B2B SALES - A TOUGH GIG
B2B businesses are often told to invest their advertising budget into digital platforms such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. And sure, these avenues are great BUT why then, do so many B2B businesses fail in getting any ROI from them?
While one reason may be the quality of your ads, the real answer is many businesses don’t address 3 simple W’s ahead of their marketing campaigns. These 3 W’s are:
- WHO are you targeting?
- WHERE is your target audience in the purchasing lifecycle?
- WHAT is your lead magnet?
1. WHO ARE YOU TARGETING?
While the CEO is a major decision-maker in B2B sales, they often rely on their immediate team (GM, CFO, etc.) to guide them. So how do you nab a big B2B lead from that immediate team? You first need to determine what your target persona is looking for at every stage of the purchasing lifecycle and then you need to be the one to provide them something we call a “lead magnet”.
2. WHERE IS YOUR AUDIENCE IN THE PURCHASING LIFECYCLE?
Before we think about that lead magnet, we need to discuss the purchasing lifecycle.
To put it simply, a purchasing lifecycle are the stages a buyer goes through to make a purchase. These stages often look like this:
Awareness → Consideration → Decision → Purchase
In this article, we will be focusing on the “Awareness” stage.
3. WHAT IS YOUR LEAD MAGNET?
Now that we know who our audience is and where they are in the lifecycle (i.e. awareness stage), we need to give them something attractive so they will want to connect with us.
This attractive thing is known as a “Lead Magnet”. A lead magnet is a piece of content that gives value to your audience and entices them to exchange their contact information.
To be successful in attracting B2B leads, you need a lead magnet that is niche and solves a problem. Do this by thinking about a major niche pain point your targeted audience faces and then create a message around your solution to this pain point.
Pain points are often centred around the following:
Time - Money - Support - Processes - Stress - Resourcing
Once you’ve identified the pain point, go more in depth by identifying vocabulary they may use. For example, “Money” could relate to a fear of not protecting the “Bottom Line” while “Processes” could relate to a fear that they have not “Future-proofed” their business enough.
The point is to use emotive language or other hooks that may grab them, such as mentioning competitors or a feared external party. Examples:
“Future-Proofing Against the ATO: A Checklist for Clean Records”
“Maximise your Net Profit with this Project Calculator”
We also recommend that your lead magnet:
- offers immediate value.
- is up to date.
- is structured so that the user needs to repeatedly use the lead magnet (this is why “tools” such as “calculators” or “checklists” are often better than e-books).
TIME TO MARKET YOUR LEAD MAGNET
Now that you know your three important ‘W’s, you are ready to distribute your lead magnet using the right avenues. These can include:
- Existing Database - your existing customer database is a great starting point. Set up a specialised marketing CRM to alert you whenever someone in your database goes to your website. Then, pick up the phone as a courtesy call, or feed them more content to nurture them through to the sale.
- LinkedIn - Due to its fantastic targeting options, LinkedIn’s ad cost tends to be higher, but the reward is also greater for B2B businesses. Target your audience appropriately, but don’t overdo the targeting so your cost doesn’t run too high.
- Facebook - Contrary to popular belief, Facebook has its place in generating leads for B2B, especially for retargeting and lookalike audiences. We explain both terms below.
SUMMARY
The Internet is still an unfamiliar place for many B2B industries and digital marketing is often a strategy that B2B businesses don’t understand how to get right.
Often, countless dollars are lost on wasted and unqualified leads. This doesn’t need to be the case; the answer is in targeting the right people (WHO), knowing where they are in the purchasing lifecycle (WHERE) and giving them something valuable (WHAT).
WHAT NEXT?
We’re confident you can start taking the steps to creating your own lead magnet, but if you need some assistance perfecting it or putting it all together, Reach out to us.
Otherwise you can download our Download our FREE Guide: Best Practices for Lead Generation.
