6 Different Types of B2B Lead Generation Strategies

Organizations target potential customers through a variety of clever advertising and marketing channels. But, with so much competition around, grabbing attention and generating leads is anything but easy.

Chances are your business is already using some form of lead generation to introduce new customers. This could be through social media videos, paying for LinkedIn ads, email newsletter approaches or advertising campaigns.

Lead generation is likely to involve the collaboration of sales, marketing and business development teams. But your approach must be tailored to the organization, industry or service which you are targeting to create a lasting impact.

1. The power of B2B email marketing

There are close to 4 billion daily email users and, therefore, an enormous potential audience out there. However, commanding someone’s attention before you even begin to think about lead generation isn’t always straightforward.  

Sending out sales-led emails, nurture funnels or even newsletters is a useful way of generating leads – but the content must be relevant, engaging and contain a snappy subject line. 

Bombarding potential leads with emails rarely produces positive results. Potential customers may believe the emails to be suspicious if sent in quick succession so strategic timing and scheduling is key to avoiding emails being lost amongst other marketing emails. 

B2B email marketing is also heavily reliant on your list of contacts. Businesses that divide their audience into segments based on set criteria experience a dramatic increase in revenue.  

Mailchimp estimates businesses can see up to 88% more revenue when they target specific customers and those most likely to purchase a sale or use your service. 

Mailchimp’s user data backs up this theory with segmented campaigns achieving 14.31% more opens and 100.95% more clicks than campaigns with zero segmentation. 

Segmentation could be based on the following: 

  • Geography – separate your local contacts from those from a wider catchment area. 
  • B2B specific – you may work with and sell products to other businesses and different departments within those businesses. Sending the same email to all at once simply won’t work. Each organization, department and contact requires its own messaging for maximum impact. 
  • Content – delve into data about your contacts to understand which web pages they visited on your site, what they downloaded and what, if anything, they purchased. 
  • Behavior – learn about customer habits. How many pages of your site do they view on average? How long do they stay on a page? How often do they purchase items or products? 
  • Influence – who provides testimonials of your business? Who recommends your products to others? Who praises your service on social media and on which platforms? These people and organizations enhance your brand’s visibility and reputation, so send them an email to thank them for their support.  

Breaking contact lists down into smaller sections such as location, industry and company size will enable you to make your email messaging hyper-relevant and more direct. 

2. Social media

Social media has become a vital aspect of lead generation and any marketing strategy. It is a cost-effective resource and can fuel business growth. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and TikTok are examples of social media platforms that can all help with lead generation. 

Posting user-generated content can increase web traffic and bring in more leads. Essentially, even if you’re B2B, it is still possible to generate sales from B2C social channels. 

LinkedIn claims to be the largest professional network with more than 875 million members in more than 200 countries and territories. It is a great platform for generating high-value B2B leads through advertising campaigns. In fact, LinkedIn claims its audience has twice the buying power of the average web audience.  

The competition might be tough and cost-per-click is higher than other platforms, but the opportunity to hyper-target is extremely attractive. 

A recent study conducted by HubSpot found LinkedIn Ads convert users to leads at a 6.1% conversion rate compared to 2.5% with Google Search Ads. 

Examples of LinkedIn advertising products include: 

  • Matched Audiences – this advertising platform allows you to reach people you already know and target specific companies and contacts. 
  • Sponsored Content – to promote company updates in the LinkedIn feed across all electronic devices. Sponsored Content ads come in four formats – single image ads, video ads, carousel ads and event ads. 
  • Lead Gen Forms – when LinkedIn members click on your ad a form is populated, they can submit based on their profile data which generates more qualified leads and saves time. 

The best advertising results are achieved by businesses offering a premier B2B service or product or an education or training course that will benefit careers.

3. B2B content marketing

Nothing beats well-written content. By creating and sharing interesting and informative content with potential leads you can engage in a softer way than using hard sales language. Aim to enlighten and entertain rather than beat the drum about the product or service you are trying to sell. 

Use focused content alongside an SEO campaign to expand your business’s audience, develop brand affinity and gather leads by appealing to other businesses. Just remember, your content must be of use to the reader. If it does not relate to their work or business and they cannot identify benefits, your content marketing is destined to fail.  

Blogs, social media posts, and white papers are all examples of content marketing – but including a CTA (call-to-action) at the end of content encourages audiences to travel further into the sales funnel. 

4. Be smart with video 

Creating video content can generate B2B leads for your business, if used correctly.  

You can also ‘hide’ your prized content behind a gate which requires viewers to input details like an email address to access it. Alternatively, you could charge to access the video content and generate revenue in the process.  

For this to be successful all content must be on-brand and highly relevant to the potential customer. It has been an extremely successful and lucrative tool in the online learning industry. 

As with other content marketing strategies, be sure to include a CTA with your video to point viewers and potential leads in the direction of your sales team.

5. Free lead magnet offerings 

Offering a free, limited service or trial is a successful way to nurture potential customers, ideally when you are providing something valuable that a competitor will charge for. 

A good example of this is offering a free audit or test of a company’s website in exchange for signing up via a newsletter.  This is a way of introducing your service or software to customers and also gather feedback in regard to what people like / want to be improved. 

This has become a popular lead generation strategy due to that fact that it is a trusted way to provide customers with an experience the tool/service without influence. 

6. Webinars

Online webinars help businesses capture new audiences as part of a lead-generation strategy. Webinars should be used to engage and educate customers on the services you provide and build trust in your brand. 

Webinars should be approached in a way which is more informative than sales driven. Webinar presentations allow you to forge new relationships with potential clients before they have signed up for your service and also attract new leads without paying for advertising. 

Consider hosting a webinar and offering a product discount code. Inviting other companies who could benefit from your product or service to be guests on your webinar can also be beneficial in B2B lead generation. 

Stuck for B2B lead generation ideas?

At inside global we not only look after your B2B lead generation activity in the technology sector, but we also generate the right leads that are fully qualified as potential buyers. Our multi-channel approach blends tactics to ensure you are targeting the most effective platforms for you.