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If you’re in the B2B space, lead generation (“lead gen” for short) is the backbone of your business.
Without leads, you won’t land new customers. And without customers, where does your brand stand?
While your sales team rocks at cold calling and landing leads, a steady stream of inbound leads is crucial to a brand’s longevity.
Whether you’re just starting out with lead gen for your business or you want to amplify your efforts, I’ve created this definitive guide on lead gen.
I’m diving into lead magnets first because they are the foundation and hub of lead gen.
A lead magnet is a landing page that offers something of value so that your audience gives you their email address.
This can be a landing page for a downloadable eBook gated with a lead capture form or a webinar that your target audience signs up for.
Keep your target audience in mind when planning out your lead magnet. The goal is the capture email addresses of people who have an affinity for your brand.
The form on your lead magnet should be as short as possible to gain as many email addresses as possible. Here are the fields I recommend:
Influencers have an already engaged audience who is eager to hear about your product or services. Their recommendations are authentic and can easily cause action for your brand.
After your lead magnet is up and running, find influencers in your brand’s niche to promote it. I wrote a guide to influencer marketing and you can read it here.
Equip your influencers with a CTA so that their audience is directed to your lead magnet.
LinkedIn has awesome functionality when it comes to audience targeting. And you can run a lead gen campaign on their platform.
The best part? You don’t have to have a large budget to get started. You can even A/B a few CTAs.
Start by logging into your LinkedIn account and clicking “advertise.”
A menu will drop down, and you want to click on “assets” And then “lead gen forms”
You will then be prompted to enter in all the details about your lead gen campaign. You’ll start with form details.
After filling out your form details, you will move on to “Lead details & custom questions.” In this section, you will get to choose which fields you want in your lead gen form and you can even set custom questions.
Remember not to put too many fields, as I discussed earlier in this article.
The confirmation step is easy and self-explanatory, and the hidden fields I doubt you’ll have to use them as they require integrations with other platforms.
Once you have filled out all four sections, simply click “agree and create” in the bottom right corner of your screen.
People resonate with human interactions. So networking strategically with your target audience is a great way to generate high-quality leads.
When networking, don’t push your sales pitch too hard. Be friendly and ask about their own business, share yours and get their business card or email address so that you can keep the conversation going.
There are a few places you should consider networking:
Word-of-mouth recommendations are your best friend. Consumers prefer hearing about a brand from a peer rather than the brand itself.
Identify your happy customers and put them in a list, and create a campaign via your marketing automation platform. Email them and announce that you’re running a referral campaign and that if they recommend people to talk to sales, they’ll get a $20 Amazon gift card. If that person converts into a customer, they’ll get a $50 gift card. A little bit can go a long way, and the gift cards don’t drain the budget too much and you’ll score some juicy new leads.
Identify blogs and publications that your target audience reads. You can identify these opportunities with a Google search. Type in “niche” and “list of blogs” and “niche” and “list of publications.”
Once you’ve identified some places that you want to submit a post to, reach out and introduce yourself and tell them the topic of the article you want to place on their site.
Note that some publications will charge a fee, while others are happy to publish thought leadership content at no charge.
The point of your guest post is to provide thought leadership, and the most important thing to remember is to link to one of your lead magnets so that your guest posts lead your readers to something that converts them into a lead.
Once you’ve implemented the strategies I’ve offered and you have a bunch of leads, it’s time to move them through the funnel. Implement email marketing campaigns to nurture your leads. (That is an entire topic we are going to post about next) Without a solid nurturing plan in place, your leads won’t convert.
Keep dripping content to educate your leads and engage with them.
Lead gen is a lot of work, but it should be your priority in 2023 to gain a competitive edge.
Do you have a lead gen tip from your own experience? I would love to read all about it in the comments below
Marketing.biz is your source for all marketing education and resources.