7 B2B Lead Generation Tactics That Work in 2024
Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting potential customers into leads, which are people who have shown interest in your product or service and provided their contact information. Lead generation is essential for any B2B business, as it helps to build a pipeline of prospects, nurture relationships, and increase sales.
However, lead generation is not easy, especially in a competitive and dynamic market. B2B buyers are more informed, demanding, and selective than ever before. They expect personalized, relevant, and valuable content from the brands they interact with. They also use multiple channels and devices to research and compare solutions before making a purchase decision.
So, how can you generate more leads for your B2B business in 2024? Here are seven tactics that work:
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Content is the foundation of any lead generation strategy. Create high-quality content that educates and engages your audience.
Optimize your website for conversions. Use clear and compelling headlines, subheadings, images, and calls to action.
Use email marketing to nurture leads and drive sales. Send personalized and relevant messages that address your prospects’ needs and preferences.
Leverage social media to expand your reach and influence. Share your content, showcase your brand personality, interact with your followers, generate referrals, and drive traffic to your website.
Implement chatbots and live chat to capture leads and provide support. Ask qualifying questions, collect contact information, offer incentives or discounts, and schedule appointments or demos.
Partner with influencers or industry experts to boost your credibility and visibility. Create co-branded content, host webinars or podcasts, run contests or giveaways, or offer endorsements or testimonials.
Use analytics and testing to measure and improve your performance. Track and evaluate your key performance indicators (KPIs), such as traffic, conversions, leads, and sales.
1. Create high-quality content that educates and engages your audience
Content is the foundation of any lead generation strategy, as it helps to attract visitors to your website, showcase your expertise, and provide value to your prospects. However, not all content is created equal. You need to create content that is relevant to your target audience, addresses their pain points and challenges, and offers solutions and insights. You also need to create content that is engaging and interactive, such as videos, podcasts, webinars, quizzes, surveys, and infographics. These types of content can increase dwell time, boost social shares, and generate more leads.
2. Optimize your website for conversions
Your website is your online storefront, and it should be designed to convert visitors into leads. You need to optimize your website for usability, speed, mobile-friendliness, and SEO. You also need to optimize your website for conversions by using clear and compelling headlines, subheadings, images, and calls to action. You should also use landing pages for specific offers or campaigns, such as ebooks, white papers, case studies, or free trials. Landing pages are more focused and targeted than your homepage or blog posts, and they can increase your conversion rate by eliminating distractions and providing a clear value proposition.
3. Use email marketing to nurture leads and drive sales
Email marketing is one of the most effective lead generation tactics, as it allows you to communicate with your prospects on a regular basis, build trust and rapport, and move them along the buyer’s journey. Email marketing can also help you segment your audience based on their interests, behavior, and stage in the sales funnel. You can then send them personalized and relevant messages that address their needs and preferences. You can also use email marketing to send newsletters, promotions, invitations, reminders, follow-ups, and re-engagement campaigns.
4. Leverage social media to expand your reach and influence
Social media is a powerful tool for lead generation, as it helps you to reach a large and diverse audience of potential customers. You can use social media to share your content, showcase your brand personality, interact with your followers, generate referrals, and drive traffic to your website. You can also use social media to run ads or sponsored posts that target your ideal customers based on their demographics, location, interests, behavior, and intent. You can also use social media to join or create groups or communities where you can engage with your prospects and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
5. Implement chatbots and live chat to capture leads and provide support
Chatbots and live chat are emerging technologies that can help you generate more leads and provide better customer service. Chatbots are software applications that use artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate human conversations with users via text or voice. Live chat is a feature that allows you to communicate with your website visitors in real time via text or video. Both chatbots and live chat can help you capture leads by asking qualifying questions, collecting contact information, offering incentives or discounts, and scheduling appointments or demos. They can also help you provide support by answering FAQs, resolving issues,
and providing feedback.
6. Partner with influencers or industry experts to boost your credibility and visibility
Influencer marketing is a strategy that involves collaborating with influential people in your industry or niche who have a large and loyal following on social media or other platforms. Influencer marketing can help you generate more leads by exposing your brand to a new and relevant audience, enhancing your reputation, and increasing your trustworthiness. You can partner with influencers or industry experts to create co-branded content, host webinars or podcasts, run contests or giveaways, or offer endorsements or testimonials.
