Do you want to generate more business-to-business (B2B) leads? If so, you’re not alone—business owners worldwide focus on appeasing both business-to-consumer (B2C) and B2B customers.
There are two fairly common misconceptions about these two aspects of marketing. First, many people think that B2C and B2B leads are virtually identical, which means that they don’t have to adjust their strategy to get more business leads.
The second theory is that B2C and B2B are nothing alike, which leads to marketers trying wildly different strategies and getting lackluster results.
In reality, B2C and B2B have many things in common, but also some differences. You need to take different approaches to the way you reach these customers. However, you’re still selling to a person, so certain aspects of consumer marketing are necessary for a successful B2B campaign.
Today, we are going to look at 4 practical ways you can generate more B2B leads for your business.
Define Your Audience
Before you can generate more B2B leads, you need to identify your audience. Some brands only work with other businesses, while others work with companies and individual consumers. Understanding the difference between these two groups can help you make smarter marketing decisions in the future.
For instance, if your goal is to attract consumers and businesses to your website, you need to think about how companies can benefit from your product or service. Do you pride yourself on offering wholesale pricing to B2B leads that buy in bulk? Or, do you offer unique products not available to individual consumers?
Understanding your audience, and more importantly, what they expect from your brand can help generate new B2B leads. You can define your audience by reviewing past site analytics, checking social media feedback, and reviewing feedback forms. All of these routes provide information on your B2B and B2C visitors.
Segment Leads at Point of Signup
Lead segmenting is an effective way to implement personalization, which leads to more leads, sales, and conversions. Essentially, businesses segment their audience by their interests, pain points, and goals.
If you’ve done your homework and researched your target audience, you likely know your customer segments. Let’s say you have an online pet store. You want to offer pet food in bulk to small businesses, but have single bags for retail purchase.
These two groups are different segments of the same market. You wouldn’t want to send a buy one, get one free offer on a single bag of food to your B2B leads, right?
Segmenting your leads can double your click-through rate because it contains information that’s relevant to users. You can ask new subscribers to confirm their intent by asking if they are there for a business or household. Once you have your answer, you can put them on a list with relevant marketing material and content.
If you need more proof that this strategy can generate leads, consider this: there’s evidence that shows segmenting campaigns can boost revenue by a breathtaking 760%.
Create a Sense of Urgency
Next, let’s talk about a specific marketing strategy that will help you generate more leads. Fear of missing out, also known as FOMO, is a technique where business owners create a sense of urgency to get consumers to subscribe or buy a product.
We know that 60% of people make purchasing decisions due to FOMO, so adding this strategy to your marketing toolbelt can drastically improve B2B and B2C sales.
The best way to build urgency is to create limited-time offers and event registrations. For instance, if you’re an email SaaS and offer 50% off your annual plan, but only for a few days, you will see more sales and generate more leads.
B2B prospects on the fence are likely to accept your offer if they feel like they are getting a good deal. Paying half always looks more appealing to an undecided consumer.
You can show FOMO ads on social media, through email, and on your website. All marketing channels can benefit from an occasional FOMO campaign, especially if you want to generate more business leads.
Use Retargeting
Retargeting is a marketing strategy used to reach B2C and B2B consumers. Let’s say someone lands on your site, adds items to their cart, but don’t complete the order process. This action is known as cart abandonment.
People can abandon their cart for a number of reasons, including added extra fees, poor UX, or they simply got distracted. You can convert these people into customers by using retargeting on social media and through email.
Ads will pop up, showing people the item they abandoned, and you can choose to offer a discount if they come back and complete their order. While you may not see fast sales, mainly because B2B transactions require more conversation than retail customers.
But you can bet that the person representing this company will subscribe to your list so you can talk more about the options available for their business. Even if you only convert 20% of these prospects into sales, that’s far more sales than you would have if you let everyone leave without retargeting.
Back to You
The key to generating more leads for your business is simple: show customers the value in your brand before they ever pull out their credit card. Consumers and business leaders alike are looking for companies that can consistently add value to their lives.
Offering great content and reaching your audience with relevant offers is a great way to start. Spend time getting to know companies that use your product and find out what you’re doing right, and where you can improve. As you make changes to cater to business customers, you’ll start to see more curious leads funnel to your list.
If your product or service is lackluster, it’s unlikely that you’ll secure a sale. The best thing you can possibly do to keep your leads after they’ve subscribed is to offer a product that exceeds their expectations. Using the tips mentioned above, you will have an easier time reaching your target audience and securing B2B leads.
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