Lead generation is an essential part of any marketing strategy. In Nigeria, B2B lead generation strategies are often overlooked. What are some effective ways to generate leads for your business?
Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people. The country is currently ranked as the seventh largest economy in Africa. According to the World Bank, Nigeria had a GDP growth rate of 6.5% in 2018. This makes it one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
There are several reasons why a business owner should consider using lead generation techniques. One reason is that they provide a cost-effective way to reach potential customers. Another reason is that they increase sales conversions.
Are you looking for ways to generate leads for your business? If yes, then you should consider using B2B lead generation strategies. This article will discuss some of the best B2B lead generation techniques for the Nigerian market.
Lead generation is the process of finding potential customers for your business. This involves identifying prospects who might be interested in buying from you or hiring you. The goal is to get qualified leads who will become future clients.
An excellent way to generate potential leads is through social media marketing. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are great places to reach out to prospective customers. These and other b2b e-commerce platforms allow businesses to connect directly with their target audience.
What are some B2B lead generation tactics and strategies specific to the Nigerian market? From content marketing to referral, one obvious thing is that B2B lead generation is challenging.
The key to success is learning as much as possible about your audience and how they interact with your business. This article will help discover some success-driven strategies and tactics B2B businesses in Nigeria use to generate more leads and sales.
First, we answer a few B2B marketing and lead generation questions.
What Is a B2B Marketing Strategy?
According to HubSpot, B2B (business-to-business) marketing is any marketing strategy or content geared towards a business or organisation. Any business selling products or services to other companies or organisations (vs consumers) typically uses B2B marketing strategies.
A well-defined B2B lead generation strategy is the key in this digital age. Here is a quick overview of some practical strategies you can use to generate many more qualified leads and clients for your business.
What is B2B Lead Generation?
It is about identifying the optimal potential B2B customers for your product or service and then attracting them to buy.
In B2B marketing, lead generation is the most critical KPI to measure your marketing expenses’ ROI. A primary aim of B2B marketing is to generate quality leads for the sales pipeline.
What works with lead gen? It’s not what you think. With sales, B2B lead-generation strategies like content marketing can have a remarkable impact. The more leads you get, the more prospects you can convert. But, it would help if you used the right tactics and automation tools. Let’s see the best B2B lead generation campaign strategies for each primary channel, including social media, PPC, blogging, and email.
Below is a list of the various types of B2B leads (in no particular order):
- Warm leads vs Cold leads
- Information Qualified Lead (IQL)
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
- Sales Ready/Accepted Leads (SRL)
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
- Member Service Request Leads (MSR)
- Inbound leads
- Outbound leads
Do you need help creating your lead generation strategy specific to the Nigerian market?
What B2B Strategies Would You Use to Generate Leads?
While there are many B2B lead-generation strategies you can use, several should form any successful program’s backbone. The following lead-generation techniques are well-tested strategies for your business model.
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing is an essential aspect of your digital marketing effort es[especially in the lead generation process, to attract potential clients. You can use different content marketing strategies depending on your product or service. Typical content marketing types that come to my mind now are direct mail, blogging, video, podcasting, infographics, email, visual content, ebooks, lead magnets, white papers, SlideShare presentations, quizzes, checklists, courses, webinars, slide decks, free apps, and social media posts. The most common one used by B2B companies in Nigeria is blogging.
A study by HubSpot found that companies that publish 16 or more blog posts per month generate 4.5 times more leads than those who publish 0-4 posts. The study further revealed that 47% of B2B buyers rely on content for research and purchasing decisions.
Types of Content for B2B Lead Generation
Top-of-the-Funnel Content
The top of the sales funnel (TOF) is the customer’s journey’s awareness and discovery stage. It’s when a potential buyer is looking for solutions and answers. They know they have a problem and are trying to find a solution.
Keep the following in mind to create and optimise your content for B2B lead generation at this point in the sales funnel.
- Create content to answer questions and solve customers’ problems.
- Target informational keywords.
- Write blog posts using SEO best practices.
- Attract leads with e-books, guides, courses, and other branded industry-related gated content.
Middle-of-the-Funnel Content
At this stage, your audiences and users look for specific offerings that provide what they need to solve their problems. They are looking for a brand or business that has the best solution. As you create pieces of content for this stage, keep these lead generation marketing ideas in mind.
- Create content pieces that relate to your products and services.
- Target navigational keywords.
- Optimise your entire website for SEO.
- Attract leads to webinars, case studies, and other product- or service-related gated content.
Bottom-of-the-Funnel Content
Prospects at this point are searching Google using buying intent keywords. They are searching for websites and pages to make their purchase. It would be best to have content ready to guide them toward buying from you. Keep these lead strategies in mind as you create content in this stage.
- Create content that helps your audience overcome purchasing objections.
- Target transactional keywords.
- Attract leads with demos, free trials, consultations, etc., and get prospects to sign up.
All-Through-the-Funnel Content
- Gather vital information about leads as you collect them.
- Segment your email list.
- Deliver content based on each sales funnel stage.
2. Social Media Marketing
A famous quote credited to Chris Brogan says, “No matter what, the very first piece of social media real estate I’d start with is a blog.” For companies ready to move beyond brand awareness and engagement in their marketing, learning how to use blogging to get more leads on social media is crucial. In a recent survey, HubSpot found that 66% of responders spending about six hours per week on social media brought in leads. Also, social media lead conversion rates are 13% higher than the average lead conversion rate. Include lead generation on social media as a critical part of your B2B business strategy.
It would help if you go through all your social media accounts and optimise your company profile on your social media channels for the best results by providing contact information and call-to-action (CTA). Create clickable content by ensuring each post has a clear link and tempting CTA. Ensure that you create customised and user-friendly landing pages customised for mobile devices for each social network. These days, social media is a pay-to-play affair. Don’t be shy about creating social lead ads and offering the right incentives to people to follow and engage with your business on social media to gather social proof. Use data from your analytics to measure and refine your efforts.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
According to Marketo, marrying SEO and lead generation strategies starts with a modern understanding of SEO, specifically a concept called “user intent. That means the valuable content you create for every stage of the sales funnel must be search engine optimised for the user for their unique buyer’s journey. The keywords that generate strong purchase intent search results are likely being used by the portion of your audience or users that is ready (or almost ready) to buy. Those who generate search results with a strong purchase intent will likely be used by people closer to the bottom of the funnel. If you created a content piece to target a specific keyword, ensure it addresses that keyword’s user intent.
As time passes and you create more content, you get more organic traffic. This will help you broaden your list of keywords and find relevant terms that can help you drive even more customers. Your keyword research will probably produce an extensive list of potential ranking terms. With more B2B companies switching to account-based marketing (ABM), it would be best to adjust your approach toward producing these assets.
4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
B2B sales cycles are often complex (so advertisers may not see ROI for a long time). So thriving in today’s SEM landscape requires you to get many things right. Some things you need to master include pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, search networks, and display networks.
To use SEM as a B2B lead generation strategy, you also need to be proficient in the following:
- Knowing your target audience and users. Knowing and fully understanding your target audience characteristics is essential to developing accurate personas that serve as reference points for all your messaging.
- Using best practices for your ad structure. Rely on the personas you created above to guide your language and message. Set up an exciting landing page for your products or services to encourage readers to take the next step. Carefully analyse your keyword options and be careful with your choices. Ask your sales rep, sales team or marketing team to help inform the discovery process. Ensure your keywords make sense for your buyers at the start and end of your funnel.
- Trying out A/B testing. A/B testing means displaying two or more versions of your ad to your viewers and gathering and analysing data to help you make your campaign more impactful.
- Creating exciting content. Interesting content helps your audience and users engage with your company or brand, fill out your contact forms, download and share your content, and eventually become your customers.
- Optimising your landing pages. The landing pages you create will become outdated as time goes by, so you need to optimise them to yield the best ROI. Some practical ways to optimise your landing pages are by adjusting your CTAs based on previous research and A/B testing. You also need to refine your advert copy to better address the needs of your target customer personas. Always keep the essential information front and centre and above the fold. When optimising, you must strategically select the right imagery to send your audience and users the right messages. Analyse your website analytics and user heat maps to optimise your user experience on your website.
- Develop a simple plan for your adverts on search or display networks.
5. Referral Marketing
An article in Invoice.ng reports that 84% of B2B decision-makers start their buying process through referrals. Generating leads through word of mouth or referral marketing is basically about having all the stakeholders in your online community (e.g. past and present customers, fans, brand ambassadors, board members, friends, family, employees, etc.) spreading your brand message for you.
You can do your referral marketing by offering such incentives as customer referrals, employee referrals, social media marketing, etc. You can use an automated referral program. Decide on the referral rewards you will offer as incentives, e.g. product discounts or cash. Referral marketing can help your customers understand your brand story and improve your reputation. Referrals generate a higher quality of leads when compared to traditional marketing methods. Once a referral becomes a customer, they are more likely to stick with the company.
It is among the best and cheapest forms of marketing. Your business will still do well if you only do referral marketing. Referral marketing converts well because the person referred to your business is already interested in your product or service, making them highly qualified. When deciding whether to use referral marketing, a good rule of thumb is if your business is more transactional, has a short-selling cycle for a product that many other companies need, and deals with one main decision-maker. Then a referral marketing program could work well for your business.
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing is among the oldest online channels for B2B marketing. It is also one of the most trusted sources of information for B2B buyers. According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), email marketing delivers a $51 return for every $1 spent on investment return. According to Clickback, 73% of millennials prefer communication from businesses to come via email. These millennials are, therefore, comfortable dropping their email address with brands they like. Another good thing about it is that increasing subscriber engagement with every email you send will increase sales, average revenue per customer, and company profits.
A strategic email marketing approach may take time to set up and maintain, but the rewards will show the benefits. A great way to maximise lead generation from your email marketing campaign is to know who’s clicking on your website from the email. You will need an email marketing tool and data from your website analytics. If your email marketing’s open rate is reasonable, but the leads generated and click-through rates are low, your email’s copy or formatting needs work.
7. Hosting Events
According to Leadfeeder, 73% of marketers and sales leaders report webinars as a top lead generation tactic. To promote your webinars and other events more effectively, you need to know your target market, i.e. study the type of audience and users you want to attract and use it to craft your ideal customer persona. Then create your marketing collaterals for your event based on each of your customer persona. Have an easy event registration process that encourages people to sign up. Get comfortable hosting virtual events, as this will only become more popular in our digital age.
You want to keep those who attend your event engaged with your business and eager to learn more about your products and services. For online events, consider following up shortly after the event with a recording. You should also send the recording to registered persons who could not attend the event. For in-person events, observe all the government directives on social distancing, etc., at the event’s venue. Also, consider following up shortly after the event with a copy of your slide presentation deck or upload the presentation to LinkedIn or SlideShare to encourage people to follow your accounts online.
8. Run Contests and Giveaways
Today, contests and giveaways are synonymous with referrals and recommendations. They are no longer a marketing option exclusive to B2C companies! Work well in a variety of end goals when thought through strategically. Havard Business Review discovered that 84% of B2B buyers start the purchasing process with a referral, and peer recommendations influence over 90% of all B2B buying decisions. Giveaways help you attract leads who are harder to reach through events, webinars, or your blog. Hosting a giveaway doesn’t require that much money or work. You’ll need a good landing page, a small budget to run ads, and a reliable email platform to store the email address of your leads. After a successful campaign, it’s easy to duplicate your efforts on different channels. You can also run multiple campaigns at once.
In B2B marketing, when creating your competitions and giveaways, consider the target decision-makers needs and those who aid in the primary decision-maker’s eventual choice. Use that info to craft your contests and giveaways. Learn how to highlight your company culture in the entire process so that participants can learn about your company when participating in your promotional initiatives. Ensure that your company stories inspire your participants to become emotionally invested in your brand.
Focus on Local Companies
Focusing on local companies is an excellent strategy to generate B2B leads in the Nigerian market. You’ll have more success with this approach than trying to sell to international businesses. Nigeria has a large population of small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that make up over 90% of all businesses in the country. These SMEs are very focused on their local markets and often don’t want to deal with international trade. However, they may be interested in buying products or services from larger organisations outside Nigeria. This makes them ideal targets for your company’s sales efforts.
Build Relationships with Industry Influencers
Building relationships with industry influencers is another excellent B2B lead generation strategy applicable in the Nigerian market. Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective ways for B2B marketers to generate qualified sales leads. It works by getting your brand in front of people who already trust you and your company. This type of marketing requires a lot of research and planning. If done right, though, it can be gratifying.
Create a Landing Page That Targets Your Ideal Prospects
A landing page is one of the essential tools in any sales funnel. It’s where visitors come after they’ve found out about your company via search engines, social media, email campaigns, etc. The aim is to turn visitors into leads. Landing pages also help you determine what content works best with your audience. If you’re looking to target specific industries, you can create different landing pages based on those industry-specific keywords.
Offer a Free Trial
Depending on the nature of your product or service and your sales process, offering a free trial to prospective B2B clients is another excellent lead generation strategy you can use in Nigeria.
A free trial is one of the best ways to generate new business leads. It gives prospects time to evaluate your solution and determine whether it meets their needs. If it does, they may become customers. If it doesn’t, they’ll move on to the next provider. Free trials also help you build credibility with potential customers by demonstrating your expertise and value.
Which Are the Most Effective Ways to Generate B2b Leads?
In conclusion, generating leads is essential because it helps businesses grow their customer base. You must understand what works best for your company to generate leads effectively.
B2B lead generation is a great way to generate high quality leads for your business. You need to know what works best for your industry.
With most things in marketing, the quick answer is it depends. It would be best if you considered many factors. In most cases, you must combine all the above rather than stick to one.
Contact us if you need help selecting B2B lead generation strategies specific to the Nigerian market. We’ll be glad to help.
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