One of the biggest challenges faced by B2B marketers and business owners in 2021 is generating leads. But unfortunately, if you want your business to grow and reach its full potential, this is a hurdle you must overcome.
Thankfully, we have 5 helpful tips to help get your B2B business heading in the right direction.
#1 Make it evergreen
Who’d have thought Will Young would be giving out B2B marketing tips? Creating evergreen content will bring a range of timeless benefits for your business, including:
- Secure the top spots in the search engine results pages for key terms
- Drive more traffic to your website
- Always remain relevant to your target audience
- Generate more opportunities to generate leads and secure new business
#2 Learn to love LinkedIn
If you’re serious about generating more leads for your B2B business, you need to be on LinkedIn. Now home to more than 774 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking site – meaning there are a lot of opportunities to connect with relevant people and generate high-quality leads.
If you’re still not convinced, here are some stats that show exactly why LinkedIn is the most popular network among B2B marketers:
- Lead conversion rates are three times higher than other major ad platforms
- Visitor-to-lead conversion rate almost three times higher than other social networks
- 62% of B2B marketers who use LinkedIn for lead generation say it generates more than double the number of leads than the next best social channel
#3 Change begins at home(page)
Your website is the door to your business. Often the first point of contact, and for many, the last. But we’re here to change that. Check out the below tips to discover some of the ways you can optimise your B2B website to start turning that traffic into leads.
- Keep it simple – the art of simplicity is often undervalued, but in reality, keeping your website predictable could make a huge difference. With almost 80% of B2B consumers saying they want websites to be easy to navigate so they are able to find what they want efficiently and easily, when it comes to your site, think: simple is effective. If not, you risk losing a lot of leads to your competitors.
- Make it relevant – so you have the best offering in your market, great. But does your audience think that? If you’re simply writing about the features of your offering with no consideration to your target audience, the likely answer is no. If you’re serious about selling, you need to give people a reason to want to enquire. Think about how your offering brings value and benefits to them and then make this explicit in your copy. The key here is relevance.
- Be responsive – with more than half of all searches now occurring on a mobile device, if your website isn’t responsive, you risk losing a lot of leads.
- Have a CTA (clear call to action) – if you don’t ask, you don’t get. It really is that simple. Make the most of having your audiences’ attention by including a compelling CTA that motivates them to go from stranger to lead. If you fail to give a pointer as to what they should do next, the likelihood of them hanging around to find out for themselves is low.
#4 Referrals are a marketer’s best friend
Referrals have been crowned the top source of high-quality leads by B2B marketers. And they really are invaluable. However, many struggle to get referrals from their clients and so risk missing out on the benefits – don’t let that be you. If you are looking to get more referrals for your B2B business, check out some of our top tips below:
- Go above and beyond – if someone is pleased with your services, they are highly likely to share them with their colleagues and friends.
- Offer an incentive – I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine? But by no means should an incentive be confused with a bribe – they are two very different things.
- Ask – it may seem obvious, but having the courage to ask for a referral can often go a long way. Proving you offer a top class service to your client, they are unlikely to say no if you request a referral.
- Make it easy – if you want more referrals from your customers you first need to make it known you are interested in obtaining them and then make it as simple as possible for them to submit one. This can include anything from including a simple form on your website to adding a line to your email signature with details of how to submit.
#5 Embrace email marketing
If you focus on one channel for your B2B business, let it be email. Check out our interview with Joe Pulizzi for the Boss to Boss Podcast below to find out more, but in a nutshell: email is one of the few channels that gives you total control and allows you to communicate directly with the people that matter most to your business. It’s all about building and nurturing relationships with the people you want to do business with. Take the time to generate awareness, offer value and build your credibility and then, when the time comes to make a purchase, you will almost certainly be top of their list.
So there we have 5 tips to help boost your B2B leads. But it’s important to note that the B2B buyer journey is typically rather lengthy and involves numerous stakeholders, so don’t expect to see any big changes overnight. Patience is key. Ensure you are providing the right content for your target audience to help build those relationships and prove your worth. And if you’re looking for a helping hand with it all, why not contact us for a free consultation with one of our marketing experts?
