The growth of the business may take time, as it is not a single day’s work. However, one of the essential aspects of enhancing business is having a steady flow of sales leads.
Several small business owners are continually searching for ways to enhance their customer base.
A lead is a person or a company if you own a business that sells to other companies (B2B). A potential leader should be interested in the goods and services you provide.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation connects the audience and converts them into people who show interest in your business’s products and services. Some lead generator examples include blog posts, live events, online content, coupons, and job applications.
B2B lead generation
An effective B2B lead generation strategy works based on data. You should have correct information about your business to make well-informed decisions that enhance the chances of success.
Using proper metrics lets you focus on objectives that significantly impact your business. They work as a guide to assist you in deciding where to allocate your energy, time, and resources.
B2B lead generation metrics
1. Conversion rate (CR) calculates the rate at which the user performs an intended action. It is calculated by dividing the total number of leads by the total number of conversions.
2. Click-through rate (CTR) – It tracks the performance of a call to action. It is calculated by the total number of clicks and views and is expressed in percentage.
3. Media efficiency ratio (MER) – It is done to calculate the financial return from offline or traditional campaigns. It is calculated by dividing the total amount of revenue by the total cost allocated to the campaign.
4. Cost per impression (CPM) – CPM denotes to cost per 1000 impressions. It is used to calculate the price of broadcast advertising channels, including radio, online, and television.
5. Sales qualified leads (SQLS) – SQLs are prospective customers that are qualified and researched for both sales and marketing teams. Qualifying criteria make use of lead scoring systems that judge readiness to buy based on behavior and demographics.
Why do you need to generate a lead?
When a non-familiar audience comes in contact with your business by showing genuine interest, the stranger audience’s transition to consumers is much more natural.
Lead generation comes under the second stage of inbound marketing methodology. The process happens when you have connected to the stranger and are prepared to turn those audiences into leads. Then the sales teams handle those leads.
How to build a robust marketing funnel that generates leads?
It took a lot of work to understand the marketing funnel initially. But building a marketing funnel is one of the best ways to generate leads. We have simplified the process in 4 steps.
Step 1: Choose a funnel stage to start with
The first step is simple. It entirely depends on the position of your business. Let’s understand based on two cases:
#1- If your business generates leads, you must focus on the bottom of the funnel and work your way up to get the funnel’s top position. This way enables you to improve the revenue amount.
#2- If the business has no steady stream of customers, you need to work from the funnel’s top and start going your way down the funnel as you get leads and an audience. It will allow you to get more traffic to whom you can sell your services and products.
Step 2: Choose at least one tactic for each stage of the funnel
You need to pick one or two tactics and concentrate on that only. You can start noticing better results from a few correctly implemented tactics.
Step 3: Make content for each tactic
When you are done picking the tactics, you can create the content you will need to execute those tactics. Straightforward and eliminating content will work well. You need to work on specific things you require to get your tactics going.
Step 4: Connect and Create continuity.
Now you have worked and implemented tactics for a couple of stages, you can directly connect and build continuity between each funnel stage.
It includes almost everything you can do to help move audiences from one stage to another. The implementation process is easier than it sounds.
How do I generate leads?
Are you searching for an answer to generating leads for any business?
Suppose you plan to purchase leads or create your lead generation marketing plan. So, in that case, you must have a lead generation strategy with you to help your organization turn strangers into long-term customers.
Here are the seven B2B lead generation strategies:
- Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads
Are you searching for how to use LinkedIn to get sales leads? LinkedIn is an effective B2B lead generation platform, and businesses can bring profitable results from it.
You might have yet to learn of the fact that the users of LinkedIn have 2x buying potential than your regular audience.
One great B2B lead generation process is connecting with the relevant industry leaders.
If you have a proper budget, you can use LinkedIn as a tool for social media advertisements. You may have the option to pay for lead-generation advertisement that involves forms directly within your ads.
- Direct Engagement
If your business offers a high-value product that requires monthly subscriptions, directing with a potential audience is the best approach to generating leads.
If your business runs on low-value and high-volume sales, recommended to consider connecting with potential customers using social media, email, phone calls, or even personally.
- Referrals from the current audience
It is one of the oldest yet practical B2B lead generation technics. If your customers have submitted positive feedback regarding your products or service, you can ask them to share their personal experiences with their relatives and friends.
If the quality of your service is good enough, costumes may do it for free. Otherwise, you can create an incentive system. For example, you can give a certain amount of their upcoming retainer fee for each client they refer to.
It is an excellent method to gain more leads for your company because it is profitable, and your current consumers are advertising it.
- Retarget or advertise
There are many ways to advertise other than social media. You can use targeted PPC (Pay per click) advertising on search engine platforms like Google and Bing. This strategy will serve ads to the audience already searching for the relevant service your business provides.
Suppose you are a financial advisor and want to improve your presence in New York. You can create ads that target phrases such as “Best Financial Advisor in New York” or “Best financial advisor near me.”
Digital advertising is time-consuming, but it can be one of the most effective methods to improve your firm’s lead generation.
- Do SEO
SEO is a must if you want your name to come on the first page of Google when your target audience searches for your product or service online. For that, you need to learn how to do lead generation for your business using SEO and SEM.
You can begin with keyword research to recognize what phrases your target audience searches before buying a product or service. You can make use of several keyword research tools.
When you have done keyword research, then it’s time to optimize the content. If your service or product is highly competitive, you might need help getting ranked on Google. You can take assistance from an SEO Company too.
- Do Guest Posts
Guest blogs are the best method to generate leads through content marketing. Along with that, it can also increase your SEO at the same time.
Advantages of Guest Blogging
- Creates new connections in the industry.
- It helps to improve your SEO structure by getting valuable and industry-related backlinks.
- You can generate referral traffic from a relevant audience.
Suppose you have a content marketing agency. Then you can write content for the email marketing agency. It will be very beneficial for you to find the domains for guest posting relevant to your industry but don’t directly compete with your firm.
Guest posting helps your business align with local SEO practices. For example, writing a guest blog and getting backlinks from a popular domain in your industry will help your site rank more easily.
- Answer the Questions in related niche forums.
If you want to prove your subject matter expertise, there is no better option than answering queries on forums. Strategic plans can help you get the leads in a short time.
Public forums are platforms to help each other. That means you will get more recognition and leads if you are helping someone with their issue.
The best platforms to get leads through forums are Reddit and Quora. You will find tons of categories that are related to your industry. Now, start responding to public queries and try to solve their problems. Remember to include CTA to use your service to help solve the problem of users.
Answering questions on forums is the best example of how you can generate leads for new business. Also, it can be beneficial for SEO.
How to use social media to generate leads?
More than 50% of internet users use social media. The data is essential for lead generation as social media’s daily usage provides massive amounts of data to the platforms.
Lead generation using Facebook
- One effective way to Facebook business lead generation is to send landing pages to people for lead generation offers.
- Otherwise, you can create blog posts that generate leads and upload those on Facebook. You can also generate leads by using the Facebook conversion funnel.
- You can also attach links to landing pages in image captions. Facebook posts and images get 2.3x more engagement than those without images.
Lead generation using LinkedIn
- You can create a digital story of your commercial within 30-seconds and add the text to your profile
- Connect with the industry leaders on LinkedIn to generate more leads.
- You need to follow your current clients and potential customers for lead generation.
Lead generation using Twitter
- Twitter has lead gen cards that let you generate leads directly within a tweet without leaving a site.
