For many B2B organizations, lead generation is too important of an activity to leave to chance, so it’s important to understand what makes a solid lead generation strategy. Many organizations have a form somewhere on their site for people who would like to talk to a sales representative. That’s important. If someone knows they want to talk to a sales rep, you want to make that as easy as possible. 

That’s great for capturing people who knew exactly what they wanted, came to your website, and filled out that form. But if that's all your strategy is, you'll go broke before you ever get enough leads generated. Instead of trying to capture people who are ready to buy, it’s important to focus on growing demand. One of the best ways you can do that is by creating a content strategy that’s focused on lead generation.

Generate Great Blog Articles

It’s important to have a blog that’s updated regularly. Not only will it give all of your employees something to share out on their networks, but it also helps to frequently get your message out there. People look at an average of 10.4 sources of information before making a purchasing decision, and having a blog with many articles can help people to learn even more about what your company does and how you can benefit them. 

Blogs also play an important role for creating great content that can go out on an email newsletter or other communications. Plus, for your website to generate leads, there has to be lots of content that people can find and that they’ll want to read. 

Put Together Something Worth Downloading

For online lead generation, there has to be a content offer that people will want to download and fill out a form to get. Rather than just discussing product features, think about something that can help your ideal prospect do their job better. Even better if it's something that your product can help them do better, but make sure it's focused on benefits to the person downloading it. This can be put together as a white paper, an ebook, a slide deck, a video or anything else. What’s important is that it’s something that provides significant value that people are willing to fill out a form to get. 

Consider putting together an introductory guide, or an ebook on some popular topic in your industry. People are always looking for important information about regulations, how to do their job or more efficiently, and tips that make them look better to their supervisors. Sometimes that can even be a buyer’s guide to help them make a purchasing decision.

Use Existing Articles to Nurture Your Leads

The process doesn’t stop with just generating the lead. What’s really important is closing the lead. That’s where nurturing the lead comes in. 

Just because they’ve downloaded something from your website, it doesn’t make them sales-ready. But they may have questions that your sales reps can answer. In addition to following up them by phone, you can also send out targeted emails that include more valuable content. Once you get a feel for the types of problems your prospects are facing, you can send them previously written blog articles to help them better understand what your company does, how it can benefit them, or other topics pertinent to their purchase. 

By having a great blog, you not only pull in lots of people either via search engines or through social media, but you can also make it easier to provide value to people after they’ve converted on their website. People might not answer the phone, but if you send them a helpful article, they’ll usually read it. 

Having great content throughout your website can really help your sales process. By pulling people in with content, getting them to convert on it, and using it to guide them further along the sales funnel, you can really increase the number of leads you generate and decrease the amount of time you spend getting them to close.

Looking for ways to improve your B2B blog? Download our guide and learn how to get your blog generating leads for you: