Did you know that up to 90 percent of online content receives absolutely no traffic from Google?
Don’t take my word for it—how many blog pieces have you come across with zero comments? Multiple, right? Connecting with potential customers and getting them to respond is clearly tougher than we think.
Yet, we know that potential B2B buyers go online to research business solutions. What can you do to convince these buyers to engage your brand further? How do you convert them into paying customers? Let’s cover some lead-generation strategies that may help bump up engagement.
1.Start By Identifying Your Real Target Customers
What are the odds you’ll capture your ideal audience’s attention if you’re targeting everyone?
You’ll probably not reach anyone
Your message needs to reach your target customers aka companies that can benefit from using your solutions. It’s only after you’ve nailed down your target market that you can build other digital strategies to capture their attention and inspire them to engage.
There are several considerations that go into identifying target markets including
- Identify your product’s value. Often B2B buyers are looking to cut overheads, maximize efficiency and productivity or drive growth. What core challenges do your solutions address?
- Analyze existing customers. Your existing customers play a major role in helping you identify market fits. Look up CRM and sales data to pinpoint similar characteristics in your most profitable customers.
- Research your competition. List down the brands you deem your top competitors and check out who they target. It will help you flesh out what customers are available in your industry. Are there gaps you can fill? Opportunities for a new market perhaps?
- Test for performance. With clear customer profiles and buyer personas, use A/B tests to check how the buyer personas respond to your messages. Which messages drive engagement?
2.Make Cold Calls
Most salespeople would describe cold calling as a combination of difficult conversations and rejections. It’s hard convincing a total stranger that you have an awesome product they need to hear about.
Understandably, there will be leads who don’t want to be contacted. But where your team is continually facing rejection, it may have something to do with cold-calling errors.
These errors may include
- You pitch rather than discuss. Getting into cold calls while in sell mode means you’ll probably have one-sided conversations that don’t yield much room for discussion. When your prospect doesn’t feel heard, the conversation won’t go on for long.
- Being overly familiar. There’s a difference between, “Hey Brian, how are you doing, and “Brian, my man, how’s it going?” The prospect may rack their mind trying to recall who you are, only to realize it’s a sales call and get angry at you.
- Hanging up when you hit voicemail. It robs you of the opportunity to leave a thoughtful message that just might see them pick up the next time you call. Use voicemail to introduce yourself and describe why you called in a brief but gripping way.
3.Get Social Proof
Every single day, B2B decision-makers are inundated with emails, online ads, and articles talking about the awesomeness of the products they are touting.
How can a buyer distinguish brands that offer quality and those that don’t?
Within marketing circles, social proof translates to, “Hey, we’ve used this product successfully.” Or “These guys mean business, you can trust them”
When you have customers, industry experts, or authoritative publications giving your brand the nod of approval, it helps reinforce your credibility. Prospects will most likely invest in your services with such backing.
Examples of proof you can use include
- Endorsements. When happy customers discuss your relationship, work process, and the results they have enjoyed it inspires trust in others. Similarly, thought leaders and other industry influencers can offer positive insights into your brand and contour your personality among target audiences.
- Numbers. This works best for companies that have existing customers and can derive statistics to display as opposed to new entrants. An example can be, ’78% of our customers now enjoy greater fiscal growth”
- Awards. Industry-relevant and verified awards are proof of expertise and competence. Splash your formal acknowledgments on every page that visitors access including your homepage, blogs, landing pages, and social pages.
4.Fun Quizzes
Quizzes rouse our curiosity—we all like to know how we measure up. A good B2B quiz isn’t focused on reaching millions, but rather on the right audience. Those you would like to follow up later and convert to customers.
To create a worthwhile quiz, break down the process into three sections—creation, distribution, and follow-up.
In creating the quiz, keep in mind that it should be targeted at particular audiences in order to generate and qualify their lead worthiness. Think about your quiz’s concept; do you want to base it on a trending topic, your brand, or your solutions?
Deliberate on questions that evaluate your audience’s knowledge or the user’s personality. You’ll probably use text-based questions (about six to 10) and we recommend adding relevant images to spruce things up.
Format your quiz in such a way that a lead capture form pops up right before the results come up.
With the quiz ready, how do you ensure people see and engage in it? Your social channels are a great place to start and you can share the quiz via emails too. The goal is to ensure it reaches target audiences.
As the quiz does its rounds, it will start generating leads, and we recommend automating follow-up emails to connect with these leads and nurture them.
5.Run a Podcast
B2B podcasts are fantastic opportunities for brands to share knowledge, exhibit expertise and build audiences.
Now, how well your podcast performs is predicted by several factors a chief one being guest diversity.
You’ll obviously want a dynamic speaker to ensure listeners stay engaged but more importantly, a guest whose values and expertise align with yours is essential.
As you scout for quests here are some worth consideration
- Industry experts. Think industry trends and developments, insights, and advice. These are people who possess the knowledge to discuss these issues with mastery and their advice can help listeners with challenges they are struggling with.
- Business owners. They often have inspiring stories to share, especially concerning how they started, the challenges they had to deal with, and how they are doing now. Ideal customers often relate to these guests and will look forward to receiving useful tips.
- Consultants. This group possesses a wealth of knowledge thanks to the work they have done with businesses across industries They can offer macro-level perspectives and actionable advice on the latest trends not to mention best practices.
