Six Ways to Generate B2B Leads Through Digital Marketing

Now that we live with the coronavirus and with remote working,
every aspect of business is going digital and online, and that is settling in.
Sales too needs to go digital and strengthen its online methods of winning leads.

This article sets out lead generation methods from a B2B angle, in six broad groups.

Who this is for
・You have not yet got to grips with digital marketing
・You have started but it is not going well
・You are looking for other methods

1. What lead generation is

In marketing, a lead is a “prospect” who could become a customer in future, and lead generation means finding those prospects.
Lead generation is also sometimes called “lead nurturing” as a marketing term.

A prospect is a person (or company) who has taken a free trial of a service, attended a seminar, or made an enquiry through your website or social media.
Winning leads lets a company steady its business and grow it.

2. Six B2B lead generation methods

Below are the specific methods.

2.1 Web advertising

Web advertising covers a range of methods.
Here is a list of them with how each is charged.

Delivery method	Format	Charging model
Search advertising	Text	Click
Display advertising	Image or video	Click / view
Video advertising	Video	View
affiliate advertising	Content (article)	Performance-based, such as an application or a registration
Direct buy	Web publication	Impressions

Search advertising works for users who are considering and researching your product or service. If you want to build awareness of it, video advertising and direct buys work well.

Read more below.

The classic approach to designing digital marketing

2.2 Seminars (webinars)

Seminars that were held offline before the pandemic are now held online using meeting tools such as Zoom.
The word webinar was coined from “a seminar held on the web”.
Unlike an offline seminar, a webinar makes it harder to talk to attendees directly afterwards, but with some thought it is still a lead generation method that can work online.
And there are no venue, staffing or travel costs, which
is welcome for attendees and organisers alike.

We too runWebinarson marketing several times a month.
They include concrete examples so that attendees can act on what they hear afterwards, so do take a look.

The list of current and past webinars isclick here

2.3 Running a website

You can win leads by running your own website or publication.
There are three parts to that.
・Content marketing
・SEO
・Putting up white papers
・EFO

Content marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation) let you put information in front of users who do not know your product or service, and grow them into prospects.
More people of every age now gather information on the web, so put out useful, original content and bring them to your own site.

2.4 Email marketing

This is the email newsletter. It suits the internet well: you send email to a list you have built and guide people towards an enquiry or a document request.
The advantage is that you can set the content, timing and frequency to suit the attributes of your target users and the nature of the product.

2.5 Running social media

It is thought of as something used in B2C marketing, but it is an effective lead generation method in B2B too.
More people now “have bought goods or services” and “talk to companies they want to join” through social media, and companies that had no interest in it before are starting to use it. Your competitors may well be doing so, which is the flip side of how much attention the tool is getting, and user numbers are rising.

▼There are four main social networks you can use in B2B marketing.
・Twitter
・Facebook
・Instagram
・LinkedIn

Used well, social media is excellent at spreading information, letting you put out your product or service free of charge and win awareness and purchases.
That said, bad news spreads just as fast in the form of a public backlash, so it has to be handled with great care.

2.6 Press releases and platforms

Announcements such as a new service launch or a business expansion
are often published as press releases in the news section of your own site.
To reach more people, it is worth using outside platforms as well.

Listing on B2B comparison sites and quotation sites also raises your chances of reaching people who have never come across your service.

3. A few extras

Here are a couple of OOH formats (out of home: outdoor and transit advertising), a market that has grown in recent years as the medium has gone digital.

■Taxi advertising
Taxi advertising has drawn attention lately as a B2B marketing tactic. For B2B services it is seen as an effective way to reach owners, executives and department heads who hold decision-making authority.

■Lift advertising
This is not the printed poster stuck to the wall of the lift.
It is a service that installs digital signage or projectors in the lift lobbies and lift cars of premium office buildings in Tokyo and runs ads on them.
It is set to expand to office buildings and high-rise flats in Osaka, Nagoya and elsewhere.
Like taxi advertising, it is an effective way to put ads in front of senior decision-makers such as company owners.

Those are the two extras. Unlike web advertising, which is strong on targeting and analysis, their drawback is that results are hard to measure.
Choose with your own product and your budget in mind.

※The article below goes into more detail on designing a lead generation strategy and on the specific tactics and steps that follow once you have leads. Do read it alongside this one.
Related article:
What is lead generation? The main methods, the points that make it work, and examples
What is lead nurturing? Methods and steps, explained in full

4. In closing

Thank you for reading this far.
We have covered six broad tactics plus a few extras. None of them brings in leads the moment you start, so pick the ones that suit your service, keep iterating and find what works best.

If your marketing budget is not set yet, have a look at the article below as well.

Digital marketing you can use to find new customers