Worried your offering is too boring for serious lead generation? Good news - it isn't.

There are two main reasons why people make B2B marketing boring. One is that people think it is supposed to be. They assume that ‘professional, expert, and authoritative’ means ‘dry, boring, and robotic’. The second reason is that they think the product or service can be perceived to be boring, so that translates into the way they promote it. Unfortunately, that is devastating for lead generation.

If you only take one thing from this article, it should be this: there is no such thing as a boring offering, there is only boring marketing.

Why your product or service isn’t boring

In the B2B world, lots of founders, executives, and even sales and marketing directors assume that people can perceive their offering to be a little, well, dull. In fairness, they can be quite technical or complex, or so industrially and departmentally specific as to be meaningless to anyone except a narrow segment. Many B2B propositions might not be things you’d typically expect to captivate the guests at a dinner party.

However, what if one of those guests happened to have exactly the problem that the product fixes? Then you would have that person’s undivided attention. A need, a problem, or a pain point makes a solution exciting, whatever that solution is.

Most people don’t care about tissues…until they have a cold.

Most people don’t care about tyres…until they get a puncture.

Most people don’t care about torches…until there’s a power cut.

Is any of those things inherently exciting? Not to most people, most of the time. But to the people who need them, they could be the most interesting thing in the world.

Someone needs what you sell — to those people, your solution is far from boring. So, the first step to making your offering and your marketing interesting is to put it in front of the people it will interest. Here’s how.

Better targeting for better lead generation

How do you get your marketing seen by the right people to generate leads? There is a vast amount of content online, and standing out from the crowd is difficult. That is where an intelligent digital strategy makes the difference.

The place to start is ‘search intent’. The people who are searching online for solutions that you provide are the low-hanging fruit for sales and marketing, and they will be the hottest leads. If you know how they are searching, then you can make sure they find you.

In a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) project, keyword research reveals the words and phrases that prospects use when they are looking for solutions. For example, let’s say you run training for businesses. You might find that the most common relevant search by Heads of HR involves the phrase ‘learning and development programmes for large businesses. In that case, you should optimise your website and your marketing collateral so that it ranks highly for that and other relevant search terms.

Better content and design mean more B2B leads

Of course, it’s one thing to get people’s attention, and another to keep it. Yes, people will be interested if they think you sell what they need, but you can’t take that attention for granted. If your content and your design aren’t of excellent quality, people will quickly lose faith that you can solve their problems. Then, your proposition really will be boring.

At this stage, the key to success is trust. Your buyers’ time is precious, and so is their budget. They won’t spend either unless they are confident that they will get something valuable.

How do you communicate that value? The most effective way is thought leadership. That is content that demonstratesan understanding of the prospects’ current state, and a genuine, unique insight into how to solve the challenges. Around 65% of buyers think more highly of a brand because of thought leadership, so it translates directly into marker leads and more enquiries.

On the visual side of things, design not only makes your brand appear more professional, trustworthy, and engaging, but it also means that your messages stay in people’s minds for longer. Three days after hearing a message, people tend to remember about 10% of it. If that message is accompanied by a visual, then people remember 65%.

How to improve your B2B lead generation

Unfortunately, boring marketing is easy, and exciting marketing that creates an impact requires more skill. If you think you might need help to generate the leads that you need, why not get in touch? Nutcracker has a long track record of growing brands and building B2B pipelines, and our CEO Jenny has founded and transformed several businesses through her rare combination of marketing and sales expertise.

If you have any questions or want to discuss how to make your business exciting to your target audience, please drop Jenny a message at jenny.knighting@nutcrackeragency.com.