Lead capturing is an integral part of lead management… without lead capturing, you don’t have a sales pipeline with interested inbound leads. But how can B2B companies effectively capture leads that are actively looking for a product or service solution?
In this blog we’ll cover the following topics in regards to the lead capturing process:
What Does It Mean to Capture Leads?
Lead capture is a step in the lead management process, identifying and gathering information about potential customers who have shown interest in a product or service. This typically involves collecting their contact details, such as email addresses or phone numbers, through various channels like websites, social media, or events.
Once captured, these leads become a valuable resource for businesses to nurture and convert into paying customers. Effective lead capture strategies include offering incentives, engaging content, and personalized communication to build relationships and guide prospects through the sales funnel. Successful lead capture is crucial for driving revenue and growing a customer base.
How To Create a B2B Lead Capturing Strategy
Not sure where to start with your B2B lead capturing strategy? Here are some steps to help you get started:
Step 1. Define Your Lead Capturing Objective
First thing’s first—what’s the objective of your lead capture?
To generate more soft leads? Get more newsletter signups? Download a guide? Secure more sales meetings?
While the overarching goal is to ultimately generate more revenue, the type of content written and distributed is essential for determining where the prospect or lead is in their B2B sales journey, and what you want them to do with the information given to them. Whatever your objective is, it’s important to define it so you can measure the effectiveness of it over time.
Step 2. Figure Out What You Want Your Offer to Be
What do you want users to gain from submitting their information to your business? After determining the goal YOU want from your B2B lead capturing strategy, what do you want the LEAD to gain?
Lead capturing should be a mutually beneficial relationship between you and a potential buyer. The only reason for them to submit their personal information is to gain something in return.
For example, if you want to get more newsletter sign ups so you can nurture the relationship with the lead over time, they’re expecting to get monthly or bi-monthly newsletters to learn more about your product or service offerings or gain more insight into your industry expertise.
Whatever you choose your offer to be, you must make sure it aligns with your overall content strategy and what you want to achieve from these lead capture efforts. For example, if you ask users to give you their contact information for newsletters, but you don’t actually have company newsletters, this provides no benefit or value to your business, or the decision-makers.
Step 3. Create a Lead Capture Landing Page and Ad
Now that you’ve established a goal and what you want leads to gain from your efforts, it’s time to create your lead capture landing page, ad copy, and form-fill requirements.
The landing page should be engaging and align with what your ultimate goal is for the user. If it doesn’t align with their intent of the lead capture, they’ll more than likely turn away. This increases the risk of bounce rates which negatively impact your campaign and ROI.
The same goes for your ad copy. Ad copy for your lead capture should introduce users to what they’re expecting when they click on the ad. If your ad and landing page aren’t aligned, you’re not providing the user with the user experience they were expecting, resulting in low conversion rates.
And lastly, depending on the ad and landing page created, it’s important to consider what the contact form should look like. If it’s a more soft lead for a guide download or newsletter sign up, the contact form requirements should probably be shorter and include the full name and company email of the user so you gain the information you need without overwhelming the user.
On the other hand, if the lead capture is more sales-driven and conversion-focused, the contact form fill should be longer so you have all the information you need to ensure they’re ready to buy. The more information they’re willing to give you, the more likely they probably are to make a purchase.
Want to make sure you create an effective landing page for your lead capturing efforts? For more insight in landing page best practices, read our blog here.
Step 4. Assign a Platform For Your Lead Capture Approach
In this step, it’s time to assign a platform to your lead capture efforts. Your B2B lead capture strategy should look and be different depending on the platform you’re assigning them to.
If it’s a Google Ad lead capture, it should be more conversion-focused, encouraging leads to schedule a sales meeting or make a purchase. On the other hand, if it’s a social ad lead capture, it’s more than likely encouraging leads to download a free, exclusive guide or sign up for newsletters.
However, it’s important to assign a lead capture platform based on the personas of your target market. For example, if most buyers in your target market are more likely to convert on your website, it’s essential to take your time focusing on website lead capture vs. social.
Step 5. Monitor and Adjust Your Lead Capture Strategy as Needed
And like any other B2B lead generation approach, you must monitor your B2B lead capture efforts and make adjustments to your strategy as they seem fit. This empowers your marketing and lead generation teams to provide sales with higher converting leads.
Best Lead Capturing Tactics for B2B Lead Generation Teams to Follow
The steps listed above aren’t enough to build a lead capturing strategy that yields results. To get the most out of your lead capture efforts, make sure your B2B lead generation teams follow these best practices:
Use Various Types of Lead Magnets
Not every decision-maker who comes across your company is in the same stage of the B2B lead generation and marketing funnel, which is what makes implementing various types of lead magnets essential for catching the right leads at the right time.
