Introduction
Do you want to generate more leads in 2022? But what are you doing differently to empower your B2B lead generation strategies in 2022?
Nothing! Nada!
B2B marketers, your traditional lead generation strategies will not work in 2022. Simply because the last two years of the pandemic have changed how buyers behave and make purchase decisions.
If you check out the latest B2B market trends, you can see how much things have changed in the short span.
For example—
- A 2020 McKinsey report has stated that 90% of B2B sales have been shifted to digital platforms.
- 74% of business buyers research online before making a purchase decision.
- 62% of global B2B businesses are forced to reduce their marketing budget due to the pandemic.
So, the pandemic has changed how B2B businesses will operate, market, and how buyers will think. Therefore, you have to revamp your B2B lead generation strategies to accommodate these new market changes.
Let’s scroll down to find the top 7 B2B lead generation strategies to follow in 2022.
7 B2B Lead Generation Strategies to Thrive in 2022
From 2019 to 2021, the B2B landscape has evolved to a great extent. During this period, business buyers have not only learned to spend wisely, but the whole buyer’s generation has changed.
In 2021, 73% of millennials are part of the B2B market. Also, the Gen X buyers are outnumbering baby boomers in the B2B decision maker roles.
This generation shift and post-pandemic business ecosystem have made it essential to tweak with your B2B lead generation strategies and include the following elements in your lead pipeline:
1. Be Customer-Centric
B2C marketers have always been customer-centric. And now, B2B marketers also have to steal this approach from B2C marketers.
Since customers are the main focal point of lead generation strategies; thus, you have to understand your targeted audience before creating lead generation strategies.
Once you know your customers’ needs and on which platforms they are active, you can better target them.
Today, there are numerous techniques available to understand your targeted audience, such as:
- Conduct market research to know who your customers are and where they live?
- You can analyze the audience base targeted by your competitors.
- Create your potential buyer’s persona to segregate them into relevant groups.
- Use analytical tools to understand people’s interaction with your marketing resources like Google Analytics.
- Focus on intent data to figure out the exact position of a lead in the sales funnel, etc.
If you want to target personalized marketing to convert more leads to sales, design customer-centric B2B lead generation strategies in 2022.
2. Go For Omnichannel Marketing
Since B2B sales have gone digital in the last two years; thus, B2B marketing has also evolved online. But this has further confused B2B marketers whether to invest in outbound or inbound marketing channels?
The answer is both. The inbound B2B lead generation strategies help marketers to be creative and innovative. On the flip side, outbound marketing allows you to contact whomever you want.
Using omnichannel marketing strategies, businesses have opportunities to generate leads through different channels, including SEO, display ads, social media, and more.
In fact, inbound marketing can empower your outbound marketing efforts or vice versa. When you send a personalized blog or article to the lead after making a cold call, it can engage potential leads to your sales pipeline.
Omnichannel marketing based on well-balanced outbound and inbound marketing strategies can dramatically improve your lead generation rate.
At UnboundB2B, we have firsthand seen the impact of multiple-channel marketing strategy. We have increased ROI by 284% for one of one our clients using multi-channel marketing campaigns.
We adopt a simple strategy of sending follow back emails based on the buyer’s stage in the sales funnel to achieve the results.
3. Marketing Automation is Essential
Deploying B2B omnichannel marketing strategies is impossible without the right marketing tools. An accurate data tracking system is required to monitor and track individual inbound and outbound marketing campaigns results.
The marketing automation software will help you analyze the interaction of the individual lead with your business resources. It can also allow you to track the position of each lead in your sales funnel so you can prepare personalized strategies to target relevant leads.
Digital marketers are already heavily using automation solutions to enhance their marketing results. In 2020, the digital marketing software market size was valued at $49.43 billion, which is projected to grow at a CAGR of 16.6% between 2021 to 2028.
Source: grandviewresearch
That means businesses are using marketing software today to generate high-quality leads. But the key factor is to select the correct marketing automation solutions.
From email marketing tools to data integration software, marketers have an infinite number of tools available to select from. Thus, it is essential for marketers to consider the following points to find the best marketing automation system:
- Make sure that the software has a simple interface so your entire team can easily understand and use it.
- Ensure that marketing software contains the technologies and features required to perform vital marketing operations based on your lead generation strategy.
- Always check online reviews and ratings before selecting the marketing automation solutions.
- Compare different tools market prices before choosing the tool close to your budget.
- Use free trials and demos to test the program, etc.
4. Empower Your Content
Content marketing is one of the best B2B lead generation strategies. This marketing hack can help you target new leads, inform them and shorten the lead’s journey.
It is even projected that the content marketing market size will reach $417.85 billion from 2020 to 2025.
However, simply publishing a few blogs and social media posts will not be sufficient to generate leads in 2022. You have to personalize, consolidate and create content targeting each lead stage to drive maximum results.
Here are a few tips for creating lead-generating content marketing strategies:
- Define your content marketing objectives.
- Select the right mode to publish your content, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.
- Understand your buyer’s pain points to produce the content.
