What is B2C Lead Generation? 10 Top Strategies To Increase Your Leads In [2022]

Ammar Mazhar
Ammar Mazhar

Last updated on

February 20, 2024

Lead generation is essential for any business to thrive, especially for B2C businesses where they have to deal in person with customers. Businesses with an online presence need to stay competitive to generate more leads and turn those leads into customers. The main focus of lead generation is to present your brand as trustworthy to potential leads so that they turn into customers.

Hence, it is vital to have a firm B2C lead generation strategy for businesses to succeed in eCommerce. 

This blog lists down the central concept of B2C marketing, lead generation, strategies adopted by brands, and some examples you can take inspiration from.

What is B2C marketing?

B2C (Business to Consumer) is a type of marketing that only focuses on an individual consumer. It is a business model that targets a single end user, not a group of customers or organizations. In our daily life, we use many products and services. A few examples are garments, cosmetics products, mobile phones, and more. These products are only made for a single customer, and the marketing strategy of such products is focused on a single buyer hence known as B2C marketing.

What is the difference between B2C and B2B marketing?

B2C and B2B are different market segments. Many products and services are made for individuals and businesses both, but these two marketing approaches have differences. Here are the main differences between them.

B2C Market Segment B2B Market Segment
B2C (Business-to-Consumer) marketing focuses only on individual customers. B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing focuses on businesses or groups of customers.
In the B2C business model customer is the decision maker. While in B2B, senior executives like the CEO, CFO, and CTO are the decision makers.
Products and services in B2C are relatively cheaper than in B2B. This is the reason that B2B products earn more profit than B2C. The products/services in B2B businesses are relatively expensive
B2C is a bigger market segment due to a large number of consumers. B2B is a comparatively smaller market.
The sales process is instant. You can convert a lead even in just a single phone call. The sales process is longer in B2B, it might take weeks, months, or years.

2 Types of B2C Lead Generation

The two major types of lead generation include inbound lead generation & outbound lead generation.

Types of lead generation

Inbound lead generation 

In inbound lead generation, your customers find you through different channels and show interest in your product or services. For example, SEO, content marketing, and organic social media campaigns generate this type of lead. 

Outbound lead generation

On the other hand, in outbound lead generation, you reach out to your customers through call, cold email, or voicemail to sell your product.

What is B2C lead generation?

B2C lead generation is the step-by-step process through which you can convert individual prospects into customers. When your prospect visits your website or social media pages and starts showing interest, you reach out to them and convince them to buy from you. 

B2C lead generation includes creating awareness and providing information about your product to prospects during the buyers' journey and converting them into clients, whether inbound or outbound.

How to generate B2C leads?

There are a lot of B2C lead generation strategies for your product or services. These ways are classified into two marketing approaches. Inbound and Outbound.

Inbound B2C lead generation

SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about optimizing your website to rank higher in Google organic search results. SEO contains a lot of factors, including keywords, quality content, backlinks, and more. It is a long-term process, but once you get to the first or even second page of Google, you can generate significant leads and sales. Your prospects visit your website and contact you for your product and services.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing is about creating quality content and sharing it with your potential prospects with the intention to create awareness and help or educate them. For example, you can create a blog, YouTube channel, or ebook to share solutions, best tips, and techniques for your target audience's problems. In exchange for this resource, you can ask for their contact details and email addresses.

Organic Social Media Campaigns

Social media is one of the best weapons for B2C lead generation for small and large businesses alike. Create a content strategy for your social media platform for a variety of content types to make the most of it. Provide quality content through your posts. Write a compelling copy and share tips and guides with your visitors. Your prospects give attention to the quality and helpful content and become obsessed with your brand. Furthermore, if they like your content, they will share it with their friends and family members, which can ultimately produce more leads.

Outbound B2C Lead Generation

Cold Calls

This telemarketing strategy is great for outbound lead generation. If done correctly, cold calling can convert more prospects into customers. Effective cold calling requires a great pitch and strong communication skills. Your lead generation team calls prospects that were not contacted by your company in the past. 

Call your customer and discuss their problems and pains. Once they explain the issues, offer your product. Cold Calling is the most significant tool, which is why you need to learn this to generate potential leads.

Cold Email marketing 

Cold email marketing is another great source of B2C lead generation. To make the most of it, you can introduce a referral partner, meaning you can partner with a business that has an existing list of your prospective clients. Although these leads will not be the hot leads, however, the probability of conversion would be still higher than getting random emails and sending cold emails.

You can have some terms and conditions to compensate your partner. For example, you can pay the business a referral fee. The list you will have would be called a ‘cold email list.’ Now, design a great email strategy and reach out to the prospects.

Social Media Outreach

Since your goal is to reach out to the ideal customer through B2C lead gen, social media is the best place where you can monitor the behavior of your customer to create a customized strategy according to his preferences. First, identify which platform your target audience hangs out the most on. Then, work on your content strategy for that specific platform. Dig deeper into analytics to understand customer behavior, and once you create enough engagement rates reach out to them at a personal level to help them with their buyers' journey. 

LinkedIn is one of the best platforms in social media outreach. Linkedin automation platform is one of the best ways to generate quality leads. Recently, they released a new feature named LinkedIn’s Conversation Ads, similar to Facebook’s Messenger Ads, that allows brands to send personalized ads by messages to their contact list. Other platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, etc., can also help you generate leads. You must include these platforms in your lead generation strategy.

4 B2C lead generation challenges

Lead generation isn’t a piece of cake. Marketers need consistency, smart work, and proven strategy to have successful lead generation. Below is the list of challenges marketers often faced during the B2C lead generation process. 

4 B2C lead generation challenges

Unattractive Ads and Offers

It requires a lot of practice, passion, and creativity to design converting ads. Unattractive and irrelevant ads are spoilers. They spoil your marketing campaigns. Instead, make your ads attractive using quality images/videos, write compelling and engaging copy focusing on consumer problems, and put an appropriate call to action button. Consumers are already bombarded with ads, and in such a case, any unattractive ad will not give any return but will waste time and money.

Irrelevant landing pages

Relevancy always wins! Irrelevant landing pages with poor copy, slow speed, too many CTAs, lengthy capture forms, etc discourage your prospects from visiting your website. You should have clean and attractive landing pages with attractive copywriting to give the best impression. Use a lead generation theme that is aligned with your product's industry.

It’s great to use customizable templates that are mobile-friendly and responsive. Mailmuch has a collection of 100+ templates that are easy to use, and customizable. You can start creating your landing page just in a few minutes. The landing page templates are available across all industries. 

Incorrect use of forms

Using excessive and incorrect forms irritates the visitors, and they bounce back from your website. Create a single clean, clear, and concise form on your landing page, just after where the information about your product/service ends! 

Confusing content

B2C businesses generate three times more leads with content, which is great! However, if you create irrelevant content it drives your customers away. It will not only distracts the new prospects but discourage the loyal customers. Create content that addresses the pain points of your target audience. 

Focus on various forms of content based on your target audience preferences. Take time to work on your content strategy and you will notice a huge boost in your overall lead generation. You should provide correct, clear, and valuable content on all the platforms, including your website and social media pages.

9 Top strategies for B2C lead generation

Below is the list of strategies for B2C lead generation you should use in 2022. 

9 Tops strategies for B2C lead generation

1. Use gated content

Gated content is the content that requires your prospect's email or contact in exchange for helpful resources. It can be an ebook, video tutorial, article, etc. Your sales and marketing teams must know how to collect email or mobile numbers from prospects through gated content. This way, you generate leads and sales.

2. Make video content

People love visuals and that’s why video content is in demand. Video content is more engaging than any other form of content. It is more helpful, interactive, and often it’s relatable to the audience, particularly in whiteboard animations, or explainer videos.

To generate potential leads, you should produce high-quality engaging video content. Try creating:

  • Social media reels for Instagram/Tiktok
  • Demonstrations with whiteboard animations 
  • Explainer videos
  • Video ads 
  • Short explainer videos for a complex idea
  • Tips and tricks

3. Leverage content marketing and SEO

Content marketing coupled with SEO can be a win-win situation for B2C lead generation. To generate leads, you can provide quality content for both the website and social media platforms. Work on your keyword research strategy to find the highly researched and low competitive cluster of keywords. 

