7 Steps to Get More B2B Leads with Content Marketing

Content marketing is a powerful way to attract and convert potential customers in the B2B space. But how do you create content that generates leads and drives sales? Here are seven steps to follow:

Key Takeaways

Content marketing is a powerful way to attract and convert potential customers in the B2B space.

Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to a clearly defined audience.

Content marketing can help B2B businesses increase brand awareness, generate more traffic, leads, and sales, establish thought leadership and credibility, build trust and loyalty with customers, reduce marketing costs, and improve customer retention.

Content marketing requires following seven steps: define your target audience and buyer personas, create a content strategy and plan, produce high-quality and relevant content, promote your content to reach your target audience, generate leads with lead magnets and landing pages, nurture leads with email marketing and marketing automation, and convert leads into customers with sales enablement and follow-up.

Content marketing success can be measured by using various metrics that align with your goals and using tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or SEMrush to track and analyze your performance.

1. Define your target audience and buyer personas.

Before you create any content, you need to know who you are writing for and what their pain points, goals, challenges, and needs are. You can use tools like surveys, interviews, analytics, and social media to research your audience and create buyer personas that represent your ideal customers.

2. Create a content strategy and plan.

A content strategy is a roadmap that guides your content creation and distribution. It helps you align your content with your business objectives, audience needs, and buyer journey stages. A content plan is a detailed outline of the topics, formats, channels, keywords, and metrics for each piece of content you will produce. You can use tools like calendars, spreadsheets, or software to create and manage your content plan.

3. Produce high-quality and relevant content.

The quality and relevance of your content are crucial for attracting and engaging your audience. You need to create content that provides value, solves problems, educates, entertains, or inspires your potential customers. You also need to optimize your content for search engines and user intent by using keywords, headings, images, links, and other elements that make your content easy to find and consume.

4. Promote your content to reach your target audience.

Creating great content is not enough; you also need to distribute it to the right people at the right time and place. You can use various channels and methods to promote your content, such as email marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, paid advertising, guest posting, webinars, podcasts, and more. You should also track and measure the performance of your content promotion efforts using tools like analytics, reports, or dashboards.

5. Generate leads with lead magnets and landing pages.

A lead magnet is a piece of valuable content that you offer to your audience in exchange for their contact information. A landing page is a web page that showcases your lead magnet and encourages visitors to sign up for it. You can use tools like forms, pop-ups, banners, or buttons to capture leads on your landing pages. You should also test and optimize your lead magnets and landing pages to improve their conversion rates.

6. Nurture leads with email marketing and marketing automation.

Once you have captured leads, you need to nurture them until they are ready to buy from you. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to communicate with your leads and build trust and rapport with them. You can use tools like newsletters, campaigns, sequences, or workflows to send personalized and relevant emails to your leads based on their behavior, interests, or preferences.

7. Convert leads into customers with sales enablement and follow-up.

The final step is to turn your leads into paying customers by providing them with the information, support, and incentives they need to make a purchase decision. You can use tools like case studies, testimonials, demos, trials, discounts, or coupons to persuade your leads to buy from you. You should also follow up with your leads regularly until they close the deal or move on.

Tips

Know your audience and their pain points, goals, challenges, and needs.

Create a content strategy and plan that aligns with your business objectives and audience needs.

Produce high-quality and relevant content that provides value, solves problems, educates, entertains, or inspires your audience.

Promote your content to reach your target audience using various channels and methods.

Generate leads with lead magnets and landing pages that offer valuable content in exchange for contact information.

Nurture leads with email marketing and marketing automation that send personalized and relevant emails based on behavior, interests, or preferences.

Convert leads into customers with sales enablement and follow-up that provide information, support, and incentives to make a purchase decision.

How to Get B2B Leads: A Statistical Report

Business-to-business (B2B) leads are potential customers who are interested in buying products or services from another business. Generating B2B leads is a crucial step in the sales process, as it helps to build relationships and trust with potential buyers. But how can businesses get more B2B leads in a competitive and changing market? In this report, we will look at some statistics and trends that show the global demand for B2B leads and how businesses can leverage them to grow their sales.

Global Demand for B2B Leads

According to a report by HubSpot, the global B2B market size was estimated at $12.2 trillion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% from 2020 to 2027, reaching $18.7 trillion by 2027. The report also found that the top three industries that generate the most B2B revenue are manufacturing, wholesale trade, and professional services.

However, the global demand for B2B leads is not evenly distributed across regions and sectors. According to a survey by BrightTALK, the top three regions that generate the most B2B leads are North America (40%), Europe (27%), and Asia-Pacific (18%). The survey also found that the top three sectors that generate the most B2B leads are technology (35%), financial services (14%), and education (10%).

How to Get More B2B Leads

Given the increasing global demand for B2B leads, how can businesses get more of them? There are many strategies and tactics that businesses can use to attract and convert more B2B leads, such as:

Creating high-quality content that educates, informs, and engages the target audience.
Optimizing the website and landing pages for search engines and user experience.
Using social media platforms to build brand awareness, credibility, and community.
Leveraging email marketing campaigns to nurture and follow up with prospects.
Offering free trials, demos, webinars, or consultations to showcase the value proposition and benefits of the products or services.
Implementing lead generation tools such as forms, pop-ups, chatbots, or quizzes to capture contact information and preferences.
Analyzing and tracking the performance and behavior of the leads using analytics and CRM software.

Getting more B2B leads is a key goal for many businesses that want to increase their sales and revenue. However, the global demand for B2B leads is not uniform across regions and sectors and requires different approaches and methods to reach and convert them. By using some of the strategies and tactics mentioned above, businesses can get more B2B leads and grow their customer base.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action.

What are the benefits of content marketing for B2B businesses?
Content marketing can help B2B businesses increase brand awareness, generate more traffic, leads, and sales, establish thought leadership and credibility, build trust and loyalty with customers, reduce marketing costs, and improve customer retention.

What are the best types of content for B2B businesses?
The best types of content for B2B businesses depend on their goals, audience, industry, and budget. However, some of the most popular and effective types of content for B2B businesses are blog posts, eBooks, white papers, case studies, webinars, podcasts, videos, infographics, and social media posts.

How do I measure the success of my content marketing efforts?
You can measure the success of your content marketing efforts by using various metrics that align with your goals, such as traffic, engagement, leads, conversions, revenue, retention, and customer satisfaction. You can also use tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or SEMrush to track and analyze your content marketing performance.

How do I improve my content marketing skills?
You can improve your content marketing skills by learning from the best practices and examples of other successful B2B businesses, taking online courses or certifications, reading books or blogs, listening to podcasts or webinars, attending events or workshops, and practicing and experimenting with different types of content.

References:

https://www.hubspot.com/content-marketing

https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-marketing-strategy/

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/08/14/increase-website-traffic

https://optinmonster.com/how-to-create-a-lead-magnet/

https://mailchimp.com/email-marketing/

https://www.salesforce.com/products/marketing-cloud/best-practices/sales-enablement-content/