Generating leads is mostly what marketing is about. If you’re looking to generate leads with low cost tactics, you need to go where your prospects are. This means being found and putting yourself in the pathway of prospects in terms of how they educate, learn, ask, and shop about in your industry.
Lead generation over the years, like most every other aspect of marketing, has been impacted dramatically by the Internet, access to abundant content and information and a prospect’s ability to block uninvited messages.
The top 3 low cost b2b lead generation tactics below acknowledges the fact that your job is to get involved in moving someone from lead awareness to lead conversion, in a way that addresses a prospect’s evolving relationship with your organization.
1) STRATEGIC NETWORKING
I know everyone tells you that you must be networking today, but simply attending any event on a Thursday and fumbling through your first impression is what leads to networking burnout. You must network, but you must do it strategically.
The truth about networking that no one wants to admit is that it’s low cost but hard work. While the barrier to connect today is low, the barrier to trust and attention is high.
To succeed at networking you must consistently engage with prospects, referrals and partners in a way that provides and contributes value, relevancy and meaning. The bonus would be to achieve this without adding costs to the others.
- Connect interested parties
- Share useful, targeted and personalized information that help prospects achieve their goals
- Give recommendations, offer support and encourage
2) ANSWER QUESTIONS
The reality is that prospects are becoming more self-educated and complex, requiring more educational points of contact and information as they move from target market to a qualified lead.
To make answering questions pay as a lead generation source you’ve first got to understand that when a prospect needs to solve a problem today, they search online proactively gathering information and you must show up there; leading the competition in the search results – just waiting to be clicked so you can deliver your offer to a qualified customer.
Here’s the easiest way to go about doing that. Search your requests and emails, then make a list of the top 10 questions you get asked from prospective and current customers.
Now, go about planning the resources needed to turn each of those questions into a piece of content – blog post, workshop, seminar, FAQs document, marketing material, or newsletter topic.
3) TEACH AND EDUCATE
For many B2B organizations, the most effective low cost lead generation tactic involves workshops, seminars and webinars. Teaching and educating requires that your organization give and in doing so build the trust needed for your target market to take a step or action that essentially signals you have permission to sell to them.
During this time, you need to tell stories, share examples of other people’s success and start to paint a picture of how you can solve your customer’s problem. Teaching and educating is a great way for prospects to relate to you as someone who delivers value, without the exchange of money.
When you develop a reputation for being someone who can teach people, then you get invited to places where you have the opportunity to sell.
P.S. Good blogging is a form of teaching.