Get started with B2B lead generation and turn your visitors into leads
Joanne Marchington
5 minutes read
If there's one thing guaranteed to send a chill down the spine of any marketer when it comes to their B2B lead generation activities, it's the thought of cold calling.
There's a fine art to attracting people to your business. You want the relationship with potential customers to be as organic as possible, while still guiding them down the path to an eventual purchase. Increasingly, companies are recognising that their website should be used as a hub for B2B lead generation. Research shows that businesses with websites of 401 to 1,000 pages get six times more leads than those with 51 to 100 pages. Online lead generation is the way forward, so here are three key elements for success.
1) Use a range of channels
People discover your business through a variety of channels. It might be via your website, blog or social media activity, so the greater your online presence, the more likely people are to find you. On each channel, the content you promote should feature a specific call-to-action (CTA) that encourages visitors to find out more about a specific subject. The CTA could be an image, button, banner or message prompting an individual to take action.
2) Build an effective landing page
For effective B2B lead generation, each of your CTAs should direct visitors to a landing page. This is a page of your website that has a distinct purpose - to capture data. A popular choice is including a form that requires visitors to fill in particular details in exchange for an offer - a downloadable ebook or a webinar, for example. This form can consist of just two fields - name and email address - or ask for additional details such as phone number, company and sector.3) Create a compelling offer
You need to give visitors a good reason to provide their personal information - this is your offer. In order for it to be effective, the offer must be appealing and of obvious value to the visitor. You can use the text on your landing page to explain the benefits of your offer, but don't underestimate the power of a snappy title and attractive design as well.
Encourage your visitors to think of the process as an exchange of information that is mutually beneficial. Most people won't mind sharing some details if they're satisfied that what they'll receive in return is in some way valuable. For this reason, your content needs to speak directly to the pains and problems experienced by prospective customers. This is where the development of buyer personas will help you to develop truly compelling pieces of content that generate hundreds of leads.
Once this basic structure is in place, you can spend time refining your CTAs, landing pages and content offers to improve the quality of leads you generate. Keep working at it until your website becomes a well-oiled B2B lead generation machine.
Increase your website visitors and start generating sales ready leads today with our free and easy to use 'guide for maximising online lead generation'.
This blog was originally published in December 2014 and has been updated where possible for accuracy and comprehensiveness in June 2017.
