When you’re approaching a project and don’t know where to start, we always suggest taking a step back and starting with best practices or basic principles.
As such, in this blog, we are taking a high-level view of what B2B marketers should consider when crafting a lead generation strategy. We know the genesis is always, “We need more leads!” so this article provides quick tips on how to get started with a new lead gen strategy or how to revamp your existing approach.
Create a Buyer Persona(s)
Knowing who exactly you are trying to attract is essential. If you don’t have existing, current buyer personas, it’s time to create them. Why? Because understanding your target buyers’ needs, challenges, and issues is crucial to creating a connection with them.
Get the Scoop on Ideal Leads From Your Sales Team
Your sales team is a fantastic source of who your ideal leads are and what you need to know about them. Chat with your sales manager or sales team to get a clear understanding of your best leads, if leads come in with a certain request or challenge, and to learn more about the typical sales process.
This sounds like it may be repeating the buyer persona step, but it’s different. The leads you aim to bring in may not be who is actually coming in or who has the ultimate decision-making power. Getting details on this from your sales team, on a regular basis, can help you get them more, higher-quality leads.
Read more: 3-step guide to evaluating your B2B website leads.
Research Where Your Best Leads Come From
Your best leads may be coming from several different sources, and not the sources that you spend the most B2B marketing dollars on. It’s critical to avoid any anecdotal information, as is often inaccurate.
If you don’t have lead attribution tracking in place, start tracking. In many cases, the sales team may say they are working with a company and so it’s a referral lead, when in fact, it’s a completely new contact who isn’t familiar with your firm and came in through an online organic search.
Create a Short-Term and a Long-Term Strategy
Short-term lead generation often involves online search ads (Google or Bing ads) or partnering with an industry resource to borrow their email list (using a partner like MarketingProfs to send an email that has your ad or CTA in it).
Long-term strategies include things like improving search rankings to attract people searching online for your products or services. Be sure to leverage your B2B website design in your strategies. In many cases, it will be the central hub for your lead generation efforts.
Read more: Tips to overhaul your B2B lead gen and nurturing strategy.
Get Started
Avoid the “paralysis by analysis” in launching your lead generation strategies. It’s important to do research upfront so you are targeting the right prospects and getting the right visitors to your company’s B2B website, but once you have a strategy, get going.
Don’t overthink it, especially if you need to start showing results this quarter. While it’s every B2B marketer’s hope, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get more leads than you can handle.
