Unlocking the doorway to B2B success requires a strategic approach that goes beyond the surface. In our journey towards B2B excellence, we’ve meticulously crafted a comprehensive guide to navigate the intricate landscape of business-to-business interactions. But what’s the linchpin that ties it all together? The answer lies in a well-crafted B2B lead generation strategy.
Our content team at POLARIS, a leading content marketing agency, has meticulously pieced together insights and tactics to empower your business.
But if you’re curious about the roadmap to B2B success, then dive into our latest guide to B2B excellence, where we dissect the key elements for a winning online business.
In this article, instead, you’ll learn some of the most common B2B lead gen strategies, what you need to know if you’re a SaaS company looking to integrate a B2B SEO strategy and much more, so let’s dive in.
We’ll cover:
- The key demand generation tactics
- The important elements for B2B SaaS companies
- The best B2B lead generation strategies
- B2B v B2B
What is B2B Lead Generation?
B2B lead gen is a multifaceted process aimed at finding and developing potential buyers for your B2B company and nurturing them into loyal customers. Previously, we’ve explored the top tips for creating a successful B2B content marketing strategy, which might be a good place to start.
However, B2B lead gen is much more than that.
It begins by precisely defining the target audience. It then involves the creation and distribution of valuable content through strategies like SEO, social media, and content marketing.
This inbound approach attracts potential leads, while outbound strategies, including email marketing and cold calling, directly reach out to businesses fitting the ideal customer profile.
B2B lead generation is an ongoing and dynamic process that requires a combination of inbound and outbound strategies, effective communication, and a thorough understanding of the target audience’s needs and preferences.
Follow us as we address some key examples of B2B lead gen strategies to enable your business to bring in fresh regular leads, automate and streamline your lead generation process.
5 Examples of B2B Lead Gen Strategies
Explore 5 key examples of B2B lead generation strategies to help your business attract consistent, new leads and supercharge its growth. We’ll also discuss methods to automate and optimise your demand generation process.
1) Organic Social Media
It’s important to differentiate between organic social media engagement and paid social media advertising campaigns. With an organic social media strategy, you can leverage the power of social media networks, building ‘fans’ through regular curated content that speaks to your user’s needs and pain points.
By using organic social media, you can build brand awareness and image, create engagement, manage customer relationships, and use it as a PR tool when you have something new or positive to share with your audience. Many B2B businesses win new customers by building a compelling feed. We’ve gone into detail on social media strategies for B2B in our extensive guide to the best B2B social media strategies for growth.
2) Paid Social Media
The other side of the social media coin. Paid search encompasses the most well-known social media platforms. LinkedIn can be used to profile and target your target audience in granular detail. As the world’s largest professional network, there’s a very high chance your sales leads are on LinkedIn and use it regularly. LinkedIn allows businesses to market to very specific audience demographics, from interest and location to building look-a-like audiences based on your existing client list. You can also target advertising at specific job titles, allowing you to put your proposition in front of decision makers.
Once you know how to use Facebook for B2B marketing, it can be a useful tool, in fact 86% of B2B marketers use Facebook for content marketing campaigns, placing it 3rd in terms of popularity between LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter). Facebook can be utilised to share content, business updates and capture email addresses.
3) PPC and Retargeting
Pay per click (PPC) is the strategy of creating paid Google ads ─the initial results on a SERP with the small ‘ad’ mark next to them. You’ll need to get your ad copy right it must be punchy, and benefit-driven. Remember that there are character limitations to keep to. And the destination you take potential leads is as important as your compelling sales copy.
You’ll need to build a streamlined sales landing page that emphasises the benefits of your product or service, draws the eye to your conversion points and captures data well.
Google PPC campaigns are powered by keywords so always take your time building out your keyword list.
Retargeting campaigns use the power of Google and other social platforms to display your ads to users again if they didn’t take action the first time they saw it. In today’s internet, we’re all accustomed to ads ‘following us around’ from website to website and also within other platforms such as email, apps and messaging services. Retargeting is a powerful tool that keeps your firm’s solution front of mind.
4) Email Marketing
Email can be used to automate your sales pipeline. You can send out regular emails to your current subscribers, but email can be used in a few other useful ways.
You might buy an email contact list and effectively ‘cold’ email potential targeted prospects, this can be a way of building volume, but quality can sometimes suffer.
Or you can create an email series that you drip feed to email addresses you have been given by leads through your content marketing strategies, taking advantage of paid social media particularly. You can build an email series that introduces potential new leads to your business, reminds them of what they showed an interest in (your products and services) and gives them a new opportunity to get in touch, buy, or book a consultation call.
5) Thought Leadership Content
A key digital marketing strategy, and thought leadership content positions your brand as an expert in your field.
It is usually given away for free to demonstrate expert understanding of a subject in order to win the trust of potential customers and retain existing customers. It is the basis of a well-connected digital marketing strategy.
Thought leadership content can be found in blogs, whitepapers, infographics, social media and email series. It’s the hook you use to foster enquiries from your audience. Your audience will start by seeing your ad on the platform they’re using, navigate to your landing page which should be optimised with contact forms, read some thought leadership content linked to by internal link while weighing up whether to get in touch, and ultimately share their contact details.
Lead Generation for SAAS/ Tech Companies – What Matters Most?
SaaS (software as a service) platforms build software as a solution to other businesses’ needs to save them time, resources and money. Think Xero the accounting software, Dropbox the file-sharing solution and GitHub the open-source software company.
When it comes to lead generation, SaaS companies rely on a steady stream of new leads to counter churn ─ the process and rate at which customers, users or subscribers stop using a service. If a SaaS company sets its’ prices too high, overpromises on what it can deliver or has inadequate customer support systems they may face high levels of churn.
Healthy lead gen strategies aren’t going to stop churn from happening, but they can minimise its impact.
Best B2B Lead Gen Strategies
SaaS companies should consider the following:
- Answer user’s questions with chatbots – these handy AI tools allow users to get answers when you’re offline and can be utilised to call up helpful info you have on your website, instead of taking time and attention away from your team. Machine learning can also help develop new answers to common questions over time and help you understand your customer’s needs
- Referral programme – it’s likely your customers know other businesses in their field. Using old school word-of-mouth marketing your network can grow thanks to positive testimonials from your clients. Referral programmes offer your users discounts or freebies every time they send new business your way, incentivising them to spread the good word
- Improved user experience – also known as UX, SaaS companies should utilise their internal knowledge and customer feedback to create streamlined customer journeys through improved user experience. This can be as simple as improving a landing page by altering a call to action, or reformatting your products so they’re easier to use and more intuitive
B2B vs B2C Strategies
We’ve covered some of the best strategies for B2B companies to generate growth. As you’ll know the key difference between B2B and B2C companies is audience.
B2C companies may find their audiences on different platforms than B2B companies, but not always. As we’ve mentioned, B2B companies use Facebook as a lead gen tool and so do B2C companies. However, it’s unlikely that you’ll see many B2C companies blowing their ad budgets on LinkedIn.
If you look at the buying process for both types of business, B2B has a much longer and more involved buying process than B2C, so B2B businesses need to be more patient with lead gen strategies. However, B2B businesses require a lower level of high quality, high value leads to keep growing, and B2C companies need to attract greater numbers of lower value customers to grow.
One of London’s Leading B2B Lead Generation Companies
As one of London’s leading SEO agencies, we partner with visionary business owners and passionate marketing professionals who are driven and clear on the search marketing goals they want us to help them achieve through B2B lead gen SEO initiatives & campaigns.
We work with you to optimise your communication strategies, ensuring they are effectively present across various online platforms and locations. Our focus is on reaching specific users who will appreciate the value of engaging with your demand generation proposition. Whether you’re an established brand or a newcomer, we can assist you in aligning your offerings with your target market, generating valuable leads over time.
B2B Lead Generation Case Studies
With a 15-year operational history, we have collaborated with international industry leaders, as well as UK-based B2B SMEs. As a London-based SEO Agency, we handle diverse projects, from short-term objectives like website migrations for brands of all sizes to ongoing campaigns targeting demand generation and sales growth for businesses. Explore our lead generation case studies to gain insights into our expertise and learn how we can support you in generating B2B leads and achieving SEO success.
Liquidline – Inheriting the PPC & SEO account from a previous agency, POLARIS were drafted to overhaul Liquidline’s search engine marketing strategy to yield a higher return of leads for coffee machine sales within the business, and the results were impressive—a remarkable 276% increase in leads YoY.
Six Degrees Group – POLARIS partnered with Six Degrees Group, a leading IT and Cloud Security company, in 2022 to boost lead generation. Implementing targeted “quick win” strategies resulted in a substantial 190.8% increase in leads for ISO7001 and MSP on both brand sites. By profiling customers and understanding online search behaviours, POLARIS crafted a successful content strategy. The introduction of a lead magnet, such as a calculator or cyber audit report, played a pivotal role in achieving this impressive growth in lead generation.
Activate Lube Food Manufacturing – Activate Lube approached POLARIS’s expertise to boost its digital presence and market lubricants to UK food factories. POLARIS devised a strategy, approved by the client, and subsequently launched a successful SEO campaign. This was the first time the food safe lubrication company had embarked on an SEO strategy to increase leads into the business. Thorough research was conducted on the product range and identified target customer segments to effectively drive leads. The outcome was a significant 38% increase in leads for the business.
