Many business owners still think that social media isn’t a good platform for B2B customer acquisition. Well, it’s not if you’re using it the wrong way. But we aren’t in the 2000s anymore. Although it can be difficult, social media is absolutely worth the effort – and there’s a way to do it right. If you’re looking for proof, I’ll explain a social media lead generation tactic that can help you gain new B2B customers on Facebook.
But first things first.
It’s true that B2B managers are fed up with cold emails and migraine-inducing cold calls. Let’s be honest – don’t you hate them, too? The scattershot approach was never very effective, and in the world of personalized, data-driven content, it’s completely obsolete.
Instead of being badgered with cold contact, your target audience needs to be led through a funnel – and yes, it’s a long, time-consuming process, just like in the real world. However, here comes the good news.
Unlike in the real world, it can be automated and still feel personal. The secret is creating more touchpoints when building your customer acquisition funnel. This method is not only more effective than cold contact – it also builds your reputation and brand. Let’s jump in to see how it works.
First, let’s review the 3 main phases of B2B customer acquisition:
Awareness
Consideration
Demand Generation
What does this mean for you?
Through the social media lead generation process, you can convince your potential clients step by step, just as you would develop a relationship in the real world. Facebook can be an effective aid, but you have to know how to use it.
The social media lead generation model
First of all, every customer acquisition phase requires a different level of engagement and trust. So the first and maybe most important task is selecting the most appropriate campaign type. To do this, you have to define what kind of micro-conversions you expect from your potential clients and select the campaign accordingly. Most people who give up on Facebook as a lead generation tool make this mistake right at the beginning: they pick a campaign type that is a terrible fit for their goal.
Step 1: Grab attention
“Treasure the things about you that make you different and unique.”
If you’re seeking more than this Coelho quote, let’s see the concrete steps:
When you begin reaching out to your B2B audience, you first have to build a Brand awareness campaign in order to make your brand familiar to your potential leads. People pay more attention to familiar things and are more likely to engage.
Once you have their attention, the next step is to gain their trust – and trust is paramount. B2B brands need to prove that they’re the most knowledgeable, creative or the best value in a given field before they can justify selling something. But how to do that?
Create content, such as blog posts or videos, to make you memorable and help increase your ad recall lift. In B2B marketing, content is obligatory. The quality of the content matters more than the quantity, and you need to optimize it for searchability – building your decisions on solid data. As long as there’s a natural fit between the concept and the business, there is an opportunity for brands to promote without coming across as too salesy – that is proved by a new study as well.
PRO Tip: If you want to build a system for consistent, effective content creation, learn about the Cornerstone technique. This is one of the best SEO lead generation approaches for gaining strong organic reach.
Step 2: Educate
As soon as your target audience recognizes your brand as noteworthy, it’s time to show them more about who you are. Education is the next level of social media lead generation. In the Consideration phase, you have two options:
If you have an amazing, SEO-optimized website with perfect UX and analytics – so easy to achieve, I know – you can start a Traffic campaign. This means that you create an eye-catching ad with a tagged URL which leads the users to your landing page, where you give detailed information about your product or service. This is the right time to present relevant USPs (unique selling propositions) to show the audience that your business is not just another source of informative and entertaining content, but the business they were looking for.
As long as your website doesn’t leave your customers speechless and your competitors green with envy, there’s an option for you on Facebook:
Create a unique video and use a Video views campaign with a Canvas. What kind of video you should use – emotional, informational, narrative or more – depends on your business.
In other words, focus on your target audience. Knowing your audience is even more important than in the engagement phase. If your audience hasn’t realized the problem yet, consider featuring a video with the problem that your business solves. If they’re already aware, showcase the benefits of your product or service for businesses like theirs.
Once you have the video, you can design the Canvas, your fast-loading, mini landing page. You can choose from text, pictures, carousels, and buttons to engage and convince potential clients. This is an opportunity to build a mobile-optimized landing page focusing on your offer, instead of allocating a huge budget and lots of time for website development.
But don’t stop here…
Step 3: Collect data
Your target audience has either encountered your brand and then visited your website or watched your video and then landed on your Canvas. Now they have the information they need to make a greater commitment. The goal here is to get them to “ask you out” by giving you their contact info.
At this point, it’s time for a Lead generation campaign. In this advertisement, you can create a contact form that opens up after clicking on the ad. You can choose what information to ask for, but try to be a minimalist and only request what’s really vital. People don’t want to spend time filling out forms about their blood type…
Fortunately, Facebook helps the process by prefilling information that they’ve already shared on their profile – such as their name, number or email address. This way, you can build a database about your potential leads quite quickly.
FYI: Lead adverts require you to include a link to your company’s privacy policy.
The magic weapon of social media lead generation
This is a cool process, but you can’t do it successfully without remarketing. This means that if users visit your site or interact with your brand, they will be tagged with a tracking pixel, and then while they’re scrolling through their Facebook feed, your ad will pop up to remind them what they’re missing.
In B2B social media lead generation, it’s an essential technique. You can’t acquire leads without remarketing and/or email marketing, because these are the only ways to lead your audience through your well-designed funnel.
In order to make remarketing work, you need 3 main components:
- FACEBOOK PIXEL
You have to be able to analyze your website visitors, the actions they are taking and the effectiveness of your advertising. That’s why you need a Facebook Pixel for social media lead generation. With this solution, you can measure real people, not just cookies. You can also follow cross-device conversions and record transitions between HTTP and HTTPS versions of a website. Believe it or not, third-party tracking providers are not able to do this. Luckily, Facebook takes care of most of the technical stuff.
So, if you want accurate measurement, ask your web developer to install the pixel code.
Extra tip: install the Facebook Pixel Helper plugin in Chrome to troubleshoot implementation problems.
- CUSTOM AUDIENCES
In this social media lead generation process, you start with a cold audience but ‘warm up’ the audience as they engage with your content. This is where custom audiences come in.
Create remarketing audiences from your website visitors, or from those who have engaged with your ad, video or Canvas, and reach out to them repeatedly to catch them at the right time for contact. Imagine walking into a shop and they ask for your phone number right away. Just like dating, you need to get to know each other before the greater commitment.
To create Custom audiences, you also need the Facebook Pixel. You have already installed it, right?
- REMARKETING MESSAGES
Last but not least, don’t talk to a brick wall.
Never forget who you’re talking to in each stage, because you have to customize your messages for them throughout the lead generation process.
Users who have already visited your website don’t need brand-building messages like “Get to know…” etc. They need educational or convincing copy. This is a really important part of your remarketing ads because it leads your potential clients to the next level. So always adjust the message to the warmth of the audience!
Summary
Always think in processes. It could be the key to your success in B2B. In this article, I showed you just one of the options which can help you gain potential clients through social media. You have to know all the stages and audiences in your customer acquisition funnel. If your strategy is strong and your Facebook Pixel is well calibrated, Facebook advertising can help you a lot in social media lead generation.
Feel free to ask questions in a comment or let me know if you want to read about other Facebook campaign processes! 🙂
