The success of your acquisition strategy depends in part on the performance of the tools you use. It’s important to choose the right tools to generate leads efficiently and ensure the growth of your business. Some of them allow you to acquire new users in the long term. Others are able to build a database of prospects and convert your contacts into leads and then into customers.
In this article, you’ll get an overview of the two main categories of lead generation tools:
- Tools associated with Outbound Marketing
- Tools associated with Inbound Marketing
The tools associated with Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing aims to find prospects who do not necessarily know your offer, or even your company. Because of this particularity, it is advisable to use different lead generation and growth hacking tools.
LinkedIn Ads
Dedicated to recruitment and social selling, LinkedIn also offers you the possibility to run sponsored campaigns. LinkedIn Ads offers a wide variety of advertising formats (banners, sponsored posts, videos, personalized messages and carousels). The goal is to redirect the largest number of professionals to your website or blog.
Facebook Ads
Many BtoB companies are now adopting Facebook Ads (previously dedicated to BtoC). This advertising platform is ideal to reach local businesses or very small companies. Indeed, the effectiveness of your lead generation campaigns via this tool depends on your target and your sector of activity.
Google Ads
Google Ads is the most common sponsored campaign platform on the market. This tool allows you to display paid ads in Google search results. It works on a keyword bidding system. To get more qualified leads, your ads must point to relevant and qualitative content.
Display
Display consists in displaying videos or promotional banners on reputable blogs or on YouTube. It is especially popular for its retargeting function. You can effectively retarget Internet users who have already visited your site by sending them an ad, and thus generate qualified leads.
A Growth Hacking tool
Gathering information about your prospects is the first step in any Outbound Marketing approach. You need to build a usable and up-to-date database. In B2B, you can use a lead generation and growth hacking tool like Kaspr, which can automatically collect reliable and secure information about your prospects (name, phone number and email address). It is a true growth hacking tool that can automate your prospecting (sending invitations and automatic messages to your leads).
The tools associated with Inbound Marketing
The Inbound Marketing approach is always effective and essential to generate traffic in BtoB. In order to carry out this strategy, you can use several tools and channels.
The blog
The blog aims to demonstrate the expertise of your company through informative and educational articles. To do this, it is necessary to create content on topics related to your field of activity. The principle is to insert keywords and expressions that will allow your pages to obtain the best positions on search engines.
Social media
Give priority to natural publications on LinkedIn, the only social network exclusively for B2B. Depending on your target, you can also work on your online presence on other social media (Facebook, Twitter…). On these channels, you can also issue “corporate” publications (anniversary, recruitment, etc.). In the context of lead generation, it is important to insert a link to your website in each publication.
Call-to-action (CTA)
Using digital tools (HubSpot, WordPress…), you can build a CTA redirecting your visitors to a premium content (landing page, e-book…). This CTA comes in different formats, in this case images, text links and clickable buttons. It allows you to optimize the conversion of generated leads.
The landing pages
Your landing page must include a form that allows you to collect your visitors’ contact information in exchange for downloadable content (guide, customer case studies, etc.). In order to optimize the conversion rate, it is also advisable to include visuals and a sales pitch. You can create this specific page via a marketing software (Plezi, HubSpot…).
The newsletter
BtoB newsletters are now inspired by B2C newsletters, especially by using gifs or emojis. They can also be personalized in order to highlight the proximity with your prospects and customers. This lead generation tool allows you to bring targeted users to your website.
The pop-up
The principle of operation of pop-ups is simple. When a visitor arrives on your site, he discovers after a few seconds a small pop-up window. This window can propose a content with high added value and downloadable, or a promotional offer. To access this content, they have to fill out a form.
Chats
Manual or automatic chats (chatbots) allow you to interact in real time with visitors who ask you questions directly about your product or service. In order to generate BtoB leads, you can ask them for contact information (phone number, email address…).
Things to remember
In order to optimize your lead generation campaigns, you need to know how to combine different marketing strategies (Inbound Marketing, Outbound Marketing, Growth Hacking…). Also take care to choose the right tools and channels (Google Ads, LinkedIn, blog, pop-up, etc.). Don’t hesitate to use a Growth Hacking tool to make your business grow quickly.