B2B lead generation with online marketing – Our tips for decision makers
The marketing activity of B2B industry participants is focused on generating quality leads, so the leads gained can be turned into customers later by the personal sales team.
There are many traditional B2B marketing channels available to affected advertisers and companies, such as business events, but the B2B marketing mix increasingly includes elements of the online marketing toolkit, such as ppc ads, marketing automation tools, and social media platforms specifically designed to reach B2B target audiences.
The covid-19 epidemic in 2019 has radically changed the day-to-day operations of companies operating in the B2B marketplace and, with it, their marketing and sales practices. We had a client who decided to rethink the corporate website created many years earlier and replace direct sales with online lead-generating ads because direct sales became impossible due to the impact of covid. The online marketing toolkit has now become an indispensable part of B2B marketing, but it is often a completely unfamiliar area for B2B advertisers that requires a completely different design and follow-up than the usual offline lead generation channels – but can be measured and analysed very accurately.
In this blog post, we want to give you a crutch to design, execute, and evaluate online lead generation campaigns for anyone who isn’t yet experienced in this field.
Peculiarities of B2B lead generation
B2B marketing is very different from B2C marketing in many ways, such as the number of leads you want to acquire (in B2C, the goal is to get a large number of leads, while in B2B, a few hundred or thousands of leads can be an ambitious goal) or even a lead in terms of value represented (a lead is typically lower in value in the B2C market than in the B2B market).
Due to the fact that the B2B target market has generally higher value deals and purchases compared to the B2C market, even a much larger advertising budget can be spent on obtaining a piece of quality B2B lead with a positive return.
The B2B sales process is typically much longer than the B2C sales process, so the so-called leasing process is also more complex, more sophisticated, not only one decision-maker but also several decision-makers are involved in most B2B purchasing decisions, so we need to effectively convince more stakeholders to conclude a successful B2B business.
In the so-called leasing process a critical element of the lead maturation process is that we need to direct the right number of leads to the top of the sales funnel with online ads in order to have a sufficient number of customers throughout the process. The background to this is that the number of leads decreases as you go down the funnel, but the value represented by one lead increases, so you can talk about a funnel narrowing down.
B2B lead generation with online ads
If you want to get quality B2B leads with online advertising, you need to be aware of some basic contexts to design an effective online campaign.
If we are planning an advertising budget for your online campaign, you need to do your own homework right from the campaign planning stage, because without the input data you provide, the online marketing agency alone is powerless. Let us be aware that you know your own market, your product, your company best, and the key success factors of online campaigns are the trusted online marketing agency. So consider them as an important strategic partner!
The digital marketing channel in B2B marketing is a well-measurable, analyzable, and optimizable advertising channel, but competent planning requires campaign design, campaign execution, and data-driven decision-making.
Online marketing as a channel includes not only ppc ads but also other tools:
- Social Media Marketing (B2B with emphasis on LinkedIn, Quora)
- Website (with website analytics)
- Content marketing
- Marketing automation
- PPC ads
- Search engine marketing and search engine optimization
ROI based planning of an online lead generation campaigns
When it comes to online lead generation, it’s especially important to move away from a cost-based approach and instead look at your online ads with a pay-as-you-go approach.
When planning your online campaigns, you need to answer the following key questions:
- What is the sales goal, how many products / services do we want to sell, what sales revenue do we want to achieve?
- How many quality leads do we need to reach our sales goal? (This can be calculated from the set number of sales based on how many leads are needed to achieve a single sale.)
- How much is it worth getting a quality lead with online advertising? (We can calculate this from the previous two figures, but we also need the profit value associated with the set sales goal in order to achieve not only revenue but also profit.)
Based on the data above, we can calculate how much advertising budget you will need to get the leads you need to reach your sales goal.
Building a B2B sales funnel with online ads
The special feature of the online marketing channel is that it allows us to fully map our B2B sales funnel, i.e. we can direct the users to any stage of the sales funnel with the help of online advertisements, for which a proven specific methodology is also available.
In order to do this, we need to know the best practices and the basic methodology as to which message in the sales process should we use to address those interested:
- In the Awareness phase, awareness of the problem to be solved takes place, so in this section it is worth addressing the target audience with content that is not specifically product / brand emphasized, e.g. Social media with content, educational content, infographics, educational podcasts, videos.
- In the Consideration phase, contact data can already be collected for direct contact, in this section we offer webinars, guides, case studies, ebooks, interactive content, surveys, FAQ content.
- In the Decision phase, it is worth providing case studies, benchmark infographics, product demos, roundtable discussions, and test products.
Each stage of the B2B sales funnel (e.g. leasing) can be associated with an online marketing tool that specifically offers the implementation of a given function, but the most optimal is to put a complex online marketing tool mix at the service of our goals.
