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Three Hurdles Facing B2B Lead Generation

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Current trends in B2B marketing have made lead generation increasingly complex. Overall, B2B lead generation requires a significant investment in time, effort, and energy compared to B2C marketing.

Marketers have found that one of the biggest challenges facing lead generation today is the ability to generate leads from the content their teams are producing. Learn more about the challenges associated with B2B content marketing in the infographic below. Then, explore two additional obstacles faced by B2B marketers.

According to the infographic created by B2B Marketing, 37 percent of content marketing resources are spent on content development. Yet, 29 percent of marketers are unsure of how content impacts sales figures. Revana’s white paper agrees that investment in B2B marketing content is vital, since B2B marketing requires more “push” than “pull.” The white paper also explains that marketers’ inability to grow leads from content generation is one of the biggest hurdles facing the industry. But, how can marketers overcome this challenge and effectively generate leads from the materials they are spending almost half of their resources producing?

Our white paper, "Clearing Big B2B Hurdles: The New Rules for Lead Generation," explores this particular challenge, and provides a solution to overcome it:

1. Challenge: B2B marketing is often “push” rather than “pull,” which does require deep investments in content marketing.

Solution: Make sure your content educates your target audience, and then evaluate how your audience is engaging with the content. Customers may need a significant amount of education before they’re ready to make a purchase. This means that organizations need to invest in ongoing educational materials. Not surprisingly, the infographic shows that case studies and white papers are the two most effective types of content. However, under the most used categories, the top two listed are press releases and blog posts. While these pieces of content are also important, they typically aren’t as educational.

Once the content is produced and sent out to the target audiences, marketers can make certain that their content investment is worthwhile by taking the time to evaluate how prospects are interacting with the content. The data can then be used to shape additional marketing efforts that target customers’ specific needs. By forging this connection, B2B marketers will ultimately see a significant ROI on the content they are producing.

While we agree that content marketing is one of the biggest B2B lead generation challenges, the white paper goes further to uncover two additional hurdles. These include:

2. Challenge: B2B marketing sales cycles are longer than B2C sales cycles. In addition, B2B marketing is tied to products and services that have steep learning curves and high price tags.

Solution: Build trust to accelerate sales. Trust is fostered when customers feel like you know them, understand them, and foresee their next purchase. Customers will be less hesitant to make a big purchase if they feel like they have a personal connection with a brand.

3. Challenge: In B2B lead generation, the target audience is usually smaller, yet multiple people from different levels within the company are involved in the buying process.

Solution: B2B marketers often struggle as prospects move deeper into the sales funnel and evaluation process. At this point, more people are involved in the buying decision, meaning marketers have to know everyone and understand what’s important to all the new players. By mass customizing the prospect experiences, marketers will be able to connect with individuals from different departments and levels.

Learning to overcome these challenges will help carry your organization’s B2B lead generation efforts to the next level. 


This infographic was created by B2B Marketing, and this article summarizes some of its contents. The original infographic is here.