According to statistics, 61% of B2B marketers state that generating leads is one of their biggest challenges. Nonetheless, lead generation is the very foundation of every successful marketing strategy, so it’s crucial to find the most effective way to attract leads. How can you get more leads in 2021?
The beginning of the year is the perfect time to reevaluate some of your marketing strategies and see which parts of your sales process you could improve. Let’s go over some of the strategies that will bring you more leads in 2021.
Automate Your Emails
Email marketing may not be a revolutionary marketing trend, but due to its effectiveness, it’s definitely something you should keep part of your B2B marketing strategy in 2021.
Email marketing is an online strategy that has proven to be extremely effective year after year, and there’s no sign it’s gonna decrease in popularity any time soon. According to a study, 59% of marketers still see the most ROI from email, so it’s safe to say that email marketing is here to stay in 2021.
While it’s been around for a long time, that doesn’t mean there are no changes and innovations regarding email marketing. We’ve come a long way from manually sending cold emails. In 2021, it’s all about email automation and highly personalized campaigns.
If you want to realize the full potential of your email marketing, you need to automate it. Using email automation platforms will enable you to create drip campaigns, use behavior triggered emails, send automatic responses and follow-ups – all of which will help you create a personalized experience for your leads.
Here are the steps you need to take to automate your email marketing:
- Create a list of prospects and segment them according to their business size, location, niche, etc. This will help you create buyer personas and personalize your campaign according to their needs.
- Write your emails. Everything from subject to closing line is important so make sure to do your research. You can also use tried and tested sales email templates for guaranteed results.
- Test your emails. It’s always a good idea to try out your campaign before sending it to everyone. That way you will get rid of all the little mistakes that might have slipped through and make sure that everything will run smoothly.
- Once everything is set up, you’re ready to send your emails. But you’re not done yet. More often than not, you’ll have to send multiple follow-ups, so automation really comes in handy for this step.
- Lastly, measure and analyze the success of your campaign and use that knowledge to improve your future marketing strategies.
Use Social Proof
Once your leads are on your website, you have to convince them that they can trust your business. If they landed on your website, they’re probably already interested in your product or service. But, chances are, you’re not the only one offering them.
In a highly competitive market, you’ll need to convince your leads that you’re better than your competitors, and that’s where social proof comes to play.
Go ahead, brag about the big brands you’ve worked with. Put customer testimonials and positive reviews about your brand in a prominent place on your website.
Customers love to hear about previous experiences before making a purchase, especially in the B2B world where stakes are higher.
Keep in mind that your leads will research your brand and check for opinions beyond your website, so make sure to keep your reputation and reviews under control across the web.
Make The Most Out Of Networking
Even though the focus has shifted more towards digital marketing in the past decade, face-to-face marketing is still alive and well.
This is especially true for B2B, where networking events, trade shows, and conferences present a perfect opportunity for generating leads. In fact, even 95% of B2B marketers agree that live events provide attendees with a valuable opportunity to form in-person connections in an increasingly digital world.
Besides, you can use these events to further diversify your content. For example, if you’re organizing a conference, it’s not only a great way to connect with the visitors, but you can also film the event and make fresh video content for your blog or social media channels.
That way, you’ll be able to reach even more leads and your event organization efforts will pay off in the digital world as well.
Strategically Use Content Marketing
There’s no doubt that content marketing is one of the most effective long term marketing strategies. Even though the results are not immediately visible, it is still highly profitable in the long run with even % conversion rates.
However, the internet today is oversaturated with content, so you need to find a way to stand out from your competitors and attract as many leads as possible.
One of the great ways to achieve this is to strategically gate your content. According to statistics, even 80% of B2B content is gated. However, there’s still some doubt that gated content won’t generate that many views because people are either reluctant to give out personal information, or simply don’t want to take the extra step and fill in the form.
While this may not be the best idea for your regular, short-form blog posts aimed to raise brand awareness, it can be extremely effective for longer, more technical content like this such as whitepapers and ebooks. And this is exactly the type of content that the B2B audience is most interested in.
The key is to create content that’s valuable enough to be gated. If you offer useful information, your audience is more likely to put in some more effort in order to get their hands on your content.
Another thing to keep in mind is the length of your forms. Make sure to only ask for the minimum amount of information that you need, because long forms reduce the chances that prospects will convert. All of these tactics should leave you with more leads in 2021.