Incorporate both the keyword plan and content strategy into your marketing efforts to rank higher in search engines. Run organic campaigns that are helpful for prospects. Make sure to amend the strategy, from time to time, for better results. You can optimize web pages according to Google's search algorithm. Pay attention to the three major aspects of web page optimization as you design your strategy;

  • On-Page SEO
  • Off-Page SEO
  • Technical SEO 

4. Paid advertising

While organic campaigns are great, you can invest in PPC ads to give your marketing efforts a boost. To make a sale, marketers need at least eight touchpoints, which means customers must see your ads, visit your website, read an email, engage with social media posts or fill in a form, etc to make a decision. 

Investing in paid advertising quickens the overall B2B sales process by giving your target customers more opportunities to reach out to your brand. And that’s why most brands and businesses invest in PPC ads on Google and social media platforms that can generate potential leads. Just make sure the ads are engaging and attractive. Once you run a marketing campaign and collect leads, you can run another campaign to convert those who visit your website into customers. Retargeting campaigns get a high rate of conversion.

5. Personalize your email marketing and social media campaigns

Your customers live in a world bombarded with many ads for different brands. That’s why it's important to include personalization in both your emails and social media. Personalized emails get the attention of prospects and increase the open rate. It is the best strategy to collect potential leads through email.

You can use all the possible media platforms for B2C lead generation. It’s important to provide quality content in email campaigns as well as social media campaigns.

6. Social listening

Social listening is another excellent source of generating leads for your business. You can analyze conversations and trends around your industry and then use the insights to run effective marketing campaigns.

7. Use chatbots

Chatbots allow you to save valuable time and free up the time that you would otherwise spend making major business decisions. A chatbot acts like an assistant and can answer your customer queries 24*7. 

They are AI-backed automated tools that guide customers when you aren't available. You can use such bots on social media platforms and websites to collect leads for your business.

8. Use analytics

Data is precious and it allows you to make effective business decisions. Leverage the analytics tools both for social media and website. Study your social media and website stats to run your next lead generation campaigns. 

You can never go wrong with any business decisions that you make on the basis of analytics and data sets. 

9. Pop-up offers & trial promotions

Offering something for free while your lead is still on your landing page or website is a great move. It is effective, particularly when your customers land on your website organically. Since your lead is already in the sales funnel you can help them to move further by offering something relevant to what they are looking for.

Offering a free ebook, signup to a newsletter or coupon will instantly push your customer to the next level of the sales funnel. These trial promotions can help you design a long-term successful B2C lead generation strategy.

5 Examples of B2C Lead Generation Campaigns

Example 1: Chatbot by Databox

A chatbot is an efficient B2C lead generation strategy in several ways. This chatbot allows Databox to respond to visitor queries 24*7 while saving time and money. 

B2C lead generation examples: Chatbot by Databox

Example 2 - Trail Promotion by Sprout Social

A trial promotion works well because new users are reluctant to get a paid version of your product/service. A trial promotion like the one by Spout Social allows users to take time to make decisions. With a great UX, you can turn your prospect into a client seamlessly. 

B2C lead generation examples: Trail promotion by Sprout Social

Example 3: Social listening by Spectrum 

Spectrum is an active social listener. It pays attention to customer queries, and concerns on social media and provides them with instant customer service. Together this helps brand credibility.

B2C lead generation examples: Social listening by Spectrum

Example 4: Paid campaign by Lectera En

Lectera En’s Facebook ad is working well due to two reasons. It has a catchy copy and an enticing image. The copy has a CTA which is essential for social media campaigns. 

B2C lead generation examples: Paid campaign by Lectera En

Example 5: Gated Content by Trustmary

Gated content by Turstmary allows the business to grab the email of the visitor and in turn, they provide great resources that could help them to scale their business. This is a win-win situation for both of them, as the business will be growing its email list of prospective clients. 

B2C lead generation examples: Gated content by Trustmary

Generate leads for your business with Mailmunch!

B2C companies use the above strategies along with several tools to seamlessly generate leads. Mailmunch is one of the best tools for B2C lead generation. With Mailmunch, you can generate B2C leads on any platform, including your website and social media, and convert them into potential customers.

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Author Bio

Ammar Mazhar

A voracious reader and a music lover, Ammar has been writing engaging and informative content for over 3 years for B2B and B2C markets. With a knack for writing SEO-optimized content, Ammar ensures the results speak for themselves.

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