Evaluate online lead generation campaigns
In the case of B2B online lead generation campaigns, it is especially important to correctly define and measure the so-called key performance indicators (KPI’s) that substantially demonstrate the success of our B2B online lead generation campaign.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that if our goal is to sell, we need to be able to measure the results as close as possible to the final goal – even the so-called with offline conversion tracking – so we can optimize our online campaigns to achieve our main goal. The farther we can measure from our real business and marketing goal, the greater the gap between campaign success and final business results.
For B2B lead generation online campaigns, the main KPIs we need to monitor are:
- CPL (cost-per-lead)
- CPA (cost-per-acquisition)
- ROI (return-on-investment), i.e. the return on our campaigns (including all actual costs, including online marketing agency fees)
- ROAS (return-on-ad-spend) return on online advertising spend (value of leads obtained divided by amount spent on online advertising)
- CLV (customer lifetime value), this can also be an estimated value, means the total lifetime revenue per customer, this can be also calculated with offline conversion measurement)
- Lead quality, i.e. the relevance and buying potential of the leads generated by your ads
Artificial intelligence and machine learning in lead generation campaigns
The technological advancement of online marketing today is faster than ever. Online marketing server systems have a huge background database of users present in the online space that we can put to use in our B2B lead generation campaigns.
Google and Facebook, as two major platforms, have up to tens of thousands of data crumbs per user, which we should use effectively to get the best results for our online ads.
With the right online marketing strategy and campaign plan, setting up the right measurement plan and professional metrics is critical to the success of your campaign.
Over the next 1-2 years, further radical technological changes will take place that will fundamentally change your online marketing business. For example the third-party cookies will be removed from Chrome in the summer of 2023, and Universal Google Analytics will be discontinued at the same time. We should prepare for this now by setting up Google Analytics 4 measurements, implementing Google Consent Mode and the so-called 1st party data collection.
One of the novelties of 2022 is the rise of a value-based bidding strategy in ppc campaigns that allows us to optimize our online lead-generating ads based more on actual profit than just revenue. However, this requires input data that we can use to support the learning of our online campaigns.
What can we expect from an online marketing agency in 2022?
Traditional ppc technicists, that is, those types of professionals who were unable to let go of their previous manual campaign optimization practice in 2022, are certainly no longer able to deliver the best possible results for you. The essence of the previous best practice was that based on approx. 20-40 dimensions, the campaign manager analyzed the performance of ppc campaigns and fine-tuned the campaign settings based on the performance of each target group.
However, for this manual optimization, in 2022, advertising systems will no longer provide professionals with all the necessary data and dimensions for proper optimization. The smart machines and artificial intelligence algorithms of Google and Facebook that handle smart bidding perform optimization more professionally than any human professional would be able to do, working with tens of thousands of data crumbs. We can see how much more efficient optimization is based on tens of thousands of data than manual optimization according to 20-40 parameters. The devil is in the details!
The secret to the success of online lead generation campaigns is much more complex (due to the complexity of the sales process itself) than e.g. in the case of webshops. An expert online marketing agency with expertise in B2B lead generation will help you advise not only on ppc campaigns but also on other key components.
A responsible online marketing agency will almost certainly recommend that they do not advertise on a single online channel, as this will cause extreme exposure, but will recommend a combination of multiple online marketing channels and tools to us.
It is recommended to work with an online marketing agency that monitors the technological changes in advertising systems on a daily basis, knows what’s new, is aware of current best practices and best practices, and is able to interpret the advertising company’s business and marketing goals as an account strategist. It helps to achieve the desired results by incorporating the best solutions according to. A “careful farmer” attitude is key when working with an online marketing agency. We need to feel that the agency wants the best for us and keeps our best interests in mind, helping us with constructive suggestions and criticisms. This is a real partnership!
In conclusion
B2B lead generation is increasingly moving to the online space due to certain socio-economic events and processes as well as technological advances.
To plan an effective online lead generation campaign, you should be aware of the specifics of the online marketing channel, its potential limitations (which are increasingly falling apart), and the importance of proper planning and measuring the right KPIs.
The good news is that many traditional B2B companies are still not exploiting the potential of online marketing, so if we move on time, we can gain a significant competitive advantage over the competition.
Find the right online marketing agency that works with you as a strategic partner, but be aware that this is a two-way street, you need to know your market, your target group, and your product best. The selected online marketing agency must be an expert in the world of online advertising, after learning about your company, it must be able to help you to build, monitor and optimize the appropriate online lead generation campaigns.
As you should be aware, the energy invested in online marketing is basically in proportion to the expected return, and the online lead generation campaign is not a sprint, but rather an ongoing activity, the result is typically not expected immediately, but after a minimum period of learning and testing. It is not a fast-acting panacea, but a thorough implementation and continuous fine-tuning.