5 Lead Generation Ideas That Boost Your Sales

Want to know the biggest challenge in B2B marketing? It’s getting leads! A lead is where it all begins. Without leads there are no potential customers, no potential revenues. No nothing. Without leads, you’re finished. So, the obvious question for any marketer or sales manager is this: How do I get leads?

And you know what? Mostly we have no freaking idea where B2B leads come from! Basically, lead generation has to do with a consistent marketing effort, a constant cultivation of business relationships and the organic mashup of all kinds of interactions, activities, behaviors, and efforts. But to begin, start to fill out our Lead Generation Map for one month to have a clue where leads come from so you can create a more effective and well-planned (short-term) strategy.

The buying process has changed, and marketers and sales managers need to find new ways to reach buyers and get heard through the noise. Instead of finding customers with mass advertising and email blasts, marketers and sales managers must now focus on being found and learn to build continuous relationships with buyers. But if you're feeling overwhelmed with all the information out there about multi-channel marketing, marketing automation and how to drive more business, you're not alone. So here are some ideas for lead generation that can boost your sales.

(1) You’ve likely invested a great deal into making sure your website does the best possible job it can do at converting prospects into customers. If you haven’t had a website audit done, now is the perfect opportunity to do so. Find out where prospects are slipping through the cracks. What’s causing friction and preventing them from taking action? What’s making them question taking that first step? The more barriers you can remove, the more seamless their experience with you will be. Make sure you are keeping your content fresh and that visitors will get a clear sense of what you do in the first 3 seconds they land on your website.

(2) A strategic email campaign schedule can go far as long as you are thoughtful about the information you are sharing and are not sending out 'junk mail' too often. 1-2x month or less, keeps people engaged and not annoyed with the amount of emails they are receiving from you. Also, keep your message short and simple and give them something they will want to share with the people they know. As in all marketing, 80% of what you send should be sharing information for the greater good, 20% can be broadcasting why you are great.

(3) Facebook and LinkedIn are more about awareness than Youtube, Twitter or Slideshare. But with B2B social media, it's often important to prioritize, as whilst it is easy to set up an account on a new social network, it requires plenty of effort to run it effectively. Focusing only on the most effective networks is usually the best tactic. And of cause regularly post fresh content with attached images and commenting on other people's posts will keep you engaged in your community and also give you the social credibility you want. That being said, posting too often can hurt you, so think about what you are sharing and why as well as how others are engaging with your posts. It may seem obvious, but if a lot of people are liking and sharing something, you are on the right track.

(4) Content marketing is a technique that has been used in B2B marketing for many years, but in recent years, the popularity of inbound marketing has given more attention to share blogs and social media. Over the past three or four years, readers have voted for the importance of content marketing amongst the marketing activities available. Within content and inbound marketing, I think the ongoing discussions will be around getting the right balance of content quantity, frequency and quality and of course, measuring the ROI of content marketing. Content marketing is a great tactic for B2B marketers because the long customer journey means customers will want to do plenty of research before purchasing and compare several different providers.

(5) Marketing automation is the perfect technology for B2B marketing. It provides an automated way of scoring and nurturing leads with relevant content along the journey to purchase. Yet, many research on marketing automation shows that most companies aren't fully exploiting marketing automation since they are at an early level of maturity. They simply stuff it with bought lists of email addresses, resulting in ineffective campaigns. Marketing automation is all about reduce the time-intensive labor of marketing tasks. Marketing automation can track user behavior on social media or on your website and then gain leads. These leads are then nurtured through targeted messages and/or responses.