7. Use analytics and testing to measure and improve your performance
Analytics and testing are essential for any lead generation strategy, as they help you track and evaluate your results and optimize your campaigns. You need to use analytics tools such as Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Salesforce to measure your key performance indicators (KPIs), such as traffic, conversions, leads, and sales. You also need to use testing tools such as Google Optimize, Unbounce, or Optimizely to conduct A/B testing, multivariate testing, or split testing on your website, landing pages, emails, or ads. Testing can help you identify what works best for your audience and improve your conversion rate.
TIP
- Use a clear and compelling headline that captures attention and summarizes the main benefit of your offer or content.
- Include a lead magnet or a free offer that provides value to your prospects and entices them to share their contact information.
- Use social proof or testimonials to demonstrate your credibility and trustworthiness.
- Create a sense of urgency or scarcity to motivate your prospects to take action quickly.
- Use a strong call to action that tells your prospects exactly what you want them to do next.
B2B Lead Generation Tactics: A Statistical Report
Business-to-business (B2B) lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential customers for products or services that are sold to other businesses. Lead generation is a crucial first step in the marketing funnel or sales process, as it helps to build awareness, interest and trust among prospects.
However, B2B lead generation is not an easy task, especially in the highly competitive and rapidly changing digital environment. B2B buyers are more informed, discerning and demanding than ever before, and they expect personalized, relevant and valuable interactions with vendors. Moreover, B2B marketers face many challenges such as finding the right channels, strategies and tactics to reach their target audience, measuring the effectiveness and return on investment (ROI) of their lead generation efforts, and nurturing and converting leads into customers.
In this report, we will explore some of the latest trends, statistics and best practices for B2B lead generation in 2024. We will also provide some examples of successful B2B lead generation tactics that can help marketers generate more and better quality leads for their businesses.
Global Demand for B2B Lead Generation
According to a recent report by Market Research Future (MRFR), the global B2B lead generation market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5% from 2020 to 2027, reaching a value of $9.45 billion by 2027. The report attributes this growth to several factors, such as:
- The increasing adoption of digital marketing channels and tools by B2B marketers to reach and engage their prospects online.
- The rising demand for data-driven and personalized marketing campaigns that can deliver higher conversion rates and ROI.
- The growing need for outsourcing lead generation services to specialized agencies or platforms that can offer expertise, efficiency and scalability.
- The emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), big data analytics, cloud computing and blockchain that can enhance the quality and quantity of leads generated.
The report also segments the global B2B lead generation market by type, organization size, end-user industry and region. The table below summarizes some of the key findings from the report.
| Type | Organization Size | End-User Industry | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| – Email Marketing – Social Media Marketing – Content Marketing – SEO – PPC – Webinars – Others | – Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) – Large Enterprises | – IT and Telecom – Healthcare – Manufacturing – Education – BFSI – Retail – Others | – North America – Europe – Asia-Pacific – Middle East and Africa – Latin America |
The report reveals that email marketing is the most widely used type of B2B lead generation, followed by social media marketing and content marketing. It also shows that SMEs account for the largest share of the market, as they have limited budgets and resources to generate leads in-house. Furthermore, it indicates that IT and telecom is the dominant end-user industry for B2B lead generation, due to the high demand for software, hardware and cloud solutions among businesses. Finally, it demonstrates that North America is the leading region for B2B lead generation, owing to the presence of many established players and early adopters of digital marketing technologies.
Best Practices for B2B Lead Generation
Based on a review of various sources , we have identified some of the best practices for B2B lead generation in 2024. These include:
Attract organic traffic with high-quality content that educates, informs and entertains your audience
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate leads, as it helps to establish your authority, credibility and trustworthiness in your industry. Content can take various forms, such as blog posts, ebooks, white papers, case studies, infographics, videos, podcasts and webinars.
Drive inbound leads with reviews and testimonials from your existing customers or industry experts
Online reviews and testimonials are the new “word of mouth”, as they influence the purchase decisions of potential buyers. According to a study by Demand Gen Report, 97% of B2B buyers said that user-generated content such as peer reviews was more credible than other types of content.
Build thought leadership on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter
Social media marketing is another powerful way to generate leads, as it helps to increase your brand awareness, reach and engagement among your target audience. You can use social media to share valuable insights, tips and trends related to your industry, participate in relevant discussions and groups, answer questions and provide feedback, and showcase your success stories and customer testimonials.
Offer meaningful resources for free in exchange for your prospects’ contact information
Lead magnets are incentives that you offer to your prospects to entice them to sign up for your email list, newsletter, webinar, trial or demo. Lead magnets can be anything that provides value to your prospects, such as checklists, templates, tools, guides, reports, surveys, quizzes or coupons.
Optimize website landing pages to capture and convert leads
Landing pages are web pages that are designed to persuade your visitors to take a specific action, such as filling out a form, downloading a resource, requesting a quote or booking a consultation. Landing pages should have clear and compelling headlines, subheadlines, copy, images, videos and calls-to-action (CTAs) that match your offer and audience’s needs and expectations.
Utilize referral marketing to leverage your existing customers and partners to generate more leads
Referral marketing is the process of encouraging your customers and partners to recommend your products or services to their network of contacts. Referral marketing can help you generate more leads, as people tend to trust referrals from their friends, family and colleagues more than other sources of information. You can incentivize your customers and partners to refer you by offering them rewards, discounts, commissions or recognition.
B2B lead generation is a vital and challenging task for any business that sells to other businesses. It requires a strategic and data-driven approach that can adapt to the changing preferences and behaviors of B2B buyers. In this report, we have discussed some of the latest trends, statistics and best practices for B2B lead generation in 2024. We have also provided some examples of successful B2B lead generation tactics that can help marketers generate more and better quality leads for their businesses.
FREQUENTLY QUESTIONS:
Q1: What is B2B lead generation?
A: B2B lead generation is the process of attracting and converting potential customers into leads, which are people who have shown interest in your product or service and provided their contact information.
Q2: What are the benefits of B2B lead generation?
A: B2B lead generation can help you to increase your brand awareness, generate more traffic, build a pipeline of prospects, nurture relationships, and boost your sales.
Q3: What are the challenges of B2B lead generation?
A: B2B lead generation can be challenging due to the complexity and length of the B2B buyer’s journey, the high level of competition and saturation in the market, the changing preferences and expectations of the B2B buyers, and the difficulty of measuring and optimizing your performance.
Q4: What are the best practices for B2B lead generation?
A: Some of the best practices for B2B lead generation are to create high-quality content that educates and engages your audience, optimize your website for conversions, use email marketing to nurture leads and drive sales, leverage social media to expand your reach and influence, implement chatbots and live chat to capture leads and provide support, partner with influencers or industry experts to boost your credibility and visibility, and use analytics and testing to measure and improve your performance.
Q5: What are the tools for B2B lead generation?
A: Some of the tools for B2B lead generation are content creation tools such as WordPress, Medium, or Canva, website optimization tools such as Wix, Squarespace, or Elementor, email marketing tools such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or AWeber, social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, chatbot and live chat tools such as Intercom, Drift, or Chatfuel, influencer marketing tools such as BuzzSumo, Upfluence, or AspireIQ, and analytics and testing tools such as Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Salesforce.
References:
https://www.infosys.com/about/knowledge-institute/insights/Documents/future-customer-engagement.pdf
https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/b2b-lead-generation-market-10368
https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-new-rules-of-b2b-lead-generation
https://webbiquity.com/lead-generation/seven-of-the-best-tactics-to-generate-b2b-leads/
https://digitalzone.com/blog/lead-generation-strategies-for-b2b-marketers/
https://foundationinc.co/lab/b2b-lead-generation/
https://kinsta.com/blog/b2b-lead-generation/
https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/research/2017-content-preferences-survey-report
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2336385-korean-nuclear-fusion-reactor-achieves-100-millionc-for-30-seconds/
https://www.the-sun.com/news/4381435/holy-grail-fusion-experiments-breakthrough-race-unlimited-energy/
Essential Topics You Should Be Familiar With:
