I have a lot of founders come and ask me, “Hey, I want to become a brand, I want to become huge” and I always nod my head and ask them a question

“But do you have a steady stream of customers from a specific channel that are driving revenue and are you doing that consistently?”

More often than not, the founders have no answer.

Even well-funded companies are stuck in this conundrum of building a brand without having found sustainable sources of revenue.

So what’s the difference between branding and lead generation?

Lead Generation Strategies 2020

Lead Generation using Offline marketing

When you spend money on channels that aim to spread your name and with no quantifiable ROI, then you are likely engaging in a branding activity.

Examples are Newspaper Ads, TV ads, Billboards, Spending millions paying PR companies without tracking the impact on your revenue and so much more.

Lead Generation with Digital Marketing

When you create sustainable sources that drive high quality traffic to your landing pages that directly brings in revenue, then it’s a lead generation exercise. If the ROI can be measured and it’s positive, then it’s very likely lead generation.

Examples are Linkedin Ads, Google SEO Marketing, Facebook Lead ads and so on.

If you care about money, then you should care about lead generation. Because brand exercises might give you a temporary vanity metric such as spike in traffic, but it doesn’t bring in consistent revenue.

So how does a company do lead generation?

Tools and Services We Use for Lead Generation

We are going in-depth in this 3000+ word guide on lead generation for B2B companies and B2C companies.

But before we go in-depth into how you can generate leads for a B2B business or a B2C business, here is a summary of all our tools.

Tool / Service	Marketing channel	What it’s used for	Link
Writise	SEO/ Copywriting	Writing service	Link
Keywords Everywhere	SEO	Keyword Research tool	Link
Find That Lead	Cold Emailing for B2B leads	Finding the email addresses of the right leads	Link
Woorise	Social Media	For running social media giveaways, contests	Link
Deposit Photos	Social Media and SEO	High-quality images for Ads and images for articles	Link
Send Fox	Email Marketing	Sending bulk emails to existing customers	Link

 

B2B Lead Gen

The art of B2B lead generation separates the wheat from the chaff. If a business’ efforts and actions do not lead to revenue, then it’s completely pointless in pursuing a particular channel.

Also, you might be doing it wrong!

At Novatise we have experimented with most of these marketing channels and we’re sharing with you how effective each channel is and how it can be used to generate more B2B leads.

 

Email Marketing / Database

When most people hear about email marketing, they think of those ‘spammy’ emails where you’ve won a million dollars or some prince wants to talk to you and so on. But it has been and continues to be a super effective channel to bring in new hot leads that turns into revenue.

So how do you generate leads through Email marketing?

Prep work :

Before you start shooting off emails.

• You need to understand your product through and through and
• The kind of company that will benefit from your product and
• The right person to reach out to

Step 1 : Create a list of items you want to address in the email

This isn’t a template, because honestly most templates don’t work any more. List down a few pointers that you want to talk about.

Step 2 : Understand a bit more about the person you are reaching out to

What they like, what kind of person they are. Are they active on social platforms? Have they written content that you can mention in the email. Do you have common friends or connections?

Step 3 : Start crafting a customized email based on your research

Make your email personable, friendly, respectful, have a clear ask, suggest a clear path and always end with a call to action.

The first email isn’t about getting a sale, it’s about starting a conversation.

Step 4 : Create a follow-up sequence

A lot of people don’t open the first email and a follow-up always helps in getting their attention. The odds of a response get higher when you follow up because most marketers don’t bother following up.

Step 5 : Act on the responses

If you get responses from prospective clients, further the conversation with calls and so on.

Give me the Truth : Email marketing is not for everybody and you can’t start seeing success immediately while being new to it. It requires a lot of planning, process and also writing skills.

 

Linkedin Marketing

Linkedin marketing has changed massively over the past few years. Before it was a lot about building connections, not it’s about building a brand and generating leads for your business. Linkedin is one of the best channels for B2B lead generation currently.

There are a few ways of creating B2B leads on Linkedin, we’ll talk about the organic way.

Becoming an Influencer on Linkedin

The only way to start generating leads on Linkedin is to start creating content on the platform. But it’s not as straightforward as you think it is. Here are a few strategies to become an influencer on Linkedin.

• Write personal stories
• Share internal learnings from your business
• Write inspiring content
• Write about specific strategies that you have implemented for your client or you
• Write about new clients or companies being onboarded
• Write about how your services have helped clients
• Write opinion pieces on the latest news

Based on these efforts, the following will be built and a lot of potential leads will automatically reach out to your company or directly on your Linkedin profile.

The other way is to use your clout as a Linkedin influencer and do a cold outreach to some potential clients on the platform.

When you build your following and connection base, you could also get introduced to potential clients through common clients.

Examples of Linkedin Marketing

Give me the Truth : It takes a lot of copywriting chops and consistent effort and constant engagement with the audience to build a good lead generation system through Linkedin.

 

Cold calling

Cold calling is one of the trickiest forms of lead generation. Primarily because, most people consider cold calling, Spam. There is no right time to cold call someone. Imagine you receive a call in the middle of a work week and somebody talks about their software which you weren’t looking into. How would you feel?

