The math is simple...

The more leads you have on qualified B2B prospects for your product, service or solution, the more customers you’ll end up with. That’s why 85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal, and why 53% of marketers say half or more of their budget is allocated to lead gen.

By “lead generation,” we specifically mean cultivating the names and contact information of people and businesses who have shown interest in your product/service/solution. Once in place, lead generation campaigns allow you to fill out your sales funnel with qualified leads with little active effort on your part. Instead, you can you focus on converting those new prospects into customers.

Cultivating those leads takes time, but there is a straightforward method for doing so.

How B2B Lead Gen Works: An Overview.

An effective lead gen campaign is built around an offer of something of value to the prospect, such as a white paper or webinar that tells them how to solve a common problem. You create the piece, post it or the information for accessing it on a landing page on your website, and then post ads and send out emails and sales letters spreading word about the offer.

When the interested prospect signs up to access the material, they provide you with their contact information. Your sales team can then maintain contact with those prospects and gently move them down the sales funnel.

The Foundation of Any B2B Lead Generation Campaign is the All-Important Offer

The offer (sometimes called a "magnet") must hold some value for your prospects to convince them to share their contact information. After all, nobody enjoys getting sales calls, so they’re not going to just hand you their phone number or email address for nothing.

So your offer has to be informative and narrowly tailored to your prospects. Give them something they can use right now, and if it happens to be connected to your product, that’s great. (It should definitely connect with your product/solution/service. Don’t give them a baseball card price guide if you sell CRM software.)

What Content Will Work Best for Your Lead Gen Offer?

Some formats perform better than others at converting leads; it all depends on your audience. What would they prefer—an eBook or a webinar? A white paper or an online demo?

According to Hubspot, here are the types of offers that generate the most amount of leads, in order of performance:

• eBooks or guides that explain how to do or accomplish something or that walks the audience through a process
• Templates or presentations that make their job easier, lay out a step-by-step process, or provide them with a script
• Research and special reports, which are more educational and are especially popular among service companies
• White papers that have a topic of high interest to prospects. These are frequently about a new technology, recent innovation, or a new way of doing something
• Kits, which are really multiple offers packaged together. These often include a brochure, video card or CD with a demo, customer success stories, technical specs, and more. These work best with prospects who already know your company
• Live webinars and on-demand videos, which are really a white paper or special report done in an instructional format

It’s important to test different types of offers with your audience to determine what works best for your company.

How to Get Your Lead Gen Campaign Done

63% of marketers say their top challenge is generating enough traffic and leads. That’s partially because they don’t have the internal resources to devote to it: 61% of B2B marketers report that a lack of resources such as staff, funding, and time is the biggest obstacle to successful lead gen efforts.

At BayCreative, we can provide you with the expert resources for a successful lead generation campaign that targets the right audience with the right content. If you’re ready to fill your sales funnel with qualified prospects, please just let us know. 

All the best,
- Team BayCreative -