Lead Generation Tactics for B2B Organizations

B2B sales lead generation is not optional for any B2B sales organization: It is a requirement to generate new sales and survive. As such, every business that sells to other companies must know how to generate leads. However, this is not an easy proposition, and many companies know generating new customers has become increasingly challenging. B2B lead generation requires extensive time, money, and attention investment to get it right. Furthermore, your business’s nature can extensively complicate how you can get a B2B sales lead.

Fortunately, many tactics can help your business develop a B2B lead generation strategy that suits your needs, is customized for your industry, and has a time-honored tradition of success. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Customize & Personalize

Something along these lines has probably happened to you before: You get an email that begins: “Dear Customer! Have you heard the latest about our amazing service?”

There is a high chance this email is going to be deleted. Probably automatically.

Now, picture this: Instead, you get this email: “Dear James – It was wonderful to meet you last week. I hope you enjoyed the lunch as much as I did! I know we were discussing…”

Which of these emails are you more likely to read?

The truth is that all humans are more likely to respond to messages that are meant for them personally. Generic greetings are out – personalization is in.

A CRM can ensure that you use personalized names and have slots for other customized content based on an individual lead’s appropriate marketing pathway to reach you. You can then alter the emails and other content they get for you based on their interaction levels. This type of strategy enables you to create a more responsive, personalized pathway that adapts based on the lead’s behavior.

If you aren’t using a CRM with these capabilities, it may be time to consider adopting a new one and convincing your team to put more time and effort into its use.

Custom Landing Pages

Continuing with the importance of personalization, where you direct your leads matters. If there is a specific feature or value proposition you want to show them, instead of making a customer scroll through your homepage, link them to a landing page with relevant information based on the ad they click on or where they are in the buyer’s journey. Landing pages save time and hasten a customer’s speed through your sales pipeline.

Content That Matters

Content marketing isn’t just for B2C. When used properly, it can turn a B2B sales lead into a sale.

Content marketing involves creating informative and useful content for a lead or existing customer. A lead may stumble across this content on social media or find it while searching for the solution to a problem they need. This content can come in many forms, including blog posts, social media updates, white papers, pictures, videos, infographics, and more.

First, content marketing enables you to position your business as the expert in a particular problem, capable of generating real solutions to all your customers’ issues. If you appropriately calibrate your content marketing, you can also use it for SEO purposes, enabling you to attract more customers. Finally, you can gate some forms of content. Gating content means you hide high-value information — like white papers or other research — behind an email portal. A customer will then have to give you their email address before getting your content, enabling you to access critical customer data that you can use to connect with that customer.

Create Buyer Personas

Do you know your customers well enough that you could create them out of thin air?

Such an exercise is known as creating a buyer persona, and when used properly, it can allow you to get an in-depth understanding of who your customer is and how you can reach them. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer. You can create a buyer persona and use this information — combined with research from a marketing analytics firm — to develop a keen insight into your buyers.

From there, you’ll better grasp their personnel, marketing tactics, pain points, and motivations. All this information can allow you to create marketing materials that apply to them and specific sales strategies.

A/B Testing

Appropriate lead generation tactics often require A/B testing. The concept is relatively simple: You launch two identical ads to as identical audiences as possible, then see which ad is more successful at getting clicks and attention. A/B testing can be used with targeted and personalized marketing efforts, allowing you to better determine what B2B lead tactics work and which fail to meet the necessary metrics.