Cold calling only works when the prospect is interested in your services and how can you figure that out?

By using a mix of content marketing and lead generation forms.

Say you create an article on your site and you are offering ‘Downloadable templates or PDF’s’. As most people who you are targeting are interested in this content, they are ready to give their name, email address, phone number and company name etc.

With this information provided, you can cold call the potential prospect, as they have provided their information voluntarily

Give me the Truth : There is a lot of time and effort required in creating these content assets that can rank and that people will provide their information for. Even after that, there is no guarantee that they will do business with you.

Pay per click

One of the most commonly used lead generation techniques is pay per click. Google has built its entire billion dollar business with these three words ‘Pay per click’. But PPC for short, is a lot more than Google Advertisements. We’ll give a brief overview on all the PPC lead channels available for B2B companies.

Some of the most important tips for PPC ads

• Let the algorithm learn – Most marketers test out an ad for a few days and they stop. With algorithms and ad pushing tools, there’s a learning curve, they optimize over a week or more. So when you are starting out, let your campaigns run, till they learn.
• Test, Test and Test – Test your target audience, ad copy, images, videos, placements of ads, location targeting and everything else. This is a trial and error process
• Continue your winners – If you are running an ad and that’s successful, you can continue to run it for months and there is no need to stop it. Keep squeezing it, till you stop seeing the results

 

Display Ads

“Google Ads has a click through rate of 11.3%”

“Companies make an average of $2 for every $1 they spend on Google Ads” – Google

Google Ads has been the biggest PPC channel online for the past 10+ years and more. They are also considered the best converting PPC channel because of one thing and that is people’s “Search Intent”.

When somebody is looking to buy a ‘social media marketing tool‘, they are searching for it on Google and it’s the first platform where they are searching for this intent.

And the ads that display are likely to be clicked and acted upon.

Google Ads Examples

So how do you succeed with Google Ads?

• Create a funnel or a flow of how a person moves from your Ad to page to the conversion page
• Optimize for the right search keywords and make sure you do competitor analysis
• Always A/B test your Adword copy performance.
• Create a beautiful landing page based on Conversion Optimization principles.

Give me the Truth : Google Adwords is not for the faint hearted. There are a lot of optimizations required and a lot of tracking and optimizing and an agency that is dedicated towards Google Adwords will be able to outperform a single in-house resource.

 

Facebook Ads

B2B and Facebook? It doesn’t seem like it goes hand in hand. Facebook has a new find for B2B marketers, as they realize, their prospects are browsing a lot on the platform. Doesn’t matter, where you get them right?

Facebook Ads statistics

“The average cost for Facebook ads dropped by 6% in 2019 ”

“94% of Facebook ad revenue is from mobile”

Facebook Ads Examples

So how do you succeed with Facebook ads for B2B Marketing?

• Define your audience person
• Master the art of targeting using ‘Behaviour’, ‘Interests’, ‘Where they work’, ‘Job titles’ and other targeting options on Facebook.
• Use Lead Ads to get their information and not necessarily do something more cumbersome like pay for a tool or sign-up. Getting their information is a good strategy for B2B companies
• Become good at creating awesome creatives, content and understand what works for your audience
• Identify the top performing locations for your ads and double down your efforts in that location

Give me the truth : Facebook ads are not every business’ cup of tea. If you are a software targeting a super sub-niche of companies, then it’s probably little hard for you to hyper target this niche. Also optimizing Facebook ads is a full time effort and if you don’t have a team that is managing this, then it’s quite hard!

 

Linkedin Ads

Linkedin Ads Statistics

“4 out of 5 People on Linkedin take business decisions”

“There are 30 million companies on Linkedin”

“89% of B2B marketers used Linkedin for Lead Generation”

If Linkedin and B2B, don’t go in a sentence together, then nothing else will. Linkedin is built for Lead Generation and Linkedin lead ads have become super popular over the past few years. Why?

Because all your prospects are on Linkedin, browsing, looking to do business! Linkedin PPC is a great underrated channel for B2B leads.

Linkedin Ads Examples

So how do you succeed with Linkedin ads for B2B Marketing?

• Figure out the audience you are targeting that includes type of companies and job titles
• Create ads that focus on collecting lead information
• A/B Test your creative ads to see what performs well
• Choose the right type of ad type based on your goals

Give me the truth : Linkedin Ads like other PPC channels require a lot of optimizing and testing that requires time and effort. Also, Linkedin ads are more expensive than Google and Facebook, because Linkedin is aware that you will be reaching the cream of the crop of decision makers and also the ads will pay for itself many times over!

 

Content Marketing – SEO

Last and certainly not the least. One of the most trusted ways to build traffic and generate leads that has been going on for 10+ years is organic SEO.

People enter a search query like “Shoes in Singapore” and results show up and people click on those results and buy a shoe. Simple to understand!

SEO has one of the best ROI in the marketing world, but it does take time to see initial results.

How do I succeed with SEO marketing?

• Do Keyword research and identify search topics that you can rank for
• Write top quality content
• Promote the content on social media
• Guest blog on other sites to promote the content

Give me the Truth : SEO is not everybody’s cup of tea. It has a lot of technical requirements and most good SEO professionals have 5 to 7 years of experience, before they are considered good. And also writing good quality content is hard, you need to find good writers for that!

Check out our Novatise’s Content HERE. These articles drive the bulk of our traffic.

 

B2C Lead Gen

B2C lead generation is super different from B2B lead generation because in most cases, the end result is a purchase of your product or service, whereas for B2B, it’s a beginning of a conversation.

Facebook Marketing

The biggest social media platform on the planet and it cannot be ignored! Sure, Facebook pages have taken a big hit in terms of organic reach, but according to sources, Facebook is looking to bring back the reach of Facebook pages as they are losing traffic to other social platforms.

“ Facebook accounts for 80.4 % of referral traffic for Ecommerce companies “

How to succeed with Facebook marketing for B2C companies?

• Creating your own Facebook group is a social media asset that can reward your business for years on end.
• Facebook groups are the quickest way to build an audience of people without having to spend a dime.
• Facebook pages with video have double the reach of posts with just text.

Give me the Truth : You probably need to spend quite a bit of money when to get fans on your Facebook page. When it comes to building a Facebook group, there’s a lot of competition. If you are building a group with a lot of giveaways, then you’ll probably get a lot of users who don’t convert.

 

Instagram Marketing

Probably the best channel for B2C marketing online. No platform can come close to Instagram in B2C product promotion.

“200 million instagram users visit at least one business profile daily”

“500 million people use Instagram stories everyday”

 

Instagram Marketing Examples

How to succeed with Instagram marketing for B2C companies?

• Use the power of Instagram stories to keep your audience engaged, real time. It’s cheaper to promote to an existing audience than creating new users.
• Do product launches on Instagram to an existing audience and test the initial reaction to your new products.
• Do cross branding initiatives and collaborate with other brands to build your user base
• Engage with social media influencers by giving them free products.

Give me the Truth : Instagram’s users are very design focused and your posts and content should be tuned to their tastes. There is also a lot of competition on Instagram with other pages from other companies.

 

TikTok Marketing

Tiktok has the highest reach in terms of organic reach as it’s the newest kid in the block. More people engage on TikTok.

“2/3rd of TikTok users are under 30 years old”

“Tiktok users buy virtual currency on the platform”

How to succeed with Tiktok marketing for B2C companies?

• Tiktok is the platform for engagement. Most users love to interact with brands by doing challenges and keeping your audience engaged is the best strategy on Tiktok.

Give me the Truth : Tiktok has a lot of CRAZY content that is super engaging. If your content is boring, then you’ll have a problem with keeping your audience engaged.

 

Facebook Ads Marketing for B2C

When it’s B2C, you cannot take away the importance of Facebook.

“73% of Facebook users are high-income earners”

“1.62 Billion Users visit Facebook Daily ”

Facebook Ads Examples for B2C

So how do you succeed with Facebook ads for B2C Marketing?

• Creating the most irresistible offer that is time bound
• Targeting users who are more likely to buy impulsively
• Creating lead ads to maximize the potential of Facebook advertising
• Testing creatives, locations and everything else.

Give me the truth : There is a lot of competition for Facebook B2C ads and people see a lot of ads on any given day. So why will they click on yours? Facebook ads require a lot of optimizations and effort and also a good budget to start seeing an uptick. Also Facebook ads require a whole new level of creativity when it comes to conversion. People don’t always click on an ad and pay.

 

Does this Lead Generation Strategies Work?

Did not mean to overwhelm you

That’s a lot of information and it wasn’t my objective to make you feel overwhelmed, but just to give you a sneak peek about what it takes to promote a business online.

It’s not a simple step one, step two and make money situation.

• There’s a lot of trial and error and split testing
• There’s lot of creativity involved to grab the attention of users who are bombarded with messages all the time
• There’s time involved in understanding what campaigns work in the long run

 

Food for thought

So whenever an agency charges quite a bit for lead generation services, now you know behind the scenes of what goes on

Explain why agencies are charging a lot to find and qualify lead gen, just from above if you calculate your time spent and effort, how much are you willing to spend?

 

Work with NOVATISE

Want to get serious about lead generation?

The truth of the matter is, you can either try to do it all by yourself and hire a dedicated team for that or you can work with a top marketing agency like us.

Why an agency like Novatise?

• If you haven’t validated your marketing channels and know which is the right channel for your business, we can help you out with it.
• If you don’t want to build your own dedicated in-house team and want to be lean and mean, you can hire us.
• If you don’t want to spend months and burn precious $ in figuring out the right strategy, then you can engage with us.

But we are picky…

Over so many years of digital marketing, we’ve realized we don’t want to work with everybody.

We want to work with companies that are serious about digital marketing and companies that have interesting products or services.

So what defines a company that is serious about digital marketing?

• A company that has a certain budget

What defines a company with an interesting product or service?

• It’s subjective and it’s a product or service we are super passionate about!

Reach out to us to find out if we are a good fit 🙂