10 Effective Lead Generation Strategies (+ Best Practices!)

68% of companies admit to struggling with their lead generation strategies. If you can relate, you’re not alone. However, we all know it’s not that easy to generate leads. Let alone qualified leads that have an interest in what you have to offer. In this guide, we are going to go through 10 of the most effective lead generation strategies out there for B2B companies. And, best practices and examples for each to help you get a head start. Let’s jump right into the first lead generation strategy, email marketing.

1. Email Marketing

Despite the rise in newer marketing channels, email marketing remains one of, if not the most effective lead generation strategies. Especially for B2B companies. If you’re looking to increase the number of contacts you have, try buying an email list, using forms on your website, and using one of the lead generation software that we will talk about a bit later. Once you have your contacts, you can set up newsletters, promotional campaigns, drip campaigns, and more. These are to follow up and ensure they have all of the information they need to convert.

Something that many companies overlook is properly tracking your email metrics. And, this goes past your open rates and click rates. Try to monitor what your prospects are doing on your website after they click to ensure they are properly engaged. If your visitors from email have a high bounce, that is a good sign to switch up your content.

2. Webinars

Hosting webinars is a great way to connect with prospects in a more interactive manner. And, you can show the faces behind your company. Promote your webinar across your social channels organically and even paid, add a pop up to your website, and ask your sales reps to share that you have an upcoming webinar. Create an engaging and informative webinar that addresses common challenges your prospects face. And, provide actionable insight on how they can solve these challenges. Within platforms like Zoom, you can encourage audience participation with Q&As, polls, and even a giveaway at the end. 

3. Lead Generation Software

One of the best ways to generate leads is to leverage technology, surprise surprise! But, with so many lead generation software on the market, it can be hard to narrow down which will work best for your company. Here are a few of my favorite lead generation software to help generate leads.

Visitor Queue

First up on our list is Visitor Queue. Visitor Queue is a website visitor identification software that can show you what companies are on your website. Additionally, we tell you how they got there, what pages they visit, and how long they spend on each page. You can set up conversion tracking and email notifications to stay on top of your website activity. This can help to ensure you’re meeting targets. We also provide employee contact information. This can help you reach out to each company and see if they found what they were looking for. This can be helpful for prospecting and for ensuring your current customers are satisfied. For example, if you see a current customer visiting your pricing page close to their renewal period, this could be a good opportunity for a sales rep to reach out. Start your 14-day free trial of Visitor Queue today.

LeadBooster by Pipedrive

If Pipedrive is your CRM of choice, their LeadBooster add on is a no brainer. The LeadBooster add-on includes a 24/7 treed chatbot, live chat, web forms, and prospector. The prospector section of LeadBooster allows you to source quality leds from a database of over 400 million profiles. You can also score all of your leads. So, your sales reps or your automations can follow up with the most relevant leads first. They also have a lot of thorough yet easy to understand reporting options to help you get even more out of your lead generation strategies.

Leadpages

With the help of Leadpages, you can create fully optimized landing pages that are easy to build and track. Leadpages can help you build high-performing landing pages with just a few clicks thanks to their drag and drop functionality. They proclaim that their landing pages earn 5x more conversions than the industry average. With over 270 businesses happily using their tool. Additionally, Leadpages integrates with a variety of different CRMs, so your leads can seamlessly be added to the appropriate list. 

OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a popup builder that can help you pique the interest of your visitors while collecting contact information. Whether you’re looking to build a floating bar, gamified wheel, scroll boxes, or even exit intent popups, OptinMonster has you covered. And, with over 1.2 million websites using OptinMonster, it’s safe to say that they’re a popular choice. They also have a lot of great analytics and tracking capabilities to ensure your leads don’t fall through the cracks.

4. Account Based Marketing

Account based marketing, or ABM, involves targeting high-value prospects with relevant marketing efforts that are tailored to their specific needs. To do this, you’ll need to identify key decision-makers within target accounts, and target them at the right time with the right messaging. It’s crucial to have your sales and marketing teams on the same page to ensure they are delivering the same message to prospects and they know if you are running any promotions. Additionally, if your CRM offers lead scoring, this can help you further target prospects who are in the buying window.

5. Referral Programs

Referral programs leverage word-of-mouth marketing, incentivizing your existing customers to refer leads to your business. Offer rewards, recurring revenue, discounts, or other perks for successful referrals to entice your prospects. Here at Visitor Queue, referral programs have helped us generate some of our best clients. We include an email in our paying customers sequence that asks if they are interested in the referral program, explaining how it works and what’s in it for them. Tools like ReferralHero and Referral Rock are great options if you need help managing your program.

6. Co-Marketing on Content

Collaborating with complimentary businesses can help your company expand its reach, while getting in front of an audience that is highly relevant. Identify potential partners that have similar values, target audiences, and brand voice to yours. But, ensure they are in no way competing for the same customers. Joint webinars, guest blog posts, and co-branded campaigns can be great ways to produce content that is beneficial to both sides. We have built out a few co-marketing blog articles that have continued to be one of our top performing pieces of content.

7. LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn’s paid advertising includes Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail, that can help you target your exact audience. You can target based on job title, company size, industry, company name, and more. By pairing this highly specific targeting capability with your content, you can increase the chances of getting in front of the right audience compared to other social platforms like Facebook. Plus, LinkedIn has a lot of valuable analytics that allow you to track your campaign performance, create A/B tests, and help you see what’s working. Keep in mind that LinkedIn paid advertising can get pretty pricey due to how specific of an audience you are able to target. So, it’s important to keep a close eye on your spend to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

8. Gated Content 

If your website gets a lot of traffic, but not a lot of leads, gated content is a great way to generate leads. Entice your website visitors to surrender their contact information by offering valuable content like eBooks, whitepapers, videos, or data sets. You want to ensure the content is premium, and not easily found with a quick Google search. Strategically position the content on your website, like under a resources tab, on a relevant landing page, in blog articles, to try and entice your visitors at different times. It’s also helpful to create an email follow up sequence to send additional information about the topic and about your company. 

9. Google Ads

With Google Ads, you can bid on relevant keywords related to your business, ensuring your ads appear prominently in search engine results pages (SERPs) and across Google’s display network. Whether you utilize search ads, display ads, or video ads on platforms like YouTube, Google Ads allows for precise targeting based on demographics, interests, and online behaviors. By crafting compelling ad copy and optimizing landing pages for conversion, you can drive qualified traffic to your website and generate valuable leads. Your Google Ad landing pages are a perfect place for your eBook CTA as well, in case the visitor is not ready to fully convert.

10. AI-Powered Chatbots

Try to integrate an AI-powered chatbot onto your website opposed to a manual chatbot. This can help you provide immediate assistance and capture leads in real-time. Personalize your chat interactions based on frequently asked questions, user preferences, and previous behaviors. Recently, Zapier has released its own AI-powered chatbot to help free up your team, allowing them to focus on more important issues. They allow you to train the chatbot with your own sources, and then analyze your most common questions, interactions, and collect contact information. 

Wrap Up

We all know that lead generation is not easy. What works for one company, may not work for the next. Because of this, it can take some trial and error to figure out what works best for your company and what your audience responds to. Additionally, try to diversify your lead generation strategies so you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. As always, if you have any questions about how to use Visitor Queue to generate leads, do not hesitate to contact us.