#SMLive B2B Lead Generation with 0$ budget

Nivas Ravichandran, Freshworks, shares insights and learnings on identifying and cultivating potential consumers on LinkedIn in minimal budget.

With reductions in income, obstructed cash flows, and businesses not being able to spend on Lead Generation, Nivas Ravichandran, Lead - Startup Program, Freshworks shares insights on B2B Lead Generation with an investment of $0.

During these uncertain times, businesses need to rethink the segments that are doing well, alter the pitch and positioning for them, and rethink the positioning as well.

Businesses need to evaluate their business and find out the verticals that are doing fairly well or better than others. Then one can go ahead and generate leads with an outbound engine and inbound engine, and build your audience without depending on platforms.

Outbound Engine

Nivas suggests Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross as a fruitful book to learn a lot about B2B Lead Generation, and mentions a pearl of wisdom that suggests acquiring leads, is non-scalable but very rewarding.

He reckons Linkedin to be the best platform for B2B lead generation, given the network of professionals on the platform. Twitter & Facebook are the other two platforms one can look at.

An important suggestion given by Nivas is that one opens on social and close on email or phone. So when one reaches out to a potential prospect with the goal of converting them to a lead, they can grab their attention on an open social tab, by (for example) putting up a post and complimenting them for an insight they shared, and then once one has warmed up, they can close on a more personal note on an email or over the call.

One should customize their audience and research, be considerate of the situation, describe what's in it for them, and don't be pushy. Few tools that one can use are aText & DuxSoup. DuxSoup is a bot tool, but it accelerates prospecting.

One trick of the trade is to look at your larger competitors and their clients and build a list of prospects on a smaller scale. For instance, Freshworks looks at their larger competition - Workplace by Facebook, and their clients are AirAsia and Heineken. Then Freshworks can target a Bira and a smaller counterpart of AirAsia.

Keep a lookout on hashtags and mentions about projects. There are always people looking out for a service you offer on social media platforms, list down hashtags and commonly mentioned keywords, and keep a track of them manually or by using tools.

Unhappy customers of the competitor can be potential prospects as they might be looking to transition into another service of the same kind.

One can segregate the 3-star, 2-star, and 1-star reviews, from the review platforms, see what they are unhappy about and then customize the approach according to that, and reach out to them.

Every industry has a vertical group on Facebook, WhatsApp, and other platforms, one can be an active participant and engage with the group members, have discussions and warm up with them, to turn them into a prospect as and when needed.

Also Read: #SMLive 2020: Sessions you can’t miss

Inbound Engine & Building Audience

One should first look at if they're looking at an existing vertical or a new vertical i.e. if they're offering something new, or something that is already available in the market. According to that, one can take the following actions - skip Google Ads, as it might require a few dollars.

In every business, there is a lot of competition, and one has to look at if they are heading into an established competition or not. If one is going in an established competition, one has to try and get into the top considerations and make sure that the brand is in the consideration circle, and play the volume game.

When a consumer is thinking about buying a product or service, one's brand should be on the top five considerations at least. To achieve this one should get invited to the party, leverage search, and play the volume game.

Another way to build an inbound engine is by bringing in thought leaders and hosting webinars, creating listicles in verticals, for example, 'Top tools to use for XYZ', and more.

Launching guides is another way to build the transition of potential leads that one acquires on the platform. Make noise about customer testimonials, curate them, and showcase them on a regular basis. Case Studies that one publishes should be put out with the star element in focus, like including the most attention-grabbing part of it in the headline.

Answer questions on Quora, and Reddit. As answers on Quora show up on Google organically, there is a chance for a prospect to discover the brand.

Creating content, and its distribution is significant, and videos on social media seem to work really well, one should make shorter videos on YouTube, and leverage keyword search.

Nivas shares coming with up an idea, thinking about how to promote it, then working on the content is the chronological order he recommends to follow. Repurposing content, (for example) transcribing a webinar and then using the insights shared for publishing an article, leverage niche newsletters.

As an endnote on B2B lead generation, Nivas says "Some of the most effective marketing strategies are the least scalable".