For example, if you notice that your guide download lead magnets aren’t generating enough leads, consider converting it into a newsletter or a different type of lead magnet. Or if your social lead capture efforts aren’t gaining any impact, it’s worth testing out other platforms to promote your business and the insights you have to offer.
A/B Test Different Contact Form Fills
As mentioned earlier, depending on the B2B lead capture goal, it’s important to align the contact form fills with what they’re looking for and consider their stage in the buying cycle. If there are too many form-fill requirements, you risk turning users away if they’re not ready to convert. On the other hand, if you have too few, you risk generating low-quality leads who aren’t ready to convert.
Include Multistep Lead Capture Forms
If your conversion-focused lead capture strategy requires a lot of information but is having a problem generating leads, consider using multistep lead capture forms. Rather than having all the form-fill requirements on a single pop-up and potentially overwhelming the user, multistep lead capture forms make the form-fill requirements less intimidating, increasing the number of leads generated from your lead capture efforts.
Implement Chatbots to Engage More Web Visitors
One of the fastest growing ways that B2B companies are capturing leads is by implementing chatbots on their website to engage more users and help drive them to what they’re looking for. Chatbots were once thought of as a customer service tool (which they still are), but they can be much more than that. By using chatbots for lead capture, you can:
- Improve website user experience
- Effectively capture leads around the clock
- Enhance lead qualification efforts
- Boost user engagement
Chatbots can also be used as a live chat platform, allowing sales development reps to talk one-on-one with users to learn what they’re looking for and how your company can help. This can help them better qualify leads before they’re sent to your sales team.
Ways to Optimize Your B2B Lead Capturing Strategy
If you’ve been practicing lead capturing for awhile but aren’t getting the impact you want, there are some ways that you can optimize your strategy. Here are a few of the top ways you can optimize your B2B lead capturing strategy:
Consider the Flow of the User Journey
One of the biggest downfalls that marketing and lead generation encounter is not considering the flow of the user journey and how they navigate throughout the B2B sales funnel. If your lead capturing efforts are happening outside of where the user is in their buyer journey, you’re not going to get the same impact.
For example, if a decision-maker is on a website service page and ready to convert, presenting them with a pop-up that encourages them to download a guide isn’t going to urge them to reach out to your business and schedule a sales meeting. On the other hand, if you have too much of a selling-focused lead capture on an informational piece of content on your website or social profile, you risk turning away the user from your business because they feel too overwhelmed.
Many B2B sales and marketing teams mix up the concepts of a “sales pipeline” vs. a “sales funnel,” which can result in some misalignment between the two departments. To gain a full understand between a sales pipeline vs. a sales funnel, read our blog here.
Segment and Target Lead Capturing Efforts
Rather than simply sharing and promoting lead magnets across your target market, consider segmenting and targeting them based on the different buyer personas within your audience. If you provide a targeted and personalized experience to decision-makers, they’re more likely to convert because they see themselves in these ads.
For example, let’s suggest that you’re a commercial cleaning company that wants to generate more customers in the education sector. In this case, you could promote LinkedIn lead capturing ads targeted at school principals and facility managers about your education-focused cleaning services. This encourages them to think about their current solution and explore how your business could be a better fit for their operations since you specifically suggested expert school cleaning services.
A/B Test Your Landing Page, Ad Copy, and Form Fills
A/B testing (or split testing) your lead capturing approach is essential for seeing what works and what doesn’t. This can include split testing lead capture design, ad copy, call-to-actions (CTAs), imagery, and more.
As we discussed earlier, there are many best practices your marketing and lead generation teams can follow to boost the number of leads generated. Trying out these different methods can help you maximize your lead capture strategy. For example, try testing out:
- A multistep vs. long-form contact form fill
- The number of form-fill requirements
- Chatbot messaging (and where it drives users)
- Soft lead- or conversion-focused lead capturing efforts
Key Takeaways
To engage more leads in your target market, you must have a B2B lead capturing strategy in place. Without it, you risk missing out on significant opportunities from decision-makers who are actively looking for a solution to their pain points.
While lead capturing may be necessary for getting more leads in your sales pipeline, it requires a lot of time to target your ideal leads, create effective lead capturing content, and follow up with MQLs to convert them into SQLs. When you work with an outsourced sales and marketing provider, you have the opportunity to spend more time converting leads into opportunities rather than bringing them to your business. And that’s where Abstrakt comes in.
At Abstrakt Marketing Group, our B2B inbound lead generation experts specialize in creating and distributing content that captures high-quality leads who are ready to learn more about your business or invest in your product or service offerings. When you’re ready to put your business growth efforts into the hands of proven-effective experts, contact the inbound lead generation specialists at Abstrakt!
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