4 Steps Strategy That Generated 1055 Qualified B2B Leads Within 4 Months

Did you just read the title and thought how? Well honestly, even I asked this question to myself when I did that. (Just Kidding!)

It goes back to late 2019, when I was leading a content marketing team in a B2B firm where most of the clients were from USA, China, and India. My job was to create a strategy that would bring leads for the company. 2 months into the job and the world suddenly started acting like crazy — threat of wars between countries, market crash, pandemic, & what not was happening around the world.

Unfortunately, the company was also one of the victims of those unfortunate events and had reduced the workforce by 40%.

Cut to the point where I was sitting quiet in the office lobby after a meeting with the Management, thinking that how would I make it happen? How would I create an effective strategy?

More than saving my job, it was about proving the worth of my skills in those testing times. Company had shown trust in me and I had a responsibility. It took me about 20 minutes to come up with the strategy and I spent next 90 minutes to create the first draft of the marketing communication.

The strategy was a blend of SEO, Social Media Communication, and Paid Social Media Campaigns. The core of all of them was change in the approach of content and marketing message.

Objective: Book prospects for pitch meetings.

Problems:

1. Less budget for paid marketing which means more efforts on SEO
2. While SEO requires patience which the management didn’t have at the time.

Process:

1. SEO by using only high conversion keywords
2. Drip messaging outreach campaign on LinkedIn
3. A growth hack with the Landing Page
4. Get them onboard for a pitch meeting

Let’s get started,

Step 1: SEO by using only high conversion keywords

In simple words, SEO is the process of ranking your keywords on search engine result pages (SERPs). When your website ranks on SERPs, it brings traffic to your business’ website.

But here’s the catch,

What if your website is ranking for a keyword but you still don’t have enough sales?

Well, it happens to most of the businesses who undermine the value of having a human connection in their content. This company’s website was going through the same. Not only that, it was also ranking on some random keywords which were neither informative nor did they hold any monetary value.

Here I decided to get rid of all those random keywords and we focused on longtail keywords with monetary value such as xyz services provider in San Francisco rather than What is the meaning of xyz?

Here is a proof to back my thesis.

Before v/s after comparison of the campaign (Courtesy: Google Analytics)

People who are looking for the meaning of the keyword, are not ready to buy your product or service yet. Hence no point in wasting time on those users and keywords.

Another major concern was to reach out to the prospects who could provide instant cashflow. On an average, SEO takes at least 3 months to show results.

Here comes the content hacking part.

Step 2: Drip Messaging Outreach Campaign on LinkedIn

Drip messaging on social media is not a common practice in that industry and that too on social media? (Are you kidding me!) Convincing them was a cakewalk with a knife on it.

Drip messaging is a technique where you nurture a lead via a series of strategically created personalized messages.

It’s a very common practice in email marketing but still very fresh on social media. Start using it for your business.

For example, You send them an Introductory message with a cheat-sheet or an e-book that would help in growth of their businesses and then nurture them.

There’s a quote by Steve Jobs and I paraphrase, “It’s not about selling a product to a customer, it’s about how you make them feel.” So do not sell anything in your first message.

The platform we chose was LinkedIn because it’s the easiest platform to connect with working professionals.

Firstly, we optimized the profiles by adding searchable content while also keeping the human element in it. Then we started reaching out to the prospects with introductory messages. Below I have shared the template that we had used.

Hey <Name>,

I was going through your profile & found it very interesting. Especially, <name something you genuinely liked from their profile>. Would like to connect with you.

This message works like magic because of personalization. In our case, 7 out of 10 prospects accepted our request which is 70% conversion. The ones who didn’t accept, most of them were not very active on LinkedIn. Use this template for your business.

What if the prospect does not reply to your message?

It’s fine, wait for at least 3 days. Delete the request and send it again. Do not stop until you get a definite answer which is, either Yes or No.

After Becoming One of Their Connections?

Engage with the prospects’ posts for at least 2 days — leave a comment on their recent posts or endorse them for two of their skills. The motive is to get attention.

Make sure that you follow the tips given below while sending the message

1. Make first 5 words of the message as interesting as you can because that much is visible in LinkedIn’s notification.
2. Never mention the price of services in message because every client has a different requirement.
3. Invite them for a consulting session — to help you serve the client better.

Now the scenario is, either they will set up the meeting or they will just leave the page after checking it out. The message copy should be interesting enough to make user click on the landing page.

In case the prospect does not book the call and leaves after checking out the page.

Prospect was at least interested in your services and here comes…

Step 3: A Growth Hack With the Landing Page

If you run have ever facebook ads, you would know how important is the targeting. Business owner usually complain that lead generation ads are expensive and do not bring results. But, the problem is not with the ads, it’s the strategy you use.

Problem: Expensive Lead Generation Ads on Facebook

Solution:

1. Add pixel code on the landing page before you run ads
2. Run retargeting ads instead of lead generation ads

But Where and Why?

Pixel is a specific code provided by facebook which tracks data on the page it is added. When you add pixel on the landing page, it collects the data of visitors and then you can run a retargeting ad for visitors who bounced back after checking your sales page.

Frequency plays a major role in marketing and hence retargeting ads play a very important role in conversions.

By using this strategy, we set up more than 250+ meetings out of 1055 qualified leads with B2B clients across USA & India for the sales team.

This strategy is free for you to use.

If you want me to help your business with content creation, copywriting, or content management, book a call and let’s discuss in detail.