What are some B2B lead generation 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 to learn as much as you can about your audience and how they interact with your business. This article will help you discover some success-driven strategies and tactics B2B businesses in Nigeria are using to generate more leads and sales.
To begin, let us answer a few questions about B2B marketing and lead generation.
What Is a B2B Marketing Strategy?
According to HubSpot, B2B (business-to-business), marketing refers to any marketing strategy or content geared towards a business or organisation. Any business selling products or services to other businesses or organisations (vs consumers) typically uses B2B marketing strategies.
Having a well defined B2B lead generation strategy is the key in this digital age. Here is a quick overview of some effective 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 customers for your product or service, then attracting them to buy.
In B2B marketing, lead generation is the most important KPI used in measuring the ROI of your marketing expenses. A primary aim of B2B marketing is to generate quality leads to the sales pipeline.
What really 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 major channel, including social media, PPC, blogging, and email.
Do you need help in 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 you can use in your business.
1. Content Marketing
You can use different types of content marketing strategies depending on the type of product or service you offer. The common types of content marketing that come to my mind now are blogging, video, podcasting, infographics, email, visual content, ebooks, lead magnets, whitepapers, 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.
According to this article, a study by HubSpot, companies that publish 16 or more blog posts per month generate 4.5 times more leads than those who publish only 0-4 posts per month. The study further revealed that 47% of B2B buyers rely on content for research and making 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 they are trying to discover a solution.
To create and optimise your content for B2B lead generation at this point in the sales funnel, keep the following in mind.
- 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. As you create content in this stage, keep these lead strategies in mind.
- Create content that helps your audience overcome purchasing objections.
- Target transactional keywords.
- Attract leads with demos, free trials, consultations, etc. 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 popular 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 key part of your B2B business strategy.
For best results, you need to optimise your company profile on your social media channels by providing contact information and call-to-action (CTA). Create clickable content by making sure each post has a clear link and tempting CTA. Ensure that you create customised and user-friendly landing pages 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. Use data from your analytics to measure and refine your efforts.
3. Search Engine Optimisation (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 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 are likely to be used by people closer to the bottom-of-the-funnel. If you created a content piece to target a specific keyword, make sure 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 a lot of 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:
- 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 your message. Set up an interesting landing page for each of 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 team to help inform the discovery process. Ensure your keywords make sense for your buyers, both 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 interesting content. Interesting content helps drive your audience and users to 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. As time goes by, the landing pages you created will become outdated, so you need to optimise them to yield the best ROI. Some effective 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 customer personas. Remember always to keep the most important information front and centre and above the fold. When optimising, you also need to be strategic in selecting 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.
- Developing a simple plan for your adverts on search networks or display networks.
5. Referral Marketing
According to an article in Invoice.ng, 84% of B2B decision-makers start the purchasing process because of a referral. 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, and 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 type of referral rewards you will offer as incentives, e.g. product discounts or cash. Referral marketing can help your customers get to know 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. Even if the only marketing you do is referral marketing, your business will still do well. Referral marketing converts really well because the person referred to your business is already interested in your product or service, making them highly qualified. When trying to decide 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 businesses need, and you’re dealing 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 if you can increase subscriber engagement with every email you send, you 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 onto your website from the email. For this, you will need an email marketing tool and data from your website analytics. If your email marketing’s open rate is good, but the leads generated, and click-through rates are low, then 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 audience, i.e. know the type of audience and users you want to attract and use it to craft your customer persona. Then create your marketing collaterals for your event based on each of your customer persona. Be sure to have an easy event registration process that encourages people to sign up. Get comfortable hosting virtual events as this is only going to 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 of the event. You should also send the recording to persons who registered but could not attend the event. For in-person events, be sure to 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! In fact, work well in a variety of end goals when thought through strategically. Havard Business Review discovered that 84% of B2B buyers are now starting 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 and use that info to craft your competitions and giveaways. Learn how to highlight your company culture in the entire process so that participants can learn something about your company when they take part in your promotional initiatives. Ensure that your company stories inspire your participants to become emotionally invested in your brand.
What Are the Best Ways for B2B Lead Generation?
With most things in marketing, the quick answer is it depends. It would be best if you considered many factors. In most cases, you need to use a combination of all the above rather than sticking to one.
If you need help with selecting B2B lead generation strategies specific to the Nigerian market, contact us. We’ll be glad to help.
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