Business To Business Lead Generation

business to business B2B Lead Generation: The Truth

There is one major myth that most people believe when it comes to so-called ‘business to business’ (b2b) marketing – the fact that it exists at all. In fact, business to business marketing uses the same principles as business to consumer marketing, for one very good reason:

You aren’t really selling to a business at all. You are selling to a person. A business cannot buy anything, only the people working in that business can do that.

So you need to use the same principles, the same motivators, the same benefits, the same emotional hot buttons, as you do when you market to a ‘consumer market’. The fact you are marketing to people in a business only changes the particular market you are talking to, so there are only minor differences.

And so when you are looking to do business with a business and it’s people, just like any other market, you need to first generate a lead. You need to get someone to raise their hand, say “I’m interested…tell me more”.

Free gifts, free reports, free CDs and DVDs, all these things will work in b2b marketing and lead generation for the same reasons they work in other markets. Gone are the says where you could ask people to subscribe to your newsletter, or get on your mailing list, you’ve got to make them an ‘ethical bribe’. Information like reports, audio or video products, work well. Something that can help you stand out from the crowd could be more memorable gifts. Coffee cups have been done in the past, though not as well or as often as they could have been. Your average office coffee cup has a logo on it, a business name, occasionally you may even see an actual web address! But if you’re going to spend the money for these, why not go an extra step and create something that they will want to keep on their desk, rather than hidden away or even thrown out?

You can get those ‘world’s best_______’ coffee cups made up with a newspaper type headline. Make sure they appeal to your prospect. Match them up, ‘World’s Best Accountant’ goes to your accountant prospects, not your marketing managers. Try putting their name and your web address on the cup. This will virtually guarantee they’ll use it every day, and your website is right there on the cup.

When you mail b2b prospects, use the same emotional principles you would use on consumer markets. This is guaranteed to work because of the simple fact that every single other piece of mail they get is absolutely deadly dull and boring. Concern yourself with strong emotional benefits for them, not so much with being ‘professional’.

One other factor is b2b lead generation and marketing is getting past the ‘gatekeeper’. Admin staff are trained to filter mail, emails, faxes, etc that are not going to be welcomed by the target. Flyers and ‘junk faxes’ are not going to get through. There is a science to ‘camouflaging’ your materials so that the person picking up the mail puts your letter into the bosses pile, instead of the trash can. The more you can make it look like an important item, the more likely it is that your target will be the first one to read it. Faxes that look like personal faxes, mail sent in plain envelopes with a stamp, send nothing that looks overtly ‘commercial’.

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