The last year has been a challenging year for many B2B marketers. Despite these challenges, most of the doom-and-gloom predictions from the beginning of the year didn’t come to fruition for most.

That said, there are still some B2B marketing lead-generation tactics that enabled us to break through the inbox and LinkedIn clutter and successfully nurture leads.

Go light on automation 

This year has definitely been the year of AI. Many of the jobs that will be impacted by current advancements in AI are tasks that can more easily be automated.

That said, when it comes to B2B marketing lead generation, just because one can automate something doesn’t mean that one should. What we found in our prospect outreach was that personalization over automation enables us to break through the clutter.

For example, there’s a lot that one can learn about a prospect from their LinkedIn profile to enable personalizing the outreach. By taking the time to research a prospect, we’re able to find data points that enable creating content that is more likely to elicit a response. This can be particularly relevant when the writer of the email or LinkedIn outreach shares a background experience or other attribute with the recipient.

Though adding a touch of personalization enables us to start building a connection with the B2B sales prospect, we’re careful to focus personalization on professional attributes taken from LinkedIn. Extracting personal details from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter and incorporating that into a professional email or LinkedIn message crosses a line that could turn off a prospect.

Always add value 

Beyond personalizing the email, one tactic that has proven effective for our B2B marketer prospecting is the addition of value-added data. Depending on the scenario, this data can include competitive analysis in channels and platforms highly relevant to the prospect or data from competitors to companies that the lead currently or previously worked with. The point is to create that light bulb moment that will prompt the prospect to respond.

For example, for one recent client, we included a screenshot of a competitive analysis that included the FMCG company the prospect used to work at, as well as the company’s two leading competitors. Even though the prospect no longer worked at that company, the screenshot provided the trigger for the prospect to schedule a call that resulted in the sale.

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Go up the food chain 

Another tactic that has been effective is to reach out to a prospect’s immediate superior if we don’t receive a response from the initial lead. This might seem counterintuitive, but we make sure that the outreach to the manager is handled with a light touch – “your direct report is so busy working for you that she didn’t have time to respond”. Rather than antagonize the original prospect, this tactic has enabled us to move many companies into our sales pipeline and close sales.

Make it an easy yes 

An approach that’s been successful is to provide a call-to-action that’s an easy yes or no question. For example, we often provide screenshots from research reports that we believe will be relevant to the prospect. As a call-to-action, we’ll ask the prospect if they’d like to see more from that research. If we’ve done our homework properly and provided relevant data, the answer is usually ‘yes’ and a demo featuring the research is scheduled.

Despite the challenges we’re all experiencing this year, by personalizing the engagement, adding value, establishing a connection, and making the path to yes easy, B2B marketers can succeed. Whether you’re targeting prospects on LinkedIn or via email, focused marketers can successfully grow their business with targeted and relevant customer acquisition.

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