Lead generation is a fundamental activity of digital marketing. You are in the packaging market, so now is the time to significantly increase your sales through digital marketing.

It is essential to implement a lead generation strategy to capitalize on your expertise and attract qualified prospects. Let's take a 360 ° tour of all the best practices to put in place, as a matter of urgency, in for your packaging business.

  What is lead generation?

Before we dive into the real world, let's redefine lead generation. We talk about lead generation mainly in a B2B sales context.

A