If you want to keep your business running, you need a steady stream of high-quality leads your way. So, always be on the lookout for bettering lead generation strategies in your business.
For B2B companies, looking for leads can be tougher since you have a specific niche you’re likely targeting. But, one approach that can help improve your business’s overall B2B lead generation strategies is by implementing the right content strategy.
With high-quality content, you can have leads headed your way easier than it would be without them.
Before we dive deeper into the benefits of high-quality content for your B2B lead generation needs, let’s first talk about B2B lead generation.
What is B2B Lead Generation?
To make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s start by getting B2B lead generation’s meaning.
B2B lead generation’s definition isn’t that different from B2C lead generation.
Essentially, it’s the process of specifying and looking for your business’s ideal customers and then pulling them in to buy your product or service.
Lead generation isn’t something that just your sales team does. Nor is it just for the marketing team. Ideally, it’s for both of them.
Common B2B Lead Generation Strategies
There are plenty of lead generation best practices that B2B companies apply to their business.
It’s great to diversify so that when one avenue is getting not-so optimal results, you have other avenues to rely on when you need more leads.
Some of the common strategies involve some form of reaching out to where the target audience is instead of just waiting for them to come to you. Attending live events of your industry, for example, are a great choice.
Another way B2B businesses have generated leads is through advertising. Google ads and Facebook ads in particular are a popular choice for many.
Now, as someone who offers B2B content writing services and B2B content strategy services, it would be remiss of me not to mention content marketing.
Content marketing is another reliable approach for getting more leads, which is why you should be working on a content strategy at some level. Let’s discuss why that’s important to do.
What is the role of content in B2B lead generation?
Everybody talks about content marketing and its importance in lead generation, but how exactly does it help?
Well, let’s look at the stats. 📊
For the year 2023 alone, lead generation statistics have shown that if you maintain a blog as a business, your lead generation rates would be 13x more than those without. It can even result in an up to 500% increase in web traffic.
Given these results, should you only be creating blog content as your main form of lead generation?
No. Blogs are, after all, just one type of content.
But should you ignore it entirely?
Also, no.
(Am I biased as someone offering B2B content writing services in the Philippines? Maybe.
But the numbers are just like Shakira’s hips. They certainly don’t lie.)
Content continues to be an excellent and reliable avenue for generating leads organically at a fraction of the cost that some paid avenues do, like ads.
How High-Value Content Supplements Your B2B Lead Generation Efforts
We’ve talked about the role that content plays in lead generation, but let’s dive deeper into the benefits of high value and high quality content into your b2b lead generation efforts.
Here are some of the benefits that they can give you.
Attract More Relevant Prospects
If your goal is to just get as many prospects as possible, then posting whatever type of content by the dozen is one approach to achieve that.
But that also leads to tons of prospects irrelevant to your business or aren’t interested in the services/products you provide.
With high-quality content, you can weed out the prospects that don’t need your services and products.
The content topic already is a way to qualify your leads.
If you’re covering a topic that your audience research indicates is one that your ideal prospect is eager to know, then the people who click on it would mean that they’re at the very least interested in the same thing your target audience is.
Boost Website Traffic
Your website is a great place to market your products and services. But, how can you market yourself when you don’t have potential customers seeing it? That’s where high-quality content can help.
When you produce the right kinds of content that caters to your target audience, you can get more traffic headed your way.
You can even use your website content and link to the appropriate products and services within your website to make it easier for your new business leads to find.
More Credibility
Anyone can post content.
In fact, AI content generators are there ready to make content for you at the drop of a…prompt.
But the key to making sure you stand out is by producing high-value content.
Given that surface-level content is so readily-available, you should either showcase your niche expertise or add something new to the content already there.
By producing content that isn’t cookie-cutter, you can gain more credibility in your industry. Your business would then be a more recognizable brand for many other potential customers.
Better Sales and Marketing Alignment
You can increase business effectiveness when you have alignment between your sales and marketing teams.
Content can serve as a great bridge between your marketing to your sales team, in terms of the customer journey. A great example of that would be through the use of content as lead magnets.
You can start creating high-value content pieces like whitepapers as a lead bait.
The people who sign up to your gated content like whitepapers can show high intent to purchase. Your marketing team can then share that information to your sales team so they can reach out to a more qualified lead.
This approach will help bridge your content marketing funnel and your B2B sales funnel in a more cohesive way.
Lead Nurturing to Generate Sales-Ready Leads Through B2B Content
Lead nurturing is the process of continuing to grow your relationship with leads even when they’re not yet ready to buy from you.
Usually, lead nurturing is part of the job that the sales team does. However, your marketing strategy can help with lead nurturing through consistent B2B content.
The key to doing this is by creating content that can meet with your prospects and target audience no matter what stage of the content marketing funnel they may be.
For example, if your prospect knows that they have a problem, but doesn’t know the possible solutions that they could use, you can create content around that. You can then plug in your products or services appropriately in the content.
As they continue to move forward in the B2B content marketing funnel, the more familiar they become with your brand. The more they know you, the likelier they are to heavily consider you as their preferred choice in their purchase decision.
At that point, they can become leads who would be more receptive to your sales team.
Better Brand Visibility
When you regularly publish content, your content serves as a reminder of sorts to the people that see it that you’re still active.
Given all of the content pushed out daily, sometimes your target audience needs a reminder that you’re still there. With a consistent content schedule, you can use your content for lead generation to make your brand constantly visible in front of your target audience.
Cost-Effective Marketing Approach Over Time
One of the reasons why businesses both small and large use content marketing is because it’s a cost-effective way of getting consistent traffic your way. By building a robust content inventory filled with high-quality content, you will reap the benefits of it on a long-term basis.
The only issue here is that creating high-quality content is time-consuming. It requires some effort on your part. However, once you get the ball rolling, the positive ripple effect of it for your website is going to be a huge help.
Become an Authority in Your Industry
Whether you’re a startup or are a business that’s not the industry market leader, you’ll benefit from establishing yourself as an authority in your industry.
Most of the time, your ideal buyers will look to the market leaders to buy from. That’s because they’ve likely built a reputation of trust and credibility already.
If you’re trying to at least garner the same kind of attention and respect around your brand, then creating authoritative content is a great way to do that. There are different kinds of content that can help.
A thorough whitepaper and case studies are great B2B content examples that can show your level of knowledge in the industry through deep and thorough industry research.
However, you don’t always have to make this major content for B2B marketing to achieve that.
Sometimes, simply following the rule of creating content that is relevant and helpful to your target audience can help achieve that, regardless of the platform and content type that you use.
Four Tips for Creating a Content Plan For Your B2B Lead Generation
Now that you know what the benefits are when you craft high-quality content for B2B lead generation, you should feel compelled to pay special attention to your content approach.
That’s why to help push you in the right direction, here are a few tips on creating a content plan that supports your B2B lead generation.
Plan for Distribution
It’s unlikely that your B2B leads are only hanging out digitally on one platform. Given that reason, distribution is going to be a crucial part of your content plan to find B2B leads
Your distribution plan should include details, such as:
- Content delivery method
- Content posting frequency
- Posting Schedule
- Distribution platforms
- Content length
Don’t forget to consider how you’re going to tweak your content based on the platform you’re posting it on. After all, the kind of content that does well on places like LinkedIn won’t necessarily work with platforms like Twitter or Instagram.
Have a Way to Measure Success
How would you know that your content plan worked if you don’t establish parameters for success?
Ask yourself what the overarching content strategy goal is.
Then, look into the different key performance indicators (KPIs) that can align with these goals and most accurately measure them.
These should then give you a better idea whether your content plan worked or not. You can then adjust your content plans accordingly in the future.
Keep Your Target Audience In Mind
Keeping your target audience in mind will help iron out the details of many aspects of your content plan.
It can help you figure out whether your content plan is working or not. Knowing your target audience can give you B2B content ideas if you’re having a hard time coming up with them.
By conducting audience research, you can reduce the risk of a content strategy that doesn’t even register in your target audience’s radar.
Be Consistent
Many businesses with limited manpower or resources find it intimidating to start making content.
There’s this expectation that they should post everyday with at least ten posts a day to be able to stand out. But, it all really depends on the platform.
If you look at Hootsuite’s research of how often to post to social media, you’ll see that you just need to post once a week. At most, five times a week is good.
The important part about your posting frequency is consistency. If you choose Tuesdays and Thursdays to post, then post on the same days at the same time.
The Takeaways
With the help of high-quality content, you can boost your B2B lead generation efforts in many ways.
It helps get more eyes on your business. It even improves your lead management in general. At the same time, it increases your brand appeal, and has long-term positive effects on your lead generation pipeline.
While creating these types of content might need some significant effort, once it’s out, its effects compound over time. So, creating content shouldn’t be an optional part of your B2B lead generation efforts. It should be a major aspect of it instead.
Now, onto you.
Do you agree? Do you disagree?
What are your thoughts on the value of content for B2B lead generation?
Let me know by going to the comments below!