When you’re in the business of providing fantastic products and services for other companies, you’re not marketing to just any set of customers.
You’re asking other business owners to trust you with the well-being of their companies, customers, and bottom lines.
A B2B digital marketing plan created with their unique needs and concerns in mind is critical.
You’ll also need a reliable way to generate and identify truly high-quality leads — leads that represent companies that are an ideal fit for what you offer.
Success-oriented B2B lead generation strategies can help you find these leads and turn them into happy paying customers.
Here are some examples to get you started.
2. Attract new leads with free content
B2B customers love to stay in the know and never pass up a golden opportunity to learn something valuable for free.
That makes high-value instructional options like ebooks, courses, and seminars great additions to B2B lead generation strategies.
Offering such content for free is a great way to snag email addresses and open the door to future communication with that person.
It’s also a solid way to build authority by offering an audience real value, not to mention subtly cluing them into how your products and services can help them.
3. Streamline your email campaigns with automation
If you’re like most B2B marketers, you don’t have all day to spend sending out individual emails to leads.
Automation not only saves you time but can really maximize the results you get out of your efforts.
Start by segmenting your email list and composing your email content upfront. Then decide which customer actions will trigger when, how, and to whom each email will go out.
Arrange for lead nurturing emails to go out to brand new signups, discounts to customers who are returning or need to be re-engaged, and so forth.
4. Boost authority with a Q&A page
Quality B2B leads who are serious about finding the right products for them will naturally have a lot of questions.
Standalone blog posts and choice emails are great ways to answer the most critical ones, but adding a Q&A page to your website is a great way to tackle several vital questions at once, including a few some leads may not have thought to ask.
Q&A-style blog posts also make great ways to show off your authority, boost search engine rankings, and encourage sharing.
Look to your customers for inspiration, as well as your customer care team or question-based websites like Quora.
Sometimes, the questions you need to answer aren’t the ones being sent to your inbox at all—they’re buried in forums, or cropping up in other companies’ comment sections. Taking a little extra time to observe conversations in spaces like industry-specific LinkedIn groups, or even Reddit threads, can surface pain points that don’t show up in formal feedback. You could pull insights from those backchannels and address them proactively, which feels a bit like mind-reading from the customer’s perspective—even if it’s just well-placed research.
It’s easy to assume you’ve already covered the basics, but you’ll be surprised how basic isn’t always… basic. For example, something as simple as a “How does your onboarding process actually work?” question can reveal a gap in your content. Filling those little knowledge potholes smoothes the journey for leads, and reminds people that you’re paying attention—probably more than your competitors are.
5. Step up your production of long-form content
Although quick content shots are great for catching people’s attention and making a splash on social media, it’s impossible to beat long-form content for making lasting impressions on leads.
Long-form posts are especially appealing to B2B consumers, as they’re more likely to dive deeply into the topic and tell them more of what they need to know to make an informed purchase decision.
When writing as part of your B2B lead generation strategies, shoot for an average content length of 1,500-2,000 words.
Not only do search engines like Google positively love content around this length, but that’s the length that statistically does the best on business-friendly content-sharing platforms like LinkedIn.
But here’s something a lot of people sidestep: actually updating your long-form content once it’s published. Markets shift, software screens change, so if you’re using screenshots or referencing, say, 2022 data (please—don’t), it’s worth setting a reminder every six months to come back and tweak specifics. Leads picking up on outdated examples aren’t going to be wowed. Sometimes just a fresh example or two keeps your authority feeling current, even if the bulk of your advice hasn’t changed much. Don’t overthink it, but don’t neglect it, either.
Personal stories or short, real examples sometimes land better than that 2,000-word treatise. You don’t need a novel—just something that feels tangible to your audience, maybe how a customer solved a common frustration or a metric you improved by adding (or dropping) a feature. And, if you missed something the first time, no big deal; people respond more to your willingness to update and improve than to perfection on the first try. Lead gen is about showing up, consistently.
6. Use insider insights to add value to newsletters
Newsletters are experiencing a real comeback these days, thanks to popular platforms like Substack.
They’re also great ways to stay in touch with leads, win their trust, and gently coax them toward a future purchase. But you really need to give people a good reason to welcome yet another newsletter into their inboxes.
Insider insights are highly valuable to B2B leads, and they’re the type of thing they know they can’t get just anywhere.
Fill your newsletter with credible inside info, and it won’t be long before your audience positively looks forward to your next issue.
7. Connect with leads via exit-intent pop-ups
Although you may occasionally have a visitor to your site decide to convert right away, many will leave without converting in favor of thinking things over a little longer.
And while you can’t do much to convince them to buy before they’re truly ready, you can encourage them to give you their contact information before they go.
Exit-intent pop-ups appear when visitors look like they’re about to click away from your site.
You can set your pop-ups to prompt the person for their email address if they’re brand new. Or, if they’ve been there before, you can also use pops-ups to reengage a lead by offering them a sweet deal on a product they were checking out.
8. Use social proof to sell your products
B2B consumers are pretty discriminating about new purchase decisions, so the more proof you can offer them that your products work, the better.
One of the best ways to show a lead your company is an intelligent choice is to let them see just how much good it’s done for other companies like theirs.
Add social proof like case studies and glowing testimonials from satisfied customers to your lead nurturing content to help nudge people who might be on the fence toward a purchase.
It will help them see themselves in the shoes of the customers you already have and want the same thing for themselves.
9. Engage your audience with quizzes
Interactive quizzes aren’t just great ways to engage everyday audiences. They’re a terrific way to attract and connect with potential B2B customers, as well.
The key is to make sure your quizzes are hyper-relevant to not only the individual customer but their industry.
Be creative, but focus on helping leads find answers to questions they may have about their business.
Offer free assessments that help leads determine whether their company or profits are growing quickly enough, how best to operate their business, etc.
Then use the results to get a better read on future content ideas, service upgrades, and more.
10. Create share-worthy infographics
Although B2B lead generation strategies will always rely heavily on written content, you don’t want to sleep on visual content, as it does exceptionally well.
In fact, more than 40 percent of digital marketers say their best-performing content pieces are actually original infographics.
Infographics offer audiences a lot of vital information at a glance. They’re also ideal for clarifying complicated concepts, as well as very easy to share.
The right infographic can earn a B2B business countless social media shares, valuable backlinks from authority sites, and numerous high-quality leads.
11. Work on your LinkedIn presence
A robust social media presence is a must for any digital-age B2B company, but you don’t want to stop at the biggies everyone uses, like Facebook and Twitter.
LinkedIn is the place to be if you want to connect with industry peers and generate B2B leads, so make sure your company commands an impressive presence there.
Compose, post, and share high-value content created with your target audience in mind.
Network with other content creators, work on building ongoing relationships, and learn from peers who are killing it on the platform.
Use the message function to build and maintain relationships with solid leads.
12. Maximize your reach with guest posts
Guest posting gives marketers in the B2B sector an incredible chance to expand their reach and attract highly convertible new leads by leveraging the reach of their peers.
Naturally, you don’t want to partner up with direct competitors, but you do want to pick content creators with audiences likely to be interested in your products.
For best results, create value-rich, long-form content that deeply explores topics your potential audience cares about.
Remember, the idea is to intrigue readers enough that they visit your website and check out what you have to offer.
13. Encourage user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is a potent form of social proof. It shows potential customers that not only do your customers love what you’re doing, but they love it enough to want to endorse it to the rest of the world.
Successful UGC can also add up to a small fortune in free advertising if you play your cards right.
So definitely consider incentivizing your customers to create and share UGC, such as reviews, video testimonials, personal stories, etc. Think contests, giveaways, special offers, and more.
Then leverage what your audience creates to add additional impact to your blog posts, social media channels, and more.
You may also be interested in these articles:
- How to Add B2B Content Syndication to Your Marketing Strategy
- Learn Everything You Need to Know About B2B Influencer Marketing
- 6 B2B and B2C Buyer Persona Examples You Can Use In Your Business
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Rising to the top of the B2B sector is all about understanding your audience and connecting with them via the right techniques.
That means not only attracting high-quality leads but knowing how to nurture them all the way to conversion and beyond.
