We’ve all seen them – free e-book offers designed to capture our contact information in exchange for some form of helpful downloadable content. It may be a tired tactic, but it's one that has been successful in nudging website visitors further into the funnel and generating qualified leads for brands.
Today, B2B SaaS lead generation strategies go well beyond e-book offers. From email nurture campaigns to webinars and podcasts - modern lead gen still strives to provide value to the buyer while demonstrating authority and authenticity. Because without effectively packaged offers to turn your website visitors and social media followers into leads, those brand awareness efforts are all for nothing.
In this article, we’ll detail all the essentials of B2B SaaS lead generation including ideas for how to craft offers that will resonate with your target audience.
What is B2B SaaS Lead Generation?
Lead generation refers to capturing the contact information of a prospect who may be interested in your product or service. In the B2B SaaS realm, this is complicated by the fact that often the decisions for a company are made by more than a single person, over a long period of time (i.e., the sales cycle is longer), and with multiple stakeholders’ input. Unlike B2C, B2B investments – particularly for SaaS – impact the entire workplace. These are not impulsive or emotionally driven decisions. Each of these tools is important when considering your approach to B2B SaaS lead gen.
Essential Tools of B2B Saas Lead Generation
Step 1: Attract
Getting in front of your ideal customer is a logical first step in creating leads. One of the best long-term strategies for building up continuous traffic to your B2B SaaS website is through SEO. Consistently creating quality SEO-driven content that helps your target audience solve a problem, learn something new, or weigh pros vs cons is a tried and tested approach to creating and maintaining quality traffic month over month. So do your keyword research, consider your audience’s likely questions, challenges, and queries, and create content tailored to them. It’s a slow and steady process and one that ideally should be started on day one. Let me guess, you’re on day 2 or day 204? It’s ok. Just start right now.
Organic search isn’t the only form of search that should be in your toolbox. Paid search and display ads pair beautifully with organic search because while all that quality content is slowly building up authority and traffic, paid search can drive traffic to your site in the short term. And thanks to targeted keywords and targeted audience options within the major search engines, you can direct your ads toward the consumers you most want to get in front of. So, while your blogs are working steadily on one hand, your paid search campaign can boost your traffic and generate leads in the days and weeks ahead.
Finally, leverage the B2B social media powerhouse that is LinkedIn. Ideally, you should learn everything you can about your ideal customer and create customer personas that include details about where they spend time on social media, but a foolproof initial step is to get active on LinkedIn. After all, it’s a social media platform geared for businesses and professionals. Depending on your marketing budget, you may want to advertise or boost specific posts in addition to posting useful, informative content on both your individual page as well as your company page. While you are there, engage with others in your industry. Network. Repost relevant content. Respond to comments and questions. For B2B SaaS, creating a community and establishing authority on LinkedIn is a smart move. And it will drive traffic back to your website.
Step 2: Convince
Congratulations! You’re getting traffic to your website. The next step in your B2B SaaS lead generation journey is to draw visitors further into your sales funnel by showing authority, demonstrating proof, and generating interest.
Writing case studies about how other businesses have utilized your product and gathering testimonials from happy customers are two great ways to demonstrate your authority and provide proof. Prospects like to see that other companies have had a good experience with your software and are looking to see brands similar to theirs in your case studies.
Creating a podcast or a webinar is another proven way to build credibility and capture contact information. What topics is your target audience most interested in? What problems do they have? What keeps them up at night? Addressing these through an informative podcast or webinar builds trust while providing prospective customers with helpful information.
Interest can be piqued, and value can be provided, by leveraging lead magnets and other ‘gated’ content that requires visitors to provide a limited amount of contact information (often just name and email) to access. Examples of lead magnets include those infamous e-books, but also quizzes, templates, and tools relevant to your industry and audience. Maybe you have a budget calculator for big projects or a template to help streamline workflows. The better you understand the needs and challenges of your audience, the better able you will be to craft an offer that attracts and captures potential leads.
Step 3: Convert
You have successfully and methodically drawn your website visitors into the sales funnel, now it’s time to capture them as leads. One popular tactic is to offer a free trial or ‘freemium’ version of your SaaS product - the ‘try before you buy’ method. The concept here, of course, is that once they start using your amazing solution they won’t know how they lived without it and will want to subscribe or upgrade to a paid plan.
Another way to nurture these prospects is through email marketing. You’ve captured their contact info through the lead magnet, so now it's your job to stay in touch. Utilize email marketing to feed them valuable content, serve up additional offers – like free consultations – or keep them abreast of your latest blog posts.
Finally, boost your B2B SaaS lead generation efforts by taking advantage of remarketing. Serve social media content to visitors who stopped by your website but didn’t stick around long enough to provide an email address. And for those who did provide their contact information, reach out to them on different platforms and device types to stay top of mind.
Which of these B2B SaaS Lead Gen Practices is right for you?
Digital marketing offers myriad ways to capture your audience’s attention and hold it until those visitors become leads. For B2B Saas companies who live largely in the digital space, it makes sense to utilize every tool that may resonate with your audience.
What problem is your ideal customer looking to solve? How do they like to absorb information? Where do they spend time - on social media? Listening to podcasts? Going to industry trade shows? What offer or content would be most enticing to them? A smart B2B SaaS lead generation strategy is rooted in knowing your audience, meeting them where they are, and providing them with useful, unique, and authoritative content.
Taking advantage of these lead gen tactics will help ensure that your website and content marketing efforts are providing relevant and compelling information to your ideal customers and inspiring them to take the next step in the buyer journey.
However, if taking this on in-house (or on your own) seems overwhelming, partnering with an experienced growth team can help. Brand Theory helps B2B SaaS companies scale systematically, through proven strategies that attract, engage, convert, and retain customers and take the stress and the guesswork out of marketing. To take your lead gen to the next level, book a no-pressure growth consultation today.
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