use freemiums. You’re capturing leads this way, so use their contact details to entice users to upgrade to your paid subscriptions.