Want Some Leads? Here Are Some B2B Advertising Strategies to Help.

If you’re a B2B company, you may have a hard time with MQLs, or marketing qualified leads. From generating leads to delivering them, it’s a challenging. Sales and marketing seem to go together like water and oil, and it’s a problem too many companies have. Many wonder how they can get more MQLs and get the most out of their marketing. With only seven percent of high quality leads coming from the marketing side of things, it’s a challenge.

Here are five ways you can improve your MQLs.

Have a Thought Leader

Thought leadership makes you or your company look like the go-to person that customers consult before making a purchase. This means you should create content centered around thought leadership and keep it that way.

Don’t take our word for it. According to Edelman, thought leadership has influenced over 37 percent of the decision makers in business. When it comes to making deals, almost half have said that thought leadership has had an impact.

How can you start a thought leadership campaign? There are many ways to do it, but one of the best ways is to figure out your niche. What subject matter can you be an expert in? Take that niche and write e-books, blog posts, infographics, and other pieces of content. With time, you sound like the authority on subject matter.

Retool Your Website to Focus on Generation Leads

Many people visit your website, and not all of them will end up a customer. However, you should tailor your website with the passive visitor in mind. Here are some ways your website can do that.

• Calls to action, or CTA. Place buttons on your website to call your visitors into action. For example, your customers can click a button to download something, to make a reservation, or to sign up for some newsletter. By making your CTAs more tailored towards an individual, you can have over 200 percent improved conversion rate.
• Reviews and testimonials. Most buyers read reviews before making a purchase. If they read something positive, they are 68 percent more likely to seal the deal. Testimonials and reviews can help. Always bring the positives into focus and emphasize the subject matter that customers will be on the lookout for. If you have a study to prove your product is better, show it! With that said, the testimonials and reviews need to be genuine and not sound like they’re paid reviews.
• Tailor your landing page. A landing page is what you want your customers to visit. It cuts the filler and gets straight to the point of the product. No distractions; just a goal in mind. Focus on your landing page and make sure the content is compelling for your potential customers. If it isn’t, then you may have a hard time convincing someone to make a purchase.
• Read the analytics. This makes sense. Why wouldn’t someone have analytics? The problem is that many businesses don’t know how to do it. Everything on the site should be tracked, from the buttons to the links to how many conversions there are. Keeping track of everything can tell you what to move, what to delete, and what to keep. Something as small as asking for too much information can turn off some potential customers.
• Check the speed of the page. No one has the patience to deal with a slow-loading website. If the page, particularly the landing page, is slow, that’s a problem. Tools such as PageSpeed Insights from Google can help you learn the speed and find ways to improve.
• Don’t forget about sponsored content! This is an industry that’s going to hit $400 billion by 2025. There’s a reason why so many companies spend money on it. Of course, sponsored content is one of those strategies where you have to do it right. Gated content syndication may be your solution. This is where companies pay media companies to post sponsored content. They do it naturally, sometimes mixed in with other content. This can increase brand lift by up to 50%. You’re not going to be able to go far if you don’t have sponsored content.
• Social media advertising is still king in advertising. Ad campaigns to boost your reach on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and other appropriate websites can improve your conversion rate, sometimes better than Google Ads. Thought leadership-related posts work well with social media. When so many people on social media claim to be experts, it’s refreshing to see professionals who know their stuff.
• Finally, focus on trade shows. When you’re at a trade show or convention, figuring out how to set your booth apart from the competition is important. Sometimes, it can be something a bit generic like a spin the wheel game. Other times, you can offer free photography or art. A convention or a trade show is a great way to get so many eyes and so many leads on your company. In addition, it’s a great place to network as well. You can meet other companies to partner with, or ask for interviews by the media. If you’re at one of these shows, it’s wise to use as much as you can on marketing.

These are just a few ways to improve your B2B advertising. With business, everyone’s looking for the next way to stand out, yet there are some strategies that will always be effective. Improving your website’s landing page or getting some eyes at a convention are just a few time tested methods. We hope you can improve your business well into 2020.