In the previous post we talked about B2B lead generation and its components. Now let’s take a look at the strategies that can be employed to generate leads online:

1.Email marketing:

It refers to sending a commercial message to a group of people (typically potential or current customers), using email. It basically inculcates the use of email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be carried out using:

•  Transactional emails: These emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. To be qualified as transactional or relationship messages, these communications’ primary purpose must be to confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender, along with a few other narrow definitions of transactional messaging.

• Direct email: It involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products).

•  Mobile email marketing: It develops large amounts of traffic through smartphones and tablets.

2. Social marketing:

This type of marketing involves leveraging social media to generate leads online. Businesses can use it to generate and nurture millions of dollars worth of leads. As a matter of fact, one of the most obvious ways to generate B2B leads from social media is using LinkedIn. Since social media is an integral part of content marketing, and to some extent, search marketing, so, your blogging or info graphics can be extremely successful if you are active on social media platforms.

In order to integrate social networks into their marketing strategies, companies have to develop a marketing model. One such model includes the following steps:

• Selection of the correct social networks to use
• Setting out a financial plan for hiring social media brand managers or consultants
• Designing organizational structures to manage the social network in the companies’ market
• Selection of target markets
• Selection of the products, services, brands or company messages that you plan to promote
• Performance measures for the social media strategy such as evaluation, data analytics, etc.