In a recent post, I talked about six direct marketing sources of B2B sales leads.  You can view that post here. Let’s now turn our attention to nine more lead sources from two important categories – online media and pull marketing.

Pull Marketing

Social Media – The big three B2B leadgen social media tools are LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging. All three can be a good low-cost source of leads.  If you are going to engage with these media – and I strongly suggest that you do – then make sure you include an informational offer (not a sales pitch) of some type in many of your postings.

Public Relations – Yes you can generate leads with media relations. The idea is to create a steady drumbeat of awareness through PR,  driving traffic to your website. You then use website offers (whitepapers, videocast, etc.) to capture contact information.

Speaking – Whenever possible, get in front of people who work in your industry.  And when you doso, give the audience members something of value.  This can be as simple as sending them a copy of your PowerPoint presentation.  As with all lead generation initiatives, the idea is capture relevant contact information and put these individuals into a drip marketing program.

Online Media

Pay Per Click – Google, Microsoft and Yahoo offer you the ability to bid for specific search terms/phrases. For example, a CRM vendor could bid for the terms “sales force automation” and “sales automation”.  The ads for winning bidders appear high in the search results page when someone types that phrase into their search bar.  Smart marketers then require the suspect to fill out a contact form (also known as a landing page) to receive information.  We have generated many thousands of Pay Per Clicks (PPC) leads for our clients at reasonable rates.

Organic Search – In contrast to paid PPC leads; organic search leads do not require payment to the search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques are used to make the website search engine friendly.

Landing Pages – Unlike the lead generation strategies we have been discussing, landing pages are the tool you use to collect lead information.  Unfortunately, there are many B2B companies that have few if any lead capture options on their websites.  Good websites have multiple lead options and landing pages to ensure that as many website visitors as possible provide their contact information.

Microsites – A microsite is an area of your website that is devoted to a specific area of your product or service offerings.  For example, a microsite can be aimed at a specific industry or function/department. Although it is contained under the umbrella of your primary  website, the microsite may have its own domain or sub-domain name.   Microsites are important aspects of niche marketing and can be 2-3 times more effective at generating leads than offering the same information through the primary website.

Online Demos – If you have a product or service that can be demonstrated (e.g. computer software), you might want to create a short
demonstration that is available to the website visitor after a registration process.  Don’t make the mistake of going too deep in the demo; it is meant as a quick taste of the offering, not a complete description.

Banner Ads – Banner ads are web-based ads that run on third party sites.  You often pay for these ads either based on the amount of time the ad runs (e.g. weekly or monthly) or by the number of web visitors who are exposed to the ad (impressions).  In our experience, banner ads are cost-effective only when the demographics of the website visitors closely matches your target prospect profile.

Keep your eyes open at the Fusion Marketing Partners website for our upcoming free eBook on B2B lead generation.