Many B2B companies see Facebook as one big barbeque party. You never know who you’ll run into. It may be the “girl next door” or a B2B decision maker from an Enterprise company. In their minds, it’s a matter of chance whether Facebook will yield fruits for their businesses or not.
Other companies assume that their target audience isn’t on Facebook. This assumption can leave money on the table and may cost them engaged customers.
If we look at Facebook today, we can see that it has over 1.44 billion monthly active users. Of those users, 1.25 billion are engaging via mobile devices.
Below are five Facebook lead generation strategies that work for B2B companies. No matter which strategy/strategies you decide to use, make sure you optimize for mobile first.
Go with Mobile First
“As a marketer and a businessperson, if you’re not thinking about how to tell your story on a mobile device first, you are going to lose.” Gary Vaynerchuk
As a high-performance marketer, you know the world practically turns based on the whims of the almighty smartphone. Optimizing each and every one of your assets for mobile will instantly boost conversion rates (Perhaps you just realized why your conversion rates have been low!).
We found this out the hard way. We were driving loads of traffic to our landing pages and then scratching our heads wondering why they weren’t converting. The ads literally had the same copy as the landing page. We didn’t get it. Then we found out that most of our traffic was coming from a mobile device and more specifically the Android device. We had a bounce rate of nearly 90% and it occurred to us that we weren’t optimized for mobile! What a lesson that was. The importance of mobile is currently underestimated by many verticals.
According to a Google Study, 42 percent of researchers use a mobile device during their B2B purchasing process.
Focus on mobile first and desktop second.
Pro-Tip: Check if your mobile experience is jeopardizing your online success. When building your marketing funnel, create a QA process that outlines the different devices and the usability on each device. Here is a great reference to use:MobileTest.Me. The other part of the QA process is a speed test. Make sure the speed on your landing page is fast. I like to use SpeedTest.net.
The Power of Customer Lists
The beauty of B2B marketing begins with the database list. Facebook has made it easy for you to upload your database into the Business Manager. Then Facebook will pinpoint “lookalike” audiences who have similar interests as your initial database. Facebook’s insights also empower you to take a data-driven approach around Facebook ads. Through the interface you’ll be able to spot check demographic data, activity data, location data, and more.
As a B2B marketer, it’s a given to build a customer list through events, inbound tactics and paid advertising. The power of Facebook ads is that you are able to target through a narrow approach.
For example, with customer lists you can find out which devices your customer base uses the most and compare your data to Facebook’s general advertising stats.
You can also find out where each of your users are while viewing your page. Perhaps you are opening a branch of your company in Texas and you want to bring in leads from Dallas. Set up a couple ads for your targeted region (Dallas) and use Facebook’s location stats to build a list of Dallas decision makers to contact.
Pro-Tip: Gather a segmented customer list and upload it in the audiences’ area of Facebook. Next, use the data from the “Audience Insights” section to optimize your ads and assets for incoming prospects. Test your content and boost your conversion rates. One of my favorite tools is Visual Website Optimizer. This tool allows you to see exactly what’s happening with your content and how you can optimize to increase your conversions.
Instant Value: Checklists
Face it, the days of the encyclopedia are coming to an end. No one (especially a decision maker) has time to read everything they want to. Imagine spending 60 days creating a guide or an eBook that no one ends up reading. That’s painful.
When you give the decision maker instant value in snack size portions, they are more likely to read, learn and apply the insight you’re offering. At the end of the day decision makers want to speak to people who bring them value. You can offer this in the form of a tool sheet, a checklist or a highly visual playbook.
For example, let’s say you own a web design company and you’re trying to pick up new clients. You know that marketing officers are going to be comparing you to other design firms before choosing who to work with, so you create an easy-to-read checklist of the things to look for in a qualified designer. Naturally, you highlight the value YOU are offering. You are making the CMO’s choice easy, and he/she will love you for it.
Decision makers often live in a frenzy of busy schedules and long exhausting meetings. Lighten up their days by offering visuals and make it easy for them to choose YOU by offering bite sized, easy to understand information. And remember, it doesn’t necessarily have to be for free. Sometimes offering something for free automatically assigns it a value of zero in the mind of a customer. When it comes to decision-makers, they have the ability to pay, so why not charge?
Pro-Tip: Do you have a SaaS product? Create an asset around the fun ways to use your product. This will indirectly promote what you do and your audience will find it resourceful at the same time!
Tools or Assessments (Calculator)
Imagine receiving access to a tool that makes your life easier as a decision maker. This can be in the form of calculating revenue for the year or computing different benchmark projections.
Take the visitor to an assessment that gives them access to a tool they can use to carry out a specific task. Even though this may seem like a “free” tactic, it isn’t. The reason you are driving them to an assessment is to qualify them.
When you automate the qualifying process it accelerates the sales process and takes the burden off of the sales department. The assessment will allow you to see if they are a fit for your product. If they are, you can add them to the “interested” segment and if they aren’t you can add them to a different bucket that nurtures the lead until they are qualified.
Let’s say my company sells custom analytics for travel related businesses. Research shows me that my top customers often research regions that are most travelled. With this bit of information, I decide to use my powerful analytics to create a tool in which my customers can look at a map of any part of the world and see the numbers of travelers to that region.
But in order to gain access to my map, they first have to answer the questions on the assessment.
Pro-Tip: Find out where your customer is at in terms of the education process. Then use qualitative data to produce highly targeted assessments that ring a bell in their head, saying, “They totally get me!”
Quizzes
Even decision makers like to take quizzes out of curiosity. They love showing off how smart they are to their friends. Quizzes are not only fun but they also serve a purpose by adding to your collection of qualitative data. This plethora of information enables you to build a content program on steroids. You can create an editorial calendar that offers them the information they are looking for based on their answers they provided on the quiz.
For example, if you created a quiz that was called “What type of Superhero are you?” You can learn a lot about their personality, how they function, what their goals are and most importantly what their next step is going to be.
Pro-Tip: Use Kuia to build a fun quiz and generate leads through Facebook. What type of quiz will help your customer be the hero of your brand story?
Conclusion
Facebook is more than a fad. The marketing power it offers is truly groundbreaking when it comes to reaching your target audience with the right content. The five strategies above have been highly effective for us.
What strategies working for YOU? Let us know in the comments below.