- Create different content for each lead generation stage. For example, produce informative content to make new leads aware and then use engaging content to nurture those leads.
- Exploit different content publication platforms to reach more leads like ebooks, newsletters, social media, etc.
- Syndicate your content to squeeze its full potential..
To learn how to create a result-driven B2B content marketing strategy, you should check out the Salesforce website and social media channels.
Source: Salesforce
It is a #1 number CRM platform because Salesforce uses multiple channels to publish engaging content. The brand publishes user-centric blogs, informative ebooks, and attractive social media posts on multiple platforms.
As a result, Salesforce has made revenue of $6.68 billion in the third quarter of 2021.
5. Use Chatbots in Lead Generation
Today, 94% of B2B buyers prefer to search online before making a purchase decision. Modern buyers first collect information about the brand online and then decide whether to buy or not.
In this case, you need to add chatbots into your B2B lead generation strategy to improve virtual interaction between your brand and potential customers.
AI-powered chatbots allow leads to collect relevant information about the company in real-time. In fact, buyers don’t have to make any calls or send messages to retrieve information. They simply have to interact with a bot, and all information will pop up on their screens.
Chatbots cannot only empower buyers. But they can also reduce sales teams’ workload. Since buyers can get desired information from bots, it will save salespeople from the trouble of attending irrelevant sales calls.
Additionally, marketing teams can gather data about potential leads via chatbots to target them with personalized marketing resources.
Today, chatbots are used by all the leading B2B businesses to automate the lead generation process. For example, HubSpot has embedded a HubBot on the homepage so potential buyers can easily find the information and quickly make purchase decisions.
Source:Hubspot
6. Launch a B2B Referral Program
This is another B2B lead generation strategy stolen from the B2C marketplace. B2C brands like Amazon have gained significant growth using referral programs.
Since the difference between B2B and B2C buyers’ mindsets is reducing; thus, you can create a referral program to generate leads from multiple resources.
In fact, today, 90% of B2B buyers’ decisions are influenced by recommendations. And 78% of B2B marketers find referral programs a great way to generate qualified leads.
Additionally, launching referral programs will save marketing teams the workload of collaborating with top influencers. This way, influencers will come to you, not the other way around.
However, you need to create a lucrative referral program that can attract influencers. Here are a few tips for designing a B2B referral program:
- Provide an outstanding customer service
- Offer lucrative benefits to your influencers and brand ambassadors
- Share relevant data and marketing strategies with your influencers to better target leads
- Establish a personalized connection with your individual influencers
- Set criteria to include only popular and relevant users to your referral program
- Appreciate the users who generate more leads via the referral program
- Constantly review and analyze your referral leads
- Ensure that the whole referral program is super easy to sign up for, etc.
For a B2B referral program example, you can check out Booker’s referral program. It is a business management platform that has a great referral program.
Source: referralcandy
Booker has provided simple steps to sign up for the referral program. Additionally, they have offered strong rewards for referring – iPad Mini for the first referral and $200 for each subsequent referral.
7. Acquire the Best Sales and Marketing Teams
Your powerful B2B lead generation strategy will dramatically fail if you don’t have the best people to execute it. If you don’t have competent salespeople and marketers by your side, no marketing tool or referral programs can help you generate leads.
Therefore, you have to focus on creating the best marketing and sales team in 2022. But unfortunately, this is not an easy task.
First of all, many corporate employees are quitting their jobs due to the pandemic. In addition, some employees are switching to full-time freelancers, and some become entrepreneurs leaving standard 9to5 jobs behind. In fact, around 4.4 million people have resigned from their jobs as of September 2021.
Here many marketing and salespeople are also quitting their jobs. This will make it harder for B2B companies to find professionals to implement their new lead generation strategies.
Besides this talent shortage problem, coordination has also been a big concern for sales and marketing teams. Companies often have to deal with miscommunication and conflicts between the sales and marketing departments.
So, what’s the solution?
The solution is an account-based marketing approach. Using ABM, B2B businesses can establish a cordial relationship between salespeople and marketers. They can also streamline sales and marketing efforts to target the high revenue-generation accounts.
On the flip side, deploying the ABM approach to retain and engage employees in the workplace will further help to stop top talent from resigning.
Besides ABM, companies need to communicate with their staff and offer them additional perks to enhance their performance to implement the new B2B lead generation strategies. Some common perks that employers can offer today are:
- More paid sick leaves
- Healthy meal facility
- Flexible work hours
- Holiday allowance, etc.
The Best B2B Lead Generation Strategy in 2022
To sum up all the top 7 B2B lead generation strategies of 2022, we would recommend marketers constantly monitor and measure their marketing strategies.
Whether you are deploying an omnichannel or referral program marketing strategy, monitoring each strategy will help you understand which one is suitable for your business.
This way, you can focus on the more result-driven lead generation strategies and grow your business in 2022.
So, the best B2B lead generation solution is monitoring and measuring the results.
Now, go and try the best 7 growth strategies. And don’t forget to share your input with us.
Gaurav Roy
20 January 2022
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