B2B Lead Generation 101
It’s no surprise that lead generation is important to any startup. In fact, it would be downright negligent not to generate leads for your business at every chance you get. But how do you go about generating leads? This article will show you 10 absurdly easy tactics that can help generate more than enough leads for even the most ambitious startups!
But, just because it’s easier doesn’t mean you can slack off. Your competitors won’t be slacking off either.
Launch a Referral Program
Few lead generation tactics can beat the power of referral marketing.
Historically speaking, it has been difficult for startups (and small businesses) to launch their own referral program. Tracking referrals manually in spreadsheets is a pain in the ass and building out your own referral program from scratch can be a massive resource drain.
Nowadays, it’s easy to launch a referral program nowadays with referral software like GrowSurf in under a day. If you haven’t seriously considered leveraging your existing customer base to earn new leads, it’s about time you did.
Create AAA Blog Content
Blogging has been one of the most successful lead generation channels throughout my career.
Creating top notch blog content will allow you to generate organic leads from people searching for a solution to their problems.
If you’re looking for lead generation tactics that don’t require any paid marketing spend, start blogging!
Before getting started with pumping out blog content, I suggest learning fundamentals of on-page SEO and putting a bit of time into keyword research. These 2 soft skills will allow your blog content to reach new heights and bring in leads on autopilot.
Offer Content Upgrades
If you want to attract and maintain a dedicated audience, you’ll need to consistently release new content.
Gathering visitor contact information can be challenging. Emails and names are the best way to stay in touch, but it can take multiple tries to get visitors to provide this information. If you offer an additional resource for visitors that is relevant to your content, such as an article on a related topic or a free download, people are more likely to give you their email address.
A content upgrade is supplementary content like bonus resources, calculators or templates that add value to a blog post. Content upgrades have higher conversion rates because they fulfill the next intent.
Let’s say you read a blog post on how to write SEO-driven blog content. While the blog post in itself already packs a lot of value, wouldn’t it be extra nice if you also get an on-page SEO template you can integrate into your workflow to go along with it?
Distribute Your Content on Social Media
If content is king, distribution is the entire kingdom.
The moment you hit publish on blog content shouldn’t be the end of your editorial process. Building a content distribution strategy is just as important, if not more important than creating content in the first place.
Widening your brand’s reach can be as simple as building a presence over time on social media platforms where your customers hang out.
Why?
Because social media is where the action is.
Social media holds an inordinate amount of power to engage with other travelers and to research new products. If you aren’t sure if a social media platform is right for your brand, start out by researching your competitors on a per-platform basis.
One thing to keep in mind when trying to sell on social media is that you should not be pushy. That can scare people away, and they just want to know the person behind the business first.
You can demonstrate thought leadership by participating in conversations related to your niche and helping out. That way you can build trust and awareness in your brand. As you continue to engage your target audience and influencers in your niche industry, you can slowly grow the respect for what you have to say, which will eventually lead people to seek out your expertise.
It sounds like a long-winded way of generating B2B SaaS leads, but hey, it works.
A/B Test Your Landing Pages
A/B testing is the only way to know for sure what works and what doesn’t.
For lead generation in particular, it’s important to constantly test different CTAs (calls-to-action) on your lead capture landing pages so that you can find out which one converts better.
CTRs matter more than anything else when optimizing conversion rates of lead generating landing pages. After all, how are people going to convert if they don’t click?
If you’re not A/B testing your lead capturing page with various CTA options, then you might be missing out on a lot of leads!
Offer a Free Trial
If your SaaS product is not generating enough leads, chances are your target audience just isn’t ready to commit yet. Nobody wants to pay for a tool that doesn’t generate results in month 1.
You may be thinking, “I wish they would just give it a try.”
Offer a free trial to get your foot in the door.
By offering your target customers free access to your solution for a limited time in exchange, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to show them what your product can do.