The only thing better than a magic genie in a bottle who would grant me fortune, fame, and eternal joy, would be to have a direct line to some of the world’s best B2B marketers who would tell me about their advice, tips, and tools for generating qualified leads. 

Advice from these experts could help any online marketer take their lead gen machine to the next level.

Look no further, advice from these industry leaders is right here, and it will help you with strategic direction, as well as with developing tactics to help generate qualified b2b leads.

Whether you are in the space of improving your marketing strategy, expanding your toolbox, or need to resolve online b2b generation issues, they have the answers you are looking for:

Start on LinkedIn, then get off LinkedIn

Neil Patel, Founder of CrazyEgg and QuickSprout, @neilpatel

Neil Patel is a firm believer in LinkedIn as a social network that is “one of the best marketing channels a B2B business will find.” Patel advises B2B marketers, like you, to create an exclusive group on LinkedIn that your target audience would want to join.

Create a list of targets using LinkedIn filters, engage with them over a couple of weeks, and then take your relationship off LinkedIn to close the sale. 

You can read more about his strategy for generating B2B leads on LinkedIn here.

Experiment and combine

Marcus Taylor, Founder of Venture Harbour and Leadformly, @MarcusATaylor

Here is some sage advice from a young successful entrepreneur; “How you use a lead generation channel is more important than what lead channel you choose.”

But Taylor explores the benefits of email marketing (in an automated world). He does content marketing with microsites that offer relevant content.

He does SEO (which he admits is a result of quality design, CRO, content, and social). 

He explores social media (he agrees with Patel that LinkedIn is great for B2B). 

And he integrates it all together.

You can read more about his tips here. He sums it up as: “Exceptional lead generation results come from a relentless willingness to experiment with different tactics, and to combine tactics across multiple channels.”

Preemptive answers

John Jantsch, Creator of the Duct Tape Marketing, @ducttape

An expert in marketing small businesses, he believes that “you don’t simply generate a lead today, you guide it.”

One way he recommends doing this is to blog about the topics that people actually ask you about.

He suggests that when you answer a question from a customer (or prospect), you then turn that into a blog post. Do that for several months, and you can then turn it into an e-book or video content.

A help cycle

Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO at HubSpot, @dharmesh

Each of the experts whose advice is included here is a personal mentor who I admire greatly.

Dharmesh has a way of stating profound concepts in a way that makes them seem obvious (and ludicrous not to follow his advice).

In a LinkedIn post, he explains the importance of having everything focus on the customer. Don’t put a site up or publish a piece of content that is about your product or service. Instead, every interaction with your prospects must be about helping them (not about selling to them).

When you shift your sales cycle to be a help cycle, helping your prospects to meet a need, solve a problem, or reach a goal – that is when your B2B lead generation will truly take off.

My two cents

Tomer Harel, Founder of KeyScouts and Co-Founder of Spectoos, @TomerHarel

I have learned from the greatest minds, endless talents, and most determined workers in online marketing spheres.

Beyond these experts, I also learn from each of my clients. Sometimes, they reach out because they are knowingly looking for blog marketing and other times they have broader goals (more leads, greater brand recognition, etc.) which we solve with blog marketing.

What I have learned though, is that all of these channels often come back to the blog.

• What is a social strategy without a great blog to link to?
• How can you create an inbound marketing machine without high-quality blog posts?
• SEO strategy, too – at the end of the day, many roads lead back to your blog.

These tips from marketing industry leaders will surely get you started with building your B2B lead generation strategy.  But if you are looking for more advice, download our free ebook, “The 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks & Ideas”, today!