6 Marketing Strategies for B2B Companies to Generate Leads

If you don’t know about us or have just recently heard about our brand, here’s a short introduction: Breadcrumbs is a B2B company that allows you to create and implement high-performing lead-scoring models to help you close more deals faster and accelerate growth. 

In the context of today’s article, the keyword in the above statement is “B2B.” 

As such, we’ve had our fair share of trying and testing out B2B marketing strategies, such as:

Meme marketing

Webinars and events

Sharing resources

Content marketing

And sending freebies.

We’ve gone the whole nine yards to guarantee our marketing efforts result in leads and sales. 

If you, too, are a B2B company wondering which marketing strategies to use (and how to use them effectively) to generate leads, this article is for you. 

Here, we’re uncovering all the B2B marketing strategies you can use for lead generation. Are you ready to learn more? 

Let’s begin. 

6 B2B Marketing Strategies To Get Leads

If you want to increase leads and engage more customers in your B2B business, you need to start with the best possible omnichannel marketing strategies.

Whether you focus on content marketing, email campaigns, social media ads, or personal branding, the key is finding a strategy that resonates with your target audience.

With that in mind, here are six of the most effective B2B marketing strategies for improving lead generation:

B2B Marketing Strategies #1: Prioritize which leads to capture 

The first rule of lead generation is to prioritize which leads to capture. 

For example, some leads will be red hot, whereas others can be lukewarm at best. 

One simple way to identify which leads really matter is to use the lead scoring methodology. And here are a few reasons we recommend you use it:

• It’ll help both sales and marketing departments get on the same page. 
• You’ll get actionable insights, not vanity metrics. 
• It’ll make sales and marketing efforts more efficient. 
• It’ll give you a better return on investment (ROI) and a more targeted strategy. 

If you wish to benefit from the lead scoring methodology, begin using the Breadcrumbs free plan, which will help you score up to 10,000 contacts in test mode. 

Then, later on, you can purchase our pro or enterprise plan to unlock additional features to help you generate the best quality leads that actually convert. 

B2B Marketing Strategies #2: Place personal brand at the forefront

Lead generation and personal branding are deeply interlinked because the more effort you put into building your personal brand, the more leads and attention you’ll generate. 

In fact, personal branding is the go-to strategy for most well-known founders and their brands, such as Elon Musk and Tesla, Ratan Tata and the Tata Group, and Neil Patel and Neil Patel Digital. 

Having a personal branding strategy is crucial when launching any kind of business, so make sure you have one in place. You can always click here for more details on attention-grabbing personal branding and learn more about it.

Here’s a B2B example for you: Matchr, a company that pairs software suppliers with the HR needs of businesses, places a strong emphasis on its founder, Adriaan Kolff.

Aside from just generating leads, you also get other benefits from building your personal brand, such as:

• You place yourself as an authority in a particular niche. 
• You access investment and partnership opportunities. 
• You see more conversations around yourself and your brand. 
• It becomes easier to bring in a steady stream of leads. 

B2B Marketing Strategies #3: Focus on the client, not the product

A lot of time, effort, and energy goes into product innovation, creation, and development. Obviously, since so much of our time goes behind partnering with product development companies to improve the product itself, it seems obvious to talk, well… about the product. 

Unfortunately, customers don’t want to hear about the product. They want to hear about what the product can do for them. How it can make their lives better, and easier. 

In fact, here’s a quote from a Harvard Business Review’s subject-matter expert (SME)-backed article that supports this, “It is critical that the content your team produces is ‘outcome-based,’ in that it focuses on the problems clients are facing rather than the products that the field is selling.” 

If you’ve ever heard someone say, “Sell benefits, not features,” that’s what they mean. 

So, here are a few easy ways to show your prospects how your product can help solve their problems.

You can publish case studies that show off your best results. Here’s an excellent example from SoftLedger on placing case studies based on client types on your website. 

Notice how they create a separate resources page: 

Apart from case studies, you can proudly display testimonials from clients and SMEs. Wordable does a nice job incorporating video and tweet testimonials to keep it interesting.

Additionally, brand videos can be a powerful tool to showcase your client-focused approach. These videos can highlight customer success stories, demonstrate how your product solves real-world problems, and give potential clients a glimpse into your company culture.

And last but certainly not least, you can broadcast other types of social proof like stats, awards, and certificates. Here’s an example from uSERP for inspiration: 

B2B Marketing Strategies #4: Hang out at the places your customers hang out 

Keeping up with the theme of capturing customer pain points, we’re here with another gem of advice: hang out at the places your customer hangs out. 

For example, if most of your customers are on LinkedIn, automated messages are essential to ensure your presence and engagement on the platform. But, try to be more niche from thereon. For example, if your primary prospects are social media marketing companies, then the Social Media Marketing Group on LinkedIn is where you need to be. 

Similarly, each platform has a demographic of customers and then a subset (e.g., Facebook and Facebook groups, Slack and Slack communities, Reddit and Subreddits, etc.). 

Find out which groups and platforms your audience hangs out on and interact with them there to discover their pain points (also, opportunities to upsell). 

Pro-Tip: You can also listen to customer support calls to get unfiltered insights from your direct customers and prospects. 

B2B Marketing Strategies #5: Use the effectiveness of each platform to your advantage 

Since we’re on the topic of platforms, let’s discuss another element that might affect your success in capturing leads: leveraging the nativity of platforms. 

For example, LinkedIn is known for its professional tone, whereas Twitter is the opposite of that. So, you can’t just create content once and expect users on different platforms to consume it the same way they do on other platforms. 

As such, if you wish to educate your customers (read: build awareness to generate leads), you need to keep the tonality of the platform in mind before you produce (or repurpose) content for that platform. 

For example, here’s how we repurpose blog content for LinkedIn.

B2B Marketing Strategies #6: It’s a game of trial and error

Lastly, one important point before you go—know that marketing is a game of trial and error. What works for others probably might not work for you, and vice versa. 

So, don’t be afraid to A/B test strategies and find out different ways to engage with your prospects. Aside from the B2B marketing strategies mentioned above to generate leads, you can also try your hand at:

• Paid advertising 
• Cold calling
• Building an email list
• Asking for referrals 
• Testing out all the strategies we mentioned above (meme marketing, content marketing, sharing resources, sending freebies, webinars, and events) 

B2B Marketing Strategies For Retaining Leads

Now that the hard part of getting leads is done, here are a few simple strategies to retain them. 

1. Treat CRM software like gold 

Customer relationship management software, or CRM software, helps businesses create and build relationships with leads and customers alike. 

Suppose you have a stockpile of spreadsheets, apps, and databases to track data. Creating meaningful conversations with prospects can be difficult because the information is chaotic.

An excellent CRM is a perfect answer for you because it can create a centralized source of information, so you know exactly how to communicate with prospects. 

This software offers better time management and organizational efficiency. With your administrative tasks in order, you and your leads can get on with the process of building better relationships.

2. Invest in a data colocation center 

If your business is scaling quickly, you might face issues such as an excess of data, not knowing how to protect the data you have, not knowing how to manage risks, etc. 

Even if your prospects get one whiff of a security issue or other related issues, it could potentially ruin your reputation. That’s where colocation data centers come in. 

These services help increase uptime, protect you from serious issues, such as data breaches, and help you manage risks.

3. Remarket. Remarket. Remarket. 

“Once a prospect, always a prospect,” said a marketer, probably. 

But the truth of lead generation is that you’ll need to engage with a prospect several times before they’re ready to convert. 

We’re not saying try to convert inactive leads, but rather, try to convert those who are actively looking for the kind of products you sell. 

Bring in more quality leads with Breadcrumbs

And that wraps up our list of B2B marketing strategies! While we hope you found this guide helpful, we have several more resources in store for you.

To learn more about effective lead generation, keep up with the Breadcrumbs resource page as we regularly post:

• Guides on lead scoring for acquisition.
• Lead scoring templates.
• Blogs on generating leads, the lead scoring methodology, revenue acceleration, sales operations, marketing strategies, and more.

And to keep up with more of Breadcrumbs’s offerings, click here to create a free account (and integrate it with solutions from your tech stack, such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, Segment, and more).