B2B Lead Generation: Powerful Ways to Attract Leads
With COVID-19 still a threat, more businesses are looking for ways to reach clients online. In fact, digital sales have grown by 18% year-over-year since COVID-19 hit. Meanwhile, traffic growth has increased by 13%.
As more businesses switch to digital marketing strategies, the landscape is becoming increasingly competitive. You need a strategy that will ensure you stand out.
With an online lead generation strategy B2B, you can reach more customers, boost traffic to your website, and increase sales. Without a B2B marketing strategy, however, you could lose sales. Your competitors will attract those clients instead.
Not sure where to start? Here are the tips you need to succeed this year! With these marketing tips, you can get the competitive advantage you need.
Don’t let COVID-19 slow you down this year. Develop an effective 2021 B2B marketing strategy with these tips today!
1. UX Web Design
Before you develop a full B2B marketing strategy, review your website. Your company website is one of the most effective tools you have at your disposal. With your website, you can:
- Educate your target audience
- Generate leads
- Make online sales
- Communicate your brand
- Establish your credibility
- Share your content
Without a fast, reliable website, however, you’ll fail to accomplish anything. In fact, a slow, outdated website could scare away customers.
Almost 90% of online shoppers won’t return to a site after a bad user experience. Meanwhile, bad mobile optimisation annoys nearly 50% of customers.
In some cases, your website can make the first impression between your brand and customers. Consumers form about 75% of their judgment regarding your credibility based on your website’s appearance alone.
User experience (UX) design can help you create a sleek, easy-to-use, fast website. By improving the user experience, you can keep people on your site longer. The longer they stay, the better for your clickthrough rate and dwell time.
Improving these metrics can boost your search engine ranking. As your ranking improves, you’ll reach even more potential customers.
You can improve your website by:
- Clearing away clutter
- Using negative space
- Organising the navigation bar simply
- Ensuring your website is fast
- Using mobile-optimisation
- Improving readability
You’ll use your website as a component of your overall increase B2B lead generation strategy. Make sure your call to actions are easy to click on. Keep your forms short and easy to use.
By adding lead generation opportunities throughout your website, you can generate leads and boost business.
2. SEO Blogging
How are you attracting people to your website? Consider working with a B2B lead generation agency that offers search engine optimisation (SEO).
SEO will help your website content rank higher on search engines. A higher ranking will position you ahead of competitors. Meanwhile, clients will see you as a credible resource in your industry.
In order to optimise your website for search engines, you’ll need to complete keyword research. Use tools like:
- SEMRush
- Ahrefs
- Google Trends
- Keyword Planner
What keywords do your clients use when looking for your business? Once you have a list of keywords, you can create content using these keywords.
Develop a content creation strategy to create SEO-optimised content for your website. These can include blogs, videos, ebooks, and more.
As you cover different topics, you’ll appear for more searches. SEO can help boost your digital presence and generate inbound leads. As people comment on your posts, engagement will rise, which can further improve your rankings.
Focus on the value you’re offering your readers. Then, offer downloadable content (eBooks, infographics, and other tools such as a savings calculator or a template for building a business case) in exchange for email sign-ups. Thought Leadership giveaways demonstrate your expertise and generate leads.
3. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing can help you connect with your customers online. It’s also an effective means of sharing your website content.
As part of your 2021 B2B marketing strategy, try dedicating more time to LinkedIn. LinkedIn can help you reach other professionals in your industry.
Social media can help you improve your digital presence. As people like and comment on your posts, you can also boost engagement. Expanding your presence and inspiring engagement can help you attract prospects and leads.
Use social media to direct people to your website. Add a strong call-to-action (CTA) to each post. Then, add links to specific landing pages to your posts.
Use social media to show companies you’re active. Don’t forget to join groups that are relevant to your industry, too. Spark conversations and make connections.
You could find guest blogging opportunities as you connect with other businesses. Guest blogging can help you reach a new audience of clients.
4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
The global digital advertising market increased from £115 billion in 2019 to £123 in 2020. In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, businesses are relying on methods like pay-per-click (PPC) to reach customers. PPC advertising allows you to create digital ads that will appear on:
- Websites on Google’s network
- Google search pages
You can use PPC to direct people to your website landing pages.
Use a strong CTA to compel consumers to complete a specific action. For example, you can direct them to call you, fill out a form, or book a demo. LinkedIn Ads is particularly helpful in B2B demand generation as it allows you to focus your marketing budget and efforts on a niche audience.
PPC advertising can become costly if you don’t know what you’re doing. Consider working with a B2B marketing London based agency to ensure you save time and money.
5. Automation
Look for B2B lead generation companies that offer automation services. Marketing automation can save you valuable time and help you generate leads.
For example, you can create an automated email marketing campaign. Automated emails sent based on triggers, such as buying signals can be very effective. Remarketing to people who have visited your website can attract them back and often lead to conversions.
Don’t forget to add a strong, eye-catching CTA button to your emails.
You can use automation to lead clients through the marketing funnel using personalised, targeted messages. Personalisation can help you connect with clients on an emotional level.
As you develop your B2B marketing strategy, make sure to keep your brand consistent. A consistent brand can boost awareness and recognition. Clients are more likely to choose a business that’s familiar.
You can use your brand across your website, email marketing, social media, and PPC ads.
Expand Your Reach: 5 B2B Lead Generation Strategies for 2021 Success
Don’t miss a chance to expand your reach and boost business this year! Instead, give these five B2B online lead generation strategies a try. With help from a B2B lead generation agency, you can get ahead of the competition in 2021 and keep your pipelines well fed.
Set yourself up for success this year with a strong 2021 B2B marketing strategy!
Need help improving your digital visibility and generating leads? Work with an experienced B2B lead generation agency London.
Contact us today to discuss your sales objectives and marketing strategies.
The market for Robotic Process Automation products in the UK
The market for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Software grew by 63.1% in 2018, Gartner reports. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is regarded as one of the fastest emerging technologies and there is a good reason why.
- Typical ROI on RPA products is within 3-6 months. And this is only that long for large,enterprise-level projects. If RPA products are applied to a small part of the process in a business function, the return is almost instant. For example, if RPA is used for collecting invoice information from an external portal and updating it in SAP, the savings in the time taken to process an invoice are instant.
- RPA products are less of a burden on IT staff in your business. It is a non-intrusive technology and doesn’t require you to rip-off your existing back-end systems or pay expensive development costs on top of it. RPA products work on the presentation layer and replicate what a human can do. That means IT does not need to custom code API’s to enable end–to–end automation of a process.
- It is your virtual workforce that works 24×7, 365 days in a year. No sick holidays, no breaks. RPA products are the best choice to automate large volume, highly mature, manual and repetitive workflows.
RPA products are being used heavily to automate compliance reporting for financial processes. However, that is not the only case of RPA products being used for automation in the UK.
Some other use cases include
- Matching of invoices
- Gathering information to enable recruiters to find the right candidate for their job
- Doing Competitive analysis by collecting information from different online portals
- Conducting KYC (Know your customer) validation by connecting information from various systems
There are RPA product specialists in the UK, who have developed products/solutions/services around specific use cases whereas others operate on a broader spectrum of business problems. How to take RPA products to the market remains a challenge.
Download the guide to
Develop a successful Go-to-Marketing Strategy for RPA and AI Products.
What is the most effective Go-to-Market for RPA products?
What is the most-effective marketing channel for selling RPA products in the UK – Social, website inbound leads, events, micro-events, PR, email, telemarketing, demo events or webinars? Where do you get the best return? Most product vendors also provide support to the resellers given they have marketing and sales resources that can win new business. Talk to us at Predictable Marketing and find out how we have helped several RPA product resellers in the UK to develop and implement an inbound go-to-market strategy.
Re-thinking your marketing strategy as the coronavirus hits businesses
Having already felt the direct impact of the coronavirus outbreak, businesses are having to make big decisions quickly. There are many concerns, mainly around the capital/ or the lack of it, falling sales, decisions put on hold and what could be done to maintain business as usual.
One of the significant concerns business leaders are facing is the re-allocation of budgets for the current and upcoming quarters. No doubt, the biggest chunks of marketing budgets are set aside for trade shows and events. With the realisation that all major trade events will now be cancelled/postponed for at least the next couple of months, shifting gears and marketing tactics is at the forefront of many minds. As we move towards lockdown, sales and marketing efforts will move to the virtual world, wherever possible.
Especially for the B2B sectors, digital marketing strategies will be at the forefront of demand generation. We strongly believe coronavirus will inevitably pass, and businesses will return to normal working before too long. However, utilising some simple marketing methods during this period of turmoil will only benefit your business in the long term.
So, what should businesses do next?
Review the current marketing strategy.
During these unexpected periods of doubt, it is wise for business owners to take a step back and assess how the business is functioning. Revisit sales targets taking into account changing customer situations, and align how marketing can support these goals. By assessing the current strategies in place, businesses can spend this time making improvements that may have previously been overlooked. For example, keeping your brand up to date with regular content and marketing material is essential to maintaining that sales pipeline as the focus can understandably drift from your brand when working for paying clients. Also, if your marketing investment is heavy on events and exhibitions, it is time to rethink and reallocate budgets to online marketing initiatives.
Consider the immediate needs of your customer .. and let them know you are there to help.
We always advocate putting needs of your customers first. Especially in these exceptional circumstances, we recommend engaging with existing customers, understanding their situations and needs and provide services that would help them through this crisis. Communicate clearly via digital media. How you can help – relook at your website messaging, email campaigns and especially social channels. There is a lot on everyone’s mind if you can give them one thing less to worry about, let them know how you can help.
Power up your Digital Marketing Channels.
Digital marketing becomes crucial as it’s the only way you can reach out to your customers. Do you have an inbound digital marketing program? If yes, it’s time to power it up, if not it’s not too late to start. Admittedly some of these methods do take time to bed in, hence why it is sensible to set these up now while your business has the chance. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the clearest example of this. Building up SEO content over time ensures your customer can find you when they are looking for a solution. Being prominent in your target market search areas is key to building a strong inbound sales pipeline.
In B2B marketing 80% of sales decisions are already made before the first sales touch via online research and review. Social media, online PR, webinars, google ads and email campaigns all channels have their place in a digital marketing strategy. We recommend choosing which channels you would get the best returns from wisely.
Further your marketing presence.
The best option to start this process is to extend and enhance your digital marketing arm. There are clear reasons why it is a sensible option in this climate. Firstly, digital marketing never stops. Whether working in an office or working from home, marketeers can deliver results continuously. The lack of need for face-to-face interaction means operations can be put into motion very quickly. The pressure on businesses to keep things moving during these unsettled periods means decisions must be made promptly. Digital marketing campaigns can be spelt out and put into immediate action, supporting sales teams in keeping communication channels open with existing and new customers.
Additionally, digital marketing is measurable. You can quickly obtain and provide clear breakdowns of statistics, see how your marketing is performing and optimise tactics for good ROI. Having this metric to validate businesses costs during such crises can boost support from investors and prove that the business is still moving forward.
We will all get through this
The bottom line is that this is an unprecedented event that has no timescale. Despite this uncertainty, it is not the time to retreat and back away from these challenges. It is time to reflect on your business and make changes to areas that have been neglected in the past. It is time to focus on keeping communication channels open with existing customers and prospects.
Marketing never stops and is key to keeping the business wheels turning. Adding or extending your businesses marketing arm now is essential to show your visibility in the industry you operate in and reassure your investors that you are reacting rather than retracting. We wish you the best and we hope you get through these tough times and come out at the other end with a bang!
How to keep your website on top of Google Search?
There is enough awareness today about the factors that affect website search rankings. In addition, tools like SEMRush, MOZ that are helpful in identifying technical issues such as page load speed, broken links and missing titles that might be negatively affecting your website ranking. B2B technology marketing has technical skills available within the organization to fix these issues. Also, technology marketing managers understand these factors enough to get external help to get these issues resolved.
Why SEO should be your A Game?
Search Engine Optimization is not a one-off task. Fixing technical SEO issues gives marketing managers a solid stage and then build upon and create content for their target audience. All technical SEO efforts ensure that your content and marketing assets are not wasted because of poor searchability and are visible to the intended audience. For all gym goers, the analogy is easy. You must put in extra effort initially to get your body in shape, but a regular exercise regime is important to sustain fitness.
Add value to your business by regularly maintaining Search Engine Ranking!
In the context of websites, this means creating valuable content. Regurgitating content with corporate wordage doesn’t count. You can manage to stuff keywords into a piece of content inspired by some other article or blog, and it might even pass the Google test, but it will fail miserably when your intended customer reads it. On the other hand, content written simply to provide insight into a common problem that your customers face will lead to dialogue between you and your prospects.
Know your Customers’ Search Patterns (Keyword Research)
It’s important to do your keyword research before you start spending time, effort and money on content. How does your intended audience search for? Ask your customers, search for questions they ask in meetings and see if the search results are relevant. Use keyword tools such as Google Keyword Planner or paid tools such as WordStream to get insights into search terms that are most relevant for your business. Incorporate these keywords into your content strategy. This will ensure that the content you create is searchable.
Businesses often mistake keyword research as a onetime exercise. I would be recommending verifying your search terms every three months for B2B/technology marketing and even quicker for local businesses. Some trades are specific and may not need to revisit keywords for a year such as “locally certified electrician”. A very few chances we will search that differently. On the other hand “business process automation use cases” was replaced by “intelligent process automation examples” in a short space of time.
Create valuable & effective content regularly (Create a content calendar)
It is easier said than done. I often get asked questions like how much content should I write, how many words should be in the blog, what should we write about? I have answered these questions below. However, the length and frequency of content might vary by industry. For example, for technology marketing, one insightful article a month, marketing new technology solution, could be effective whereas for a beauty therapist business or any impulse purchase category a post a day with latest offers would be a minimum requirement.
There is no escape – Content Writing!
I know content creation is not easy. You wouldn’t have time to write blogs and content writers might not necessarily understand your customer base to understand the problems they are facing and create valuable content. I have come around this problem by providing my customers a “scribble template” which they use when they are on a train or when an idea strikes on the golf course or a kid’s football practice session. It takes a couple of minutes for them to register their thought and share it with me. I receive all sorts of notes – a conversation they had with their customer, an idea discussed in a meeting, something they have read, something that they saw. Inspiration is all around us! This makes it possible for a content writer to create valuable content for prospects.
How much content should you write?
Google gives very high weightage to websites being updated regularly. So, the more content you create, the better. The cost and time to create is often a consideration but try out the model I have described above. Your content writer is like a therapist/counselor, essential for your business success. They keep the spirits high! Therefore, the length varies. Google measures the intent of the content and its effectiveness in answering your prospects search query. If you can answer that in 500 words that’s good but usually, explained content pieces like this one easily exceed 1500 words. Please don’t take this as a prescription. It is the quality that wins over quantity here!
What should be your content publishing platform?
Your own website and blog are the first place to start. But don’t stop there. Use your social media platforms to syndicate this content and identify all media channels your customers will be active on. You want to get your thought leadership in front of your prospective customers.
Monitor Website Performance monthly
You cannot improve what you cannot measure. Monitor the performance of your website using google analytics or any other tool you prefer. Understand where the traffic is coming from and which content is bringing them to your website. Your marketing strategy should be guided by the numbers you see here. For example – if you are creating campaigns around “Intelligence Process Automation” but your customer is searching for “how to automate claims processing using robotics” you might need to change the marketing message that appeals to your audience. As I said at the beginning of this blog, search engine optimization cannot be a one-off effort. Use insights like the above to create more relevant marketing content. You need to keep testing and changing course in line with customer behavior.
Publicize your Credentials (PR is important)
Link building is a dirty word in marketing. I believe in genuinely promoting the good work you have done in platforms where your intended audience is present. That will give your website the much talked about link juice without adopting any black hat activities. I have always stayed away from agencies who claim they can create twenty authority back links and improve your search ranks in a month and for technology marketing, even three months is a stretch.
Having said that any opportunity to promote your thought leadership, technical expertise, the good work you have done should not be missed.
Google ADS: a necessary evil
If you have recently noticed, the Google search results page has changed. Above the fold space (premium web real estate) is occupies by sponsored content. If this is going to continue, unfortunately, Google ads will become a necessary evil for monetizing your online presence. Especially for technology marketing, it is recommended that some percentage of your marketing budget is set aside for paid ads.
Local SEO for local businesses
If you are a local business, optimizing your local searchability might be all you need. Optimizing local search is topic for another discussion but in short, your local business page should be a mini reflection of your website with reviews from your customers and links to other local directories. I have also seen local search optimization work beautifully for technology marketing as well. If a technology company can offer localized offers it is easy to maintain a global presence and local appeal at the same time.
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