Introduction
B2B lead generation has changed significantly over the years. The emergence and growth of online marketing have pushed businesses into exploring high-intent channels to influence buyer decisions and generate leads. So it is time we as marketers explore some of the many influential high-intent channels to generate maximum leads.
However, not all leads result in deals. To achieve marketing goals, B2B marketers are always looking for leads that demonstrate an interest in making a purchase. These are known as high-intent leads.
In fundamental terms, these are potential buyers who fit your company’s ideal customer profile, visit your company’s website, and show an intention to buy by visiting product pages. Often, these leads are at the buyer research stage and are anonymous-meaning they didn’t talk to a sales rep, convert through inbound marketing efforts, or complete a contact form.
To attract high-intent leads, companies must choose the right high-intent channels to support their marketing strategy and boost conversion rates.
Top Five High-Intent Channels That B2B Companies Use to Generate Superior Leads:
- Emails
- Blogs
- Videos
- Infographics
- Social Media
1. Emails
Email is one of the most effective lead-generation channels for B2B companies. In 2024, the number of email users is expected to be 4.48 billion globally. This number is set to hit the 4.73 billion mark by the year 2026. Statistics from MailMunch show that on average, email conversion rates are 40% higher than those on social media. With such statistics, email serves as a powerful B2B marketing channel for maintaining the connection between marketers and their target audience.
To get high-intent leads that result in deal closures, you’ll need to craft a strategy that involves gathering information from potential customers and nurturing them down the sales funnel. You can get quality leads using effective high-intent channels like email by doing the following:
- Optimize Lead Scoring: This involves sorting and prioritizing leads based on their likelihood to welcome emails from your company. Use email automation systems to score leads based on their behavior. For instance, a lead who views your product online is likely to convert if you send him a discount offer via email.
- Craft Clear, Concise Emails: The design of your emails affects how effective your email marketing campaign will be at winning deals. Craft clear and concise emails – avoid excesses that distract readers from the core message. Adopt a simple design, format the text well, highlight important information, and include a clear call-to-action (CTA).
- Use Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines: Drive urgency through creativity. Capture the attention of your target audience by adding curiosity to email subjects. This increases email open rates and drives conversion rates.
2. Blogs
Another high-intent channel that helps B2B companies to get good leads resulting in deal closure is blogs. As a core component of content marketing, blogging involves sharing valuable information or experiences on different topics with your target audience to keep them informed and help them learn new stuff. It also enables companies to drive organic traffic to their websites and social media pages. As per stats, 8.5 billion searches are conducted every day so it is only logical blogging enables companies to cater to this search demand.
B2B companies use blogs to attract and nurture leads by building trust and helping them to make purchase decisions. According to DemandMetric, companies that blog generate 67% more leads each month than those that don’t.
Quality leads are captured using CTAs that direct visitors to free resources like newsletters, reports, and Ebooks. To generate maximum leads effectively, B2B companies should create blogs that cover evergreen topics that maintain relevance into the future.
Blogging being a high-intent channel, B2B marketers should:
- Listen to customers then create customer-centric content. Pay attention to the questions they ask and what they want to know then create content that responds to those needs. With such content, you’ll not only attract new customers but also delight the current ones.
- Research what others have written about the subject then find ways to improve on it
- Present the content in an easy-to-read way. keep your blog posts short, give them a nice flow, and use sub-headings, white spaces, and bullet points to make it easy for readers to skim through the content.
- Support or expand your content with visuals – diagrams, screenshots, infographics, and schematics are great additions
- Publish blogs regularly – have a schedule for posting blogs and adhere to it
- Use catchy titles and include keywords in the content to attract organic traffic
3. Videos
Another one of the high-intent channels that B2B marketers use to generate new leads is videos. Video content involves the use of videos in marketing products or services. It’s among the most powerful high-intent channels for marketing your brand. Video marketing has grown significantly in recent years with research showing that by 2025, 82% of internet traffic will be through videos.
And this is for a good reason. Videos are highly effective at driving results for B2B marketers. As a matter of fact, substantial B2B companies that use videos to market their offerings achieve positive returns on investment – with four-fifths of them reporting increased sales.
Source: Elitecontentmarketer
If you plan to use this high-intent channel to attract numerous leads, here are some tips to boost your results:
- Consider where prospective leads are in the sales funnel and customize video content to their buying journey
- Create short and concise videos that are not more than two minutes long. People have short attention spans so they prioritize important information
- Add customer testimonials to your video. Social proof is a powerful way of convincing your target audience that your solutions deliver results
- Include a visualization of your product or service in the video and have fun while doing that
- Share your videos widely on strategic social media platforms
4. Infographics
Infographics are great high-intent channels for B2B marketing because they allow companies to present complex information or data to their target audience visually. B2B marketers are always looking to share huge amounts of information with their audience. But there’s always a risk that sharing highly technical, dense content will bore their audiences.
It’s not always possible to cut out important details. However, infographics make it easier to generate content that engages their target audiences. Since 2018, the demand for B2B infographics has increased by 800% – a clear indication that designing snackable content pieces resonates with prospective buyers.
The visual aspect of infographics generates quality leads for companies by boosting engagement and encouraging visual learning. They’re highly favored by social media algorithms – which increases their engagement on social platforms.
Here are some infographic tips to help you attract leads that result in better deals:
- Adopt your brand colors in your infographics to enable your audience to link the infographic with your brand
- Use storytelling to present data or information that’s easy for your audience to digest – determine what information or data is most important for your audience
- Encourage your target audience to share the infographic by resizing it or creating bites of it through cropping
- Ditch horizontal infographics for vertical ones to optimize display and maintain a good information flow
- Include information sources in your infographics
- Avoid overloading your infographic with clutter or visual distractions
5. Social Media
B2B companies use social media to generate leads that result in more deals. With the complex buying process, B2B buyers require a nuanced approach to marketing messages delivered via social media. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ allow B2B marketers to be where their prospective customers are and promote their services and products. It also gives them an opportunity to converse with potential customers
Companies that run strategic social media campaigns are successful in demonstrating credibility, differentiating their brands, building trust, and persuading leads to take the next step. They achieve this through the use of social media ads that direct users to their landing pages and surveys that provide customer feedback about their products. In fact, most B2B marketers use social media ads and promoted posts to market their company’s offerings.
Source: Statusbrew
Further, B2B companies leverage gated content to capture high-intent leads by directing them to lead capture forms, and discount codes that increase positive responses during campaigns.
To attract leads that convert, B2B marketers should focus on:
- Be clear on who they’re targeting through their social media strategy
- Identify the social media platforms that their target audience uses and focus on using those platforms.
- Identify an interesting angle to interact with social media audiences and build relationships.
- Share posts regularly and respond to queries or comments that prospects leave on social media
Conclusion
B2B companies are also searching for quality leads to convert them into paying customers and increase their sales revenues. To attract such leads, companies must create awareness about their brands and offerings, and inform potential customers how those offerings can solve their problems. While there are many other high-intent channels that marketers use to do this, social media, emails, videos, infographics, and blogs tend to be the most effective in capturing the attention of prospects that have a high chance of converting.
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