Help Your Small Business Thrive With Proven B2B Lead Generation Strategies
Generating qualified leads is a challenge that keeps tantalizing many organizations. And for small businesses, deciding the best B2B lead generation strategies can be overwhelming. Worry not, though, because we're here to take that stress away. By bringing sales and marketing together, businesses like yours reach prospects and drive quality and qualified leads. How? It takes a bit of research, content marketing magic, and offering personalized and valuable communication. Let's see how it's done.
Easy B2B Lead Generation Strategies For Your Small Business
If you're looking for more leads, more prospects, and more revenue, you have to do your best. But new clients need a bit of hunting and, also, some treats. The best thing you can do to generate more B2B leads is to follow strategies and best practices that actually work. I could share with you plenty of successful lead nurturing tips and templates, but the struggle is real when it comes to gathering leads in the first place. After several successful B2B lead generation campaigns, we know which steps you should take to reach your business goals within a reasonable budget. By implementing these strategies, you'll manage to fill your pipeline and allow your sales team to actually start closing deals.
Here's where you should focus on.
1. Create A Blog
Blogs have transformed into a remedy for any strategic marketing plan in every industry. It can provide viable solutions to every aspect of marketing, from content creation to SEO performance. Moreover, a frequently updated blog can also provide value to your audience, who will appreciate it and hopefully become leads.
In the sphere of small businesses, a blog can do wonders since it is also a cost-effective and viable option. Creating a blog does not require technical expertise and a dedicated team to maintain. On the contrary, you can have a one-person team to create insightful content for your blog, and keep the organic traffic flow going and your leads arriving.
In general, a blog can be a useful tool for your B2B lead generation strategy because it:
Increases Your Organic Traffic
There is no better way to increase your organic traffic than implementing a regularly updated blog. The content of your blog should work like a magnet for new and existing traffic that is interested in your area of expertise. Meanwhile, a blog can also be used in your upcoming content marketing campaign.
In SEO terms, blogs can operate like keyword banks. To illustrate, content in your blog should be relevant to your niche while answering the questions of your potential customers. By creating content around industry-related keywords, you may potentially increase your rankings in those keywords and, therefore, generate more organic traffic to your website.
Uncovers Link Building Opportunities
A high-quality blog can also provide a solid foundation for your link building strategy. Each blog page offers a space for valuable links from other relevant websites. Even more so, adding long-form content provides even more opportunities for link building. What is the impact on your lead generation, though? Well, links from other websites can increase your referral traffic deriving from there. It is also worth mentioning that the more relevant the website you link to, the higher the chance of generating leads for small businesses.
Adds Space For Valuable Lead Generation CTAs
Keeping your audience satisfied with valuable insights can have many positive effects on your lead generation. A blog can help you build a community of people interested in what you offer. So, what is the outcome of this? Well, you can add the proper CTA of a subscription or sign-up form and transform them directly into leads. The higher the quality of your content, the higher the probability of increasing your leads.
2. Focus On SEO
There is no better way to cost-effectively fill up your marketing funnels with leads than SEO. Optimizing your website for search engines can have multiple benefits for your lead generation. Since SEO aims at increasing organic traffic, it is important to implement it in your lead generation strategy. Moreover, SEO can help you increase your local lead generation as well.
What does increasing your SEO performance mean? Simply put, it means that you optimize your search visibility. By helping the search engines understand your website, you are helping your SEO rankings as well. Some of the common methods to achieve this are presented below.
Run An In-Depth SEO Audit
Assuming that you are at the first stage of your SEO journey, running a diagnostic analysis can provide you with the foundation for the success of your initiatives. An in-depth technical SEO audit is ideal for this job since its analysis can show you the blueprint of the ideal version of your website. By implementing this first step, you are ensuring that your next SEO practices are on a safe path.
Create Content On Your Blog
As we mentioned above, a content-filled blog can increase your SEO performance. It is worth investing time to build content for your blog since it will pay off in the long run with increased rankings, organic traffic, and leads. It is no wonder that we often hear "content is king" by marketers.
Of course, not all content is good content. When building up your content strategy, you should make sure that your content abides by specific rules which will boost its performance. Such rules include:
- Relevance
- Frequency
- Uniqueness
In simple terms, your content should be relevant to your industry, frequent, and aligned to your brand. In this way, you help search engines crawl and understand your website easier.
For more information, read my article on landing page optimization best practices.
Implement A Link Building Strategy
The last and most important tip to increase your SEO performance is to implement a link building strategy. As the term implies, link building is the process of linking to other websites. There are multiple types of links to benefit from. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as:
- Email outreach
Imagine that you find an interesting article addressing an aspect of an industry problem that you have not covered. Still, you have an article that can provide value to it. Therefore, you can send an email to the author and ask for a link in a professional way. If this method is successful, then both websites will gain the benefit of increased Domain Rating and organic traffic with quality backlinks.
- Contact a link building service
We all understand that, as a small business, you might already have your hands full with important jobs to be done. In this scenario, running a link building plan on your own might lead to burnout. To solve this problem and still move forward with the plan, you can address a link building service. There are multiple which offer their services online, and prices that might match your requirements.
If you would like to learn more about this topic, feel free to check our article on the reliability of link building services. We provide insights that might help you in the decision-making process.
3. Utilize Gated Assets
We already stated (and we cannot address enough) the fact that "content is king." However, content does not have to be only the articles you create for your blog. There are multiple forms content can take that may help you increase your B2B lead generation. That is where gated assets come into play.
Gated assets are forms of content that are given to your audience in exchange for valuable information like email addresses. This information can be later used in lead nurturing and marketing campaigns. Such content may take the form of:
- Exclusive articles
- eBooks
- Webinars/Courses
- Infographics
- Case studies
- White papers
- Research reports
It is worth stating that the list above does not limit you from "gating" any other type of content you might find appropriate. The general idea is to gate content that you think your audience would trade their information to get access to.
Extra: More B2B Lead Generation Tactics Your Small Business Can Use
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Utilize Social Media
Social media can be a splendid tool when it comes to getting leads. Creating a loyal community and boosting engagement might eventually lead to increased traffic and leads. Moreover, social media can increase your SEO performance as well.
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Run An Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing might seem like an old-fashioned way to generate leads. However, this is a mistake since most companies out there still perform email marketing campaigns that fill the lead database.
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Use Pop-Up Banners
Another B2B lead generation strategy is the implementation of pop-up banners on your website. These banners can show up with a CTA that serves your campaign at a given time and generate valuable leads. Check the beginner's guide to banner ads advertising for more info.
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Start Guest Posting
Depending on the capacity of your small business, you might want to consider guest posting as a strategy. This option implies that you will create content on other websites and add your link to it as well. Therefore, you can benefit from referral traffic and potential leads.
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Run Ads
Running ads is a common strategy of businesses when the budget allows it. You can assist your business lead generation with ads on multiple platforms. However, make sure that the platforms you target are the ones your market uses.
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Offer Free Trials
If your small business offers a service that can host a free trial, then do not think twice! Offering a free trial to your potential customers can have multiple benefits. Not only do you make them familiar with your product (offering cheese to the mouse), but you also acquire valuable information—like email addresses—in exchange. Such information adds to your lead base and assists your future marketing efforts.
Key Takeaway
Building a B2B lead generation strategy for a small business is not always like heading to Mordor on foot. The issue of budgeting, which small businesses often face in this scenario, can be tackled by outsmarting your competition.
There is no "one size fits all" on how to generate leads. Since every industry is unique, you have to take time to consider which of the above-mentioned B2B lead generation strategies would work best for your business. Identify the key points of contact with your target group, implement the proper small business lead generation strategy, and see your lead base grow. Meanwhile, do not forget to accompany your chosen strategy with the appropriate analysis. It is of high importance to see what works and what does not in lead generation.
Leads are the backbone of growth in any business that operates online. Find the right lead generation strategy and give some life to your marketing funnels with high-quality leads.
