Generating B2C leads and qualifying them as potential customers sounds easy enough. However, there are so many variables to take into account when it comes to B2C lead generation that it feels like an arcane science. If you’re not careful, one slip-up or missed opportunity and your entire lead gen campaign can fall apart. To make things a little easier, we’ve compiled the most effective strategies for creating leads and converting them into customers. Read on for the ultimate guide to B2C lead generation.
Know Your Audience
The most important part of any lead-gen strategy is knowing who you’re marketing to. This goes for both businesses and consumers. Be aware of your potential customers’ needs and concerns, their preferred communication methods, and their general behavior toward purchases. This will help you tailor your marketing to fit their specific wants — not just what you want to sell.
There are two main considerations when it comes to understanding your audience: demographics and psychographics. Demographics refer to your customers’ ages, genders, and other general traits. Psychographics, on the other hand, take those traits and dig a little deeper into people’s behavior and motivations.
Ask yourself, what solutions are prospective customers looking for? What problems do they have? How does your product or service solve those problems?
Build a Great Website
Your website is your first impression to potential customers. It’s the first place they look to find out more information about your business — and it better be impressive. Your website should speak directly to your target audience and emphasize what makes you different. It should also be designed to work seamlessly on desktop and mobile devices. The quality of your website’s content is crucial. Quality, engaging content is a must if you want to stand out. This can include anything from blog posts to videos and infographics. The more information you have on your site, the more it will pull in visitors and help qualify them as leads.
When it comes to design, make sure your website is optimized for both mobile and desktop devices. In Q1 of 2022, 55% of all website traffic was from a mobile device. Not taking mobile website optimization into account can hurt your B2C lead generation efforts. Studies show lead generation is higher on mobile devices than desktops, so it’s important to be accessible to both audiences.
Finally, use exclusive, gated content to capture your B2C leads. Gated content is a means of capturing a prospective buyer’s information by providing valuable content in exchange for their name, email, mobile number, etc. The content can be a video, a unique webpage, a PDF file, or something else. Techniques like this help in identifying high-intent leads and turning them into paying customers.
Use Video Marketing
Video marketing shouldn’t be used as a one-off promotional tool. It should be a staple in your lead gen strategy. Why? Because video is simply the best medium for conveying your message to your audience. The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text-based information. That’s why video marketing is so highly effective. It allows your customer to quickly grasp your product and what it offers. It’s also proven to increase website traffic, customer engagement, and sales.
When creating a video marketing campaign, keep the following in mind: – Duration: How long should your video be? Research shows that shorter videos are more effective than longer ones. Studies show that videos lasting between 30 and 90 seconds are most likely to be watched in full and shared across social media. – Topics: Choose a topic that’s relevant to your business and your audience. Make sure each video has a clear and concise message. Stay away from overly promotional videos — they’ll turn customers away. Instead, focus on answering common questions and solving problems.
A video topic also doesn’t have to be promotional, but also similar or related to your business and what your audience is into. People spend more time on the internet than ever before and customers consume video most. For instance, 85% of the people in the United States have used them to watch video content.
Here are some of the most popular categories of videos on YouTube. If your product/services fall in any of these categories, start leveraging the power of video content immediately.
- Funny animal videos
- Video game walkthroughs
- How-to guides and tutorials
- Product reviews
- Celebrity gossip and entertainment news
- Video blogs (vlogs)
- Comedy/sketch videos
- Shopping hauls
- Unboxing videos
- Educational videos
For example, you might have an Amazon business that sells video gaming chairs. Instead of creating promotional videos about how great your gaming chair is, create a youtube channel of video game walkthroughs and occasionally mention your chair during your walkthrough.
Leverage Existing Relationships
One way to start generating B2C leads is by leveraging existing relationships with other businesses. You might be surprised how many companies are willing to partner up and offer each other promotions and discounts. When reaching out to other businesses, be sure to explain how partnering will help both parties. Offer something in return for the partnership and be sure to follow up with your potential partner. Two strategies to implement with a partner would be:
- Up-selling your service to generate new B2C leads, which is selling upgrades, add-ons, or anything else to increase the size of a sale. This is the same as going into a fast food restaurant and hearing “would you like fries with that?” strategy.
- Co-selling is selling additional products and services to an existing client. As an example, a research buyer might use a research supplier for the qualitative portion of a project… but could also be a client for that supplier’s quantitative services. You can read more about Co-selling here.
When you decide to partner up with an industry leader, consider reaching out to your local or state Chamber of Commerce. Major brands and franchises often partner up with the Chamber to offer discounts to local businesses, but can also help facilitate connections to help you generate B2C leads.
Send Out Emails While You Build Content
If you want to start generating B2C leads immediately, send out email marketing campaigns to build your list. There are three things to keep in mind when building your email list.
- Make sure you have permission from your customers to add their names to your list.
- Make sure your email content is relevant to your customers.
- Make sure you have a clear value proposition.
What do you want your customers to get out of signing up for your email list? You can also offer an incentive such as a free report or coupon code. By starting a campaign to build your email list as soon as you launch your business, you’ll be able to start generating leads right away. It’s also a great way to introduce yourself and your business to your customers.
Establish Customer Behavior With Lead Ads
Lead advertisements are a great way to start generating B2C leads. What are they? They’re display, search, or video ads that appear on Facebook, Google, or websites when someone searches for certain keywords related to your business. If a potential customer types in a keyword that relates to your product or service, they’ll likely see an ad from your business. Lead ads are a great way to start generating B2C leads for your business.
Here’s how to create B2C Lead Ads on Facebook:
- First, select an audience. You can choose to target all people, a specific age group, and certain geography.
- Next, select your objectives. You can choose to generate leads, traffic, or sales for your business.
- Then, choose your campaign budget. You can select a daily or lifetime budget for your campaign.
- Finally, select your ad type. There are two types of lead ads: boosted posts and lead ads. Boosted posts appear in people’s News Feeds while lead ads appear in the right-hand side menu when they conduct a relevant search.
Bottom line
B2C Lead generation is an essential part of every business. The more leads you have, the more customers you can bring in. However, finding and generating leads can be difficult. That’s why it’s important to implement the right strategies. That way, you’ll be able to create more leads and have more potential customers. Make sure you know who you’re marketing to and that they’re getting the most out of each interaction. Once you know that, you’ll be well on your way to generating leads.
