TIPSHEET
Ideas for B2B Lead Generation
IDEAS FOR B2B LEAD GENERATION
Sales leads have always been a high priority in B2B marketing,
and while there is no doubt that generating leads can be
challenging, the ability to provide qualified opportunities to your
direct and channel sales force, is one of the highest ROI
marketing activities you can undertake. The abundance of
information available online has changed the traditional buying
process, and marketers need to find new ways to reach
prospective customers. This tip sheet discusses some of the most
effective modern approaches that have been shown to generate
high quality B2B leads for companies in the technology sector.
CREATE ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY AROUND CONTENT
Product information is no longer a scarce
resource, a result of which has made the ability
for B2B marketers to generate a stream of
qualified leads a lot less straight-forward. The
growth of the internet and the subsequent
increase of readily available information has
served to diminish traditional lead gen
approaches, i.e. bingo cards, which enabled
readers of tech publications to request more in-
depth product information to that identified in
specific articles. While marketers may have
adopted modern approaches to lead generation,
there is still an opportunity to consider
traditional approaches, for instance by creating
an artificial scarcity around additional content,
giving readers the opportunity to request more
detailed expertise on technology or market
intelligence, by putting the content behind a
registration wall. If potential customers see
value in the content made freely available on
your website, they will happily give up their
content details to get further information.
DON’T RELY ON ONE TYPE OF CONTENT
There is no one type of content that you should
use to generate B2B leads – in fact we
recommend to our clients that they use several
types. The key to making any campaign effective
is to deliver materials that offer the readers true
value, give help that goes well beyond making it
easier for the customer to use your product and
service, and that isn’t just promotional material
dressed up as a whitepaper. The most effective
– and easiest to generate – content includes
white papers, technical guides, technical &
customer videos, webinars and screencasts.
Additionally, you should consider using content
from other sources, for instance in some
technology industries, analyst reports are highly
valued, and a customised analyst report will
appear to be unbiased and independent.
OLD SCHOOL METHODS CAN STILL WORK
Whilst much of the recent talk about leads
focuses on the move from requesting printed
literature to finding content marketing
strategies that work in the 21st century, some
old school methods still work. Companies that
sell products and services direct from their
website can experiment with offers – this is
particularly effective when customers buy
development tools as the first step of an
evaluation or development process. Offering
promo items at trade shows can still generate
targeted leads – although today you’re likely see
competitions that allocate prizes based upon QR
codes, rather than business card draws. Reader
offers and competitions remain effective in
many industries, and in some cases even a low-
value prize can attract a significant number of
high-quality entries, provided that it is
something people want. Even telemarketing can
still be used as an effective B2B lead generation
tool.
LANDING PAGE OPTIMISATION
Any B2B website should be designed to optimise
prospect acquisition and nurturing. Having
good-quality, highly effective content is no good
if it cannot be easily located on the website. To
overcome this you should use customer-focused
navigation which targets your prospects needs
so that they can find exactly what they want to
know. While website optimisation has become
an obvious thing to consider, it can be all too
easy to lose track of older pages and outdated
offers on your website. Consider reviewing your
website every six months to determine which
pages and forms aren’t proving effective,
enabling you to turn around pages that aren’t
delivering on their potential value.
Despite the fact that customers may no longer
call companies or circle bingo cards to request
basic information, there are still many ways to
generate high-quality B2B leads. We
recommend that companies link the sales
generated to the source of the lead to identify
the most effective tactics. Campaigns should not
base metrics on a simple cost-per-lead analysis,
but on quality metrics to get a better view of the
value that the campaign delivers. Working
closely with an experienced agency such as
Napier will help you build campaigns that
deliver the best return on your marketing
investment.
t: +44 (0)1243 531123
f: +44 (0)1243 779070
w: www.napierb2b.com
Donnington Park
Birdham Road
Chichester
West Sussex
PO20 7DU
United Kingdom
Launched in 1984, Napier was one of the first agencies in
Europe to specialise in the electronics market,
subsequently expanding to help clients in a range of B2B
technology sectors. Initially a PR agency, Napier responded
to the clients’ need to manage information across every
element of the marketing mix by bringing together a team
of multi-talented and multi-lingual engineers, linguists and
technical journalists as well as PR and marketing
professionals.