B2B Demand Generation Strategies

Generating leads for B2B businesses is not easy. It’s even more difficult converting those leads into paying clients.  Some common issues I have come across are – you do not receive any inbound leads, or they are not relevant. More often than not, its competition spying on your work!

To generate leads and convert them into sales, you need to have B2B demand generation strategies in place. A word of warning –  Effective marketing strategies require time, effort, focus and investment initially, but they also offer a high rate of return.

What are some of the most effective B2B demand generation strategies?

1.     Creating a unique brand

Before you spend on lead generation, you must create a strong and unique brand identity. It needs to be compelling enough to attract customers and non-generic enough to be able to stand out from the rest of your competitors.

Keep in mind how and where you will use your branding. For example, create a logo that stands out in a social media stream of posts.

2.      Having the right technology and infrastructure

To effectively implement, monitor, and course-correct your B2B demand generation strategies, you need to have the right marketing tools and technology.

A sound marketing automation system can help tremendously in sales growth. HubSpot offers some excellent features and is a perfect tool to manage all marketing activities in one platform. Its advanced versions are expensive, but it will save your marketing team a lot of time and help create an integrated marketing campaign.

A sound CRM system helps improve customer relationships and allow you to interact with each customer in a personal way.  A CRM enables maintaining 360 records for a customer, which can help you determine which course of action to take when dealing with each client.

It also helps you better address the problems they’re facing. You can customise marketing messages to better align with their problems.

Another essential piece of technology that is a must-have for successful implementation B2B marketing strategies is a Content Management System (CMS).

Most small to medium businesses use WordPress or Joomla. These are open source and usually sufficient for features and functionalities required for a B2B website.

3.Targeting the right audience (Identifying your ideal client)

As a result of extensive research and review of your previous sales, you can determine what your typical buyer’s persona is. Marketing strategies are hugely successful if precisely targeted.

Knowing your ideal customers, their pain points, needs and buying habits can help you design a personalised approach to each of your prospective clients.

Email marketing has been cited as one of the most effective online marketing strategies by over 67% of businesses. But email strategy should walk your customer through their buyer’s journey and not be mistaken as “sending a one-off email to a purchased list of contacts”.  That’s just a recipe for disaster.

CRM and marketing automation tools help design and implement a thought through email marketing program. They have overlapping features in identifying promising prospects and sending them highly targeted emails.

4. Creating content for your buyer personas (Content marketing)

Content is still king!

Once you have a good idea of what your buyer’s needs are, what questions they might need answering, and what challenges they might be facing, you can move on to creating a good content management strategy that helps satisfy their queries and provides solutions to the problems they may be facing.

As the next step, make sure content reaches your audience. Blog posts, ghost blogging, social engagement, paid search and advertising campaigns on social media are some ways to ensure that your content is visible and read.

Some commonly talked about examples of successful content strategy include  – accounting firm Crowe Horwath who generated up to £25000 in revenue thanks to its effective content marketing strategies. Content marketing tactics used involved social media content such as infographic videos, blogs, articles, etc.

DemandBase, a marketing tech provider, has claimed to have generated over £1 million in revenue solely with content marketing.

Targeted content sharing is an excellent B2B demand generation strategy that can help incite interest in your product instantly.

While creating content, you should focus on making it easily accessible and understandable. Don’t load your blog posts with technical jargon and acronyms to make it sound smart. Break down concepts and structure your content in a simple, easy to understand and reader-friendly format. We at Predictable Marketing always try and pour our thoughts and learnings into blogs.

5.Hosting webinars

Webinars could be a great way for you to introduce your product to a diverse crowd and demonstrate its various unique features and advantages. It’s also a cost-effective way of getting face to face with your target audience.

If you haven’t run a webinar before, you could team up with another company or a social media influencer to co-host a webinar. You need to make sure that your audiences have shared interests.  Not only will this be learning from your experience, but also each other. Interaction with their peers and sharing similar experiences is precious for them.

Team up with partners to present. A conversational webinar is much more interesting than a monologue!

6.Use social media platforms effectively

Sharing your content on social media is one of the best ways to create a buzz about your product or services. Content shared on social media builds brand awareness and gets people talking about your services. It is also used to collect feedback and design strategies based on the feedback.

7. Ensuring you have a strong online presence

Your website is incredibly crucial for maximising visibility and helping potential clients get to know more about your product or services.

The first step in increasing web presence is making it easier for your target audience to find you. For that to happen, your website needs to be search engine optimised (SEO optimised). Search rankings can be improved by including targeted keywords related to your services that allow your audience to find you in their relevant search results.

Off-site SEO strategies such as – links to your website from other sources and guest articles are great ways for you to build a reputation and increase brand awareness.

8. Consider your customers “Value-in-use.”  

While you could blag about how good your product is and you have done this work

For 20 years, it still may not be enough to convince your customers of your worthiness.

To get your prospect interested in what you have to offer, you need to show them why they need it in the first place. The emphasis here should be on a particular problem that the client is facing due to the lack of said product/service.

Explain how the absence of the product can impact their business performance. By focusing on what the client is missing out on, you could proceed by explaining how exactly your product can solve this particular problem.

What makes a demand generation strategy successful?

The most crucial factor in making any marketing strategy work is to know your prospect. You can save yourself a lot of time and money by understanding who your ideal customer and what is their “value-in-use”.

You can win an instant vote of confidence by showing that you understand your customers’ problems. If you have followed the problem, there are chances you can resolve it.

A successful demand generation strategy is equal to the sum of knowing your customer+ right messaging + right timing. Marketing automation platforms help augment it.

Book our workshop to design your demand generation strategy today