7 Steps to Generate B2B Sales Leads with Content Marketing
Are you looking for ways to generate more sales leads for your B2B business? Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies to attract and nurture potential customers. In this article, we will show you how to create a content marketing plan that generates B2B sales leads and helps you grow your business.
Key Takeaways
Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action.
Content marketing works for B2B sales leads generation because it builds trust, educates, creates awareness, generates traffic, supports SEO, and increases conversions.
To create a content marketing plan for B2B sales leads generation, you need to define your goals and metrics, identify your target audience, conduct a content audit, create a content strategy, create a content calendar, create and distribute your content, monitor and measure your results.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action. Content marketing can include blog posts, ebooks, white papers, case studies, webinars, podcasts, videos, infographics, and more.
Why Content Marketing Works for B2B Sales Leads Generation?
Content marketing works for B2B sales leads generation because it:
- Builds trust and credibility with your target audience by providing useful information and solving their problems.
- Educates and informs your prospects about your products or services and how they can benefit from them.
- Creates awareness and interest in your brand and what you have to offer.
- Generates traffic to your website and social media channels where you can capture leads and nurture them through email marketing or other channels.
- Supports SEO (search engine optimization) by creating relevant and engaging content that ranks well on Google and other search engines.
- Increases conversions and sales by persuading your prospects to take action and buy from you.
How to Create a Content Marketing Plan for B2B Sales Leads Generation?
To create a content marketing plan for B2B sales leads generation, you need to follow these seven steps:
1. Define your goals and metrics
What are you trying to achieve with your content marketing? How will you measure your success? Some common goals and metrics for B2B sales leads generation are:
- Increase website traffic
- Increase email subscribers
- Increase social media followers
- Increase lead quality and quantity
- Increase conversion rate
- Increase revenue
2. Identify your target audience
Who are your ideal customers? What are their pain points, challenges, needs, goals, preferences, and behaviors? You can use tools like buyer personas, customer journey maps, surveys, interviews, or analytics to understand your target audience better.
3. Conduct a content audit
What content do you already have on your website or other platforms? How well is it performing in terms of traffic, engagement, leads, conversions, and sales? You can use tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or HubSpot to analyze your existing content and identify gaps or opportunities.
4. Create a content strategy
What type of content will you create for each stage of the buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration, decision)? What topics, keywords, formats, channels, and frequency will you use? How will you align your content with your goals and audience’s needs? You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, BuzzSumo, or CoSchedule to plan your content strategy.
5. Create a content calendar
When will you publish your content? How will you organize and schedule your content creation and distribution? You can use tools like Google Calendar, Trello, or Asana to create a content calendar.
6. Create and distribute your content
How will you produce your content? Who will be responsible for writing, editing, designing, or recording your content? How will you optimize your content for SEO, readability, and conversions? How will you promote your content on your website, social media, email marketing, or other channels? You can use tools like WordPress, Canva, or Loom to create and distribute your content.
7. Monitor and measure your results
How will you track and analyze your content marketing performance? How will you report on your results and ROI (return on investment)? How will you improve your content marketing based on feedback and data? You can use tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or HubSpot to monitor and measure your results.
Tips
- Use storytelling to make your content more compelling and memorable
- Use visuals to make your content more appealing and understandable
- Use data and statistics to make your content more credible and authoritative
- Use testimonials and case studies to make your content more persuasive and trustworthy
- Use calls to action to make your content more actionable and effective
How to Generate B2B Sales Leads in 2024
B2B sales lead generation is the process of attracting and qualifying potential buyers for your products or services. It is a crucial step in the sales cycle, as it helps you build a pipeline of prospects who are interested in your solutions and ready to make a purchase decision.
However, B2B lead generation is not easy, especially in the competitive and dynamic market of 2024. According to Gartner, B2B buyers are more empowered, informed and skeptical than ever before, and they expect personalized, relevant and timely interactions from vendors.
Therefore, to generate more B2B sales leads in 2024, you need to follow these five proven strategies:
Build the right team for the job
B2B lead generation requires a cross-functional collaboration between marketing, sales, product and customer success teams. Each team should have clear roles and responsibilities, and align on the goals, metrics and processes of lead generation. For example, marketing should focus on creating and distributing high-quality content that educates and engages the target audience, while sales should follow up with the leads and nurture them until they are ready to buy.
Create simplified content that articulates your industry offerings
B2B buyers are overwhelmed by the amount of information available online, and they have limited time and attention to consume it. Therefore, you need to create content that is concise, clear and compelling, and that showcases your unique value proposition and differentiation in your industry. You should also use various formats and channels to reach your audience, such as blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, webinars, podcasts, videos, social media posts and email newsletters .
Push the content to market
Creating content is not enough; you also need to promote it and make it visible to your target audience. You can use a combination of paid, owned and earned media to amplify your content reach and impact. For example, you can use pay-per-click advertising, social media advertising, influencer marketing, SEO, email marketing and content syndication to drive traffic to your website or landing page .
Have teams share relevant leads with sales
Once you have attracted visitors to your website or landing page, you need to capture their contact information and qualify them as leads. You can use various tools and techniques to do this, such as lead magnets, lead forms, chatbots, pop-ups, quizzes and surveys. You should also use lead scoring and segmentation to prioritize and categorize your leads based on their profile, behavior and interest level. Then, you should share the relevant leads with your sales team for further follow-up and nurturing .
Measure outcomes at multiple levels
B2B lead generation is not a one-time activity; it is an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and optimization. You should track and measure the performance of your lead generation campaigns at multiple levels, such as traffic, conversions, cost per lead, lead quality, lead velocity, sales pipeline, revenue and ROI. You should also use analytics tools and feedback mechanisms to identify what works well and what needs improvement in your lead generation strategy .
By following these five strategies, you can generate more B2B sales leads in 2023 that are qualified, interested and ready to buy from you.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q1: What is the difference between B2B and B2C content marketing?
A: B2B (business-to-business) content marketing targets other businesses as customers while B2C (business-to-consumer) content marketing targets individual consumers as customers. B2B content marketing tends to be more educational, professional, and solution-oriented while B2C content marketing tends to be more emotional, personal, and entertaining.
Q2: What are some examples of B2B content marketing?
A: Some examples of B2B content marketing are:
- HubSpot’s blog posts, ebooks, webinars, and case studies on inbound marketing and sales
- Shopify’s blog posts, podcasts, and guides on ecommerce and entrepreneurship
- Slack’s blog posts, videos, and stories on team collaboration and productivity
Q3: How do I generate B2B sales leads with content marketing?
A: To generate B2B sales leads with content marketing, you need to:
- Create valuable and relevant content that attracts and educates your target audience
- Optimize your content for SEO and conversions
- Promote your content on your website, social media, email marketing, or other channels
- Capture leads with lead magnets, landing pages, forms, or pop-ups
- Nurture leads with email marketing or other channels
- Convert leads into customers with sales calls, demos, or trials
Q4: How do I measure the effectiveness of my B2B content marketing?
A: To measure the effectiveness of your B2B content marketing, you need to:
- Define your goals and metrics for each stage of the buyer’s journey
- Track and analyze your traffic, engagement, leads, conversions, and sales
- Report on your results and ROI
- Improve your content marketing based on feedback and data
Q5: What are some best practices for B2B content marketing?
A: Some best practices for B2B content marketing are:
- Know your audience and their pain points, challenges, needs, goals, preferences, and behaviors
- Create a content strategy that aligns with your goals and audience’s needs
- Create a content calendar that organizes and schedules your content creation and distribution
- Create high-quality content that is valuable, relevant, consistent, and engaging
- Optimize your content for SEO, readability, and conversions
- Distribute your content on the right channels and platforms
- Monitor and measure your results and ROI
- Improve your content marketing based on feedback and data
References:
https://www.chiefmarketer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CM-B2B-Lead-Gen-Survey-2-2017.pdf
https://www.zendesk.com/blog/b2b-lead-gen/
https://www.similarweb.com/blog/sales/b2b-sales/generate-b2b-leads/
https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-new-rules-of-b2b-lead-generation
https://www.gartner.com/en/digital-markets/insights/b2b-sales-lead-generation
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/03/15/15-tips-for-creating-marketing-content-that-resonates-with-customers/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing-plan
Essential Topics You Should Be Familiar With:
