B2B Lead Generation: How to Create Content That Converts

B2B lead generation attracts customers with high-converting content demonstrating expertise and industry knowledge.

Do it well, and at each stage of the funnel, you are providing leads with value, increasing their chances of converting.

In this article, we’ll cover the importance of content marketing in B2B lead generation, and tips and tricks to turn your leads into revenue.

What is B2B Lead Generation?

Business-to-business (B2B) lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential clients who may be interested in your product or service. They then enter your sales funnel as leads, allowing you to guide them on a specific pathway to conversion ultimately increasing your business’s revenue.

This differs from business-to-customer (B2C) lead generation, as it typically works on much longer sales cycles with larger individual purchases. B2B SaaS customers for example, usually invest a lot of time and money into a new service. As such, they require a more personalised approach, with multiple touchpoints to build a relationship.

Why is B2B Lead Generation Important?

B2B lead generation is the number one way to grow your business and revenue. Effective lead generation strategies form a direct line to sales and market expansion; but often companies need to nurture them more closely, missing out on key growth opportunities. Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases, highlighting the importance of a solid B2B lead generation strategy.

One of the most effective ways to do this is to develop a solid content plan that guides the customer through the funnel, leading to conversion.

How to Identify Your Target Audience

Look at your product.

• Who is it for?
• What need is it fulfilling?

Answering those two questions is the first step in developing a buyer persona.

Companies create buyer personas for each of their target audience segments. This allows them to analyse the needs and pain points of each market segment, and tailor their content and strategies accordingly.

Other ways to gather information that helps structure your buyer persona include:

• Performing market research
• Customer interviews
• Surveys
• Analytics data
• Team feedback

Typically, buyer personas are then segmented in the way that’s most logical for your business. In B2B, that usually means creating buyer personas based on:

• Job position
• Industry
• Location
• Company size

Segmenting your B2B Target Audience

The creation of buyer personas naturally segments your target audience. This allows you to create targeted strategies for each type of customer you hope to attract.

With a well-segmented audience, you can:

• Create personalised messaging that addresses the unique needs and pain points of that group, making them more likely to convert.
• Build stronger relationships with customers and increase the likelihood of them engaging with your content.
• Develop tailored marketing strategies that resonate best with the target audience.

This is called precision marketing. It ensures your efforts are not only seen but are seen and appreciated by the right people at the right stage in the B2B sales funnel.

How to Create High-Quality B2B Content

In the world of B2B lead generation, high-quality content is a must. It’s what grabs attention, builds trust, and moves your prospects through the sales funnel. Producing a variety of different B2B content allows you to cater to every stage and every type of information the lead might be looking for.

B2B Content Types for Lead Generation

Some content works at every stage in the funnel, some only in specific places. And just like the content, some people absorb all types of information, some only in specific formats. The more content types you can produce, the more encompassing your content strategy is.

Written content: Whitepapers, ebooks, blog posts, landing pages and guides:

These can be used to great effect at any stage of the B2B lead generation funnel.

For example:

• At the top, blog posts, how-to guides, and deep dives into industry trends can showcase business expertise.
• In the middle, landing pages, case study whitepapers, and ebooks can highlight the unique selling points of your product.
• At the bottom, how-to and product walkthrough guides bring home your product’s value and ease of use.
• Image-based content: Infographics, charts & thumbnails

Don’t just slap a picture on your blog post and call it a day. Think about how visuals can work as bite-size information nuggets, feeding customers essential info in quick, digestible chunks.

• Infographics can highlight important stats about your industry or product.
• Charts can show where you stack up against competitors (hopefully… at the top of the pile).
• Thumbnails draw the eye and encourage people to click through and learn more.

Video-based content: Product demos, webinars

Some people process better auditorily. Webinars that tackle each stage of the funnel can be really valuable pieces of content that work alongside your existing written content to provide variety. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, just repurpose planned and existing written content into a video-based format.

Live webinars and product demos also provide you with an invaluable chance to interact directly with the potential B2B lead. This builds the relationship and develops loyalty. A friendly and helpful company representative will be remembered when it comes to purchasing season, and could just sway that decision.

Best Practices for Content Creation

Knowing what topics to tackle and pillars to structure your B2B content strategy on is usually informed by a mixture of keyword research, understanding of the different buyer personas, and industry knowledge.

When creating content always make sure to follow best practices to reduce bounce rates and increase conversions:

• Keep it simple, clear, and concise. Short paragraphs and sentences hold the reader’s attention. Use the space to highlight industry knowledge and authoritativeness in terms everyone can understand.
• Use real-world examples. Showing real use cases for your product or service provides insights into how it answers industry pain points.
• Use clear, actionable CTAs. Make your call to action compelling. Tell your leads exactly what they’ll receive by clicking that button, whether it’s an eBook, newsletter sign-up, or product demo request.

Distributing and Promoting B2B Content

It’s time to show off the content.

The two most common ways to do that are through email marketing and social media.

Social Media Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Social media platforms allow you to reach a wide audience quickly, you just need to know your platform. B2B audiences aren’t typically running to TikTok for information on their industry, for example.

For B2B lead generation, the most effective platforms are typically LinkedIn and Facebook.

LinkedIn is a space where users are already looking for professional information, advice, and solutions. It’s easier to target people based on job type and industry, and they’re typically more likely to engage on a professional platform.

Facebook, however, can target broader strokes like location, or specific demographics in its paid ads. It humanises brands and is an easier platform to build general awareness through sharing case studies, videos, and reviews.

Email Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Email marketing drives 50% more sales than other lead-generation methods. So, it’s a method your business should be using.

Once a B2B lead has entered an email marketing sequence, strategies can become tailored, directly guiding them through the funnel.

An effective email marketing strategy involves audience segmentation, tactics to bring back non-openers, and automation that triggers different sequences depending on user behaviour.

This allows you to create personalised strategies that speak directly to individuals and encourage them to engage. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the A/B subject and opening lines to see what copy is more enticing to the reader.

The most sophisticated of email marketing strategies use all of the above while providing value to the reader. Don’t just sell, provide information, tips, how-to’s, and guides. It’s its very own little content funnel, so treat it like you would your wider strategy.

Optimising B2B Content for Search Engines with SEO

Optimising content for search engines requires knowledge of how to find and target keywords that give your business a chance of ranking.With well-honed SEO, Thomas International doubled its organic leads over 12 months.

Two of the most important components of on-page SEO are:

• Effective choice of keywords (chosen using data insights and tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs)
• Understanding of keyword placement (meta descriptions, H2s, tags etc.)

A good content strategy will take keywords into account, finding long-tail keywords that target specialised industry areas, and increasing overall brand awareness through blogs and other content resources.

How Do Long-Tail Keywords Work?

Long-tail keywords allow businesses to filter and target their content precisely to answer specific questions or challenges in the industry. They drive B2B lead generation by showcasing specialist knowledge and increase a company’s chance of ranking higher for a topic.

A SaaS company targeting “design software” for example, will have a very difficult time competing due to its high search volume and keyword difficulty. Whereas “garden design software” has a lower search volume but also a lower keyword difficulty, increasing chances of ranking.

As with any keyword though, they need to be naturally integrated and not stuffed in. Google’s Helpful Content update favours natural human-first language and pages that provide genuine value to the reader.

How to Measure B2B Content Performance and ROI

Analytics are a marketer’s best friend.

Not so much to hear your woes over drinks, but there to offer helpful advice and insights you’d otherwise have missed.

You must track metrics that provide actionable insights for your B2B lead generation content strategy. Typically, these include:

• Traffic
• Engagement (clicks, likes, comments, shares, etc.)
• Lead quality
• Conversion rates

The more unified the data is, the better. If you use a variety of tools like SEMrush, Google Analytics, Search Console, Hubspot etc. a third-party analytics platform can consolidate and standardise all data for more holistic reporting.

This allows businesses to track the entire customer journey, touchpoints and potential areas for optimisation using the actionable insights the platform provides.

From there, you can judge your B2B content marketing’s effectiveness, and ROI.

How to calculate B2B content marketing ROI

Before calculating ROI, you need to have a set of KPIs for your content marketing, based on analytics data. Assign values to non-monetary goals, such as brand awareness, to see if your content marketing has resulted in good ROI.

Then, to calculate the ROI of B2B content marketing, use this formula:

ROI = (Revenue Generated – Cost of Content Marketing) / Cost of Content Marketing * 100

The resulting percentage will indicate the ROI value of your content marketing.

Try Account-Based Marketing to Enhance B2B Lead Generation

Account-based marketing (ABM) is an advanced B2B lead generation tactic. Rather than going after individuals, it targets specific accounts or companies, with the expectation of receiving a high ROI.

This is particularly effective in the B2B sphere, where large accounts have the potential to draw in large amounts of revenue.

This tactic is useful on both existing accounts a business is hoping to upsell, and brand new accounts or “dream accounts” a company wants to engage with.

How To Use Account-Based Marketing

Creating tailored content is the first step in ABM. Much like how you would for buyer personas, only this time it’s even more highly specialised and specific.

This includes customised messaging, email sequences, and formats, informed by intense market research and/or the ongoing relationship with the business.

Internally Approaching ABM

Have sales teams whose specific focus is these accounts, or ensure individual sales executives have these accounts marked as their highest priority. It’s essential to give these leads a bit more TLC, by focusing on relationship-building and direct engagement.

Part of that is detailed, explicit notes and shorter follow-up times to nurture the lead. Make sure all key metrics are tracked and continuously analyse success rates so changes can be made quickly.

With a laser focus on these types of accounts, businesses can increase ROI and drive substantial lead growth.

Conclusion: Mastering B2B Lead Generation with Content

Content marketing is an integral part of the B2B lead generation funnel. It creates authority, showcases expertise, and builds trust.

Just like the EEAT framework for landing pages, a good B2B lead generation content strategy encompasses all these factors.

With a solid strategy built around each stage in the funnel, businesses can increase ROI. Of course, the biggest factor and issue with this is having the time.

That’s where we come in.

Increase your B2B leads without any extra effort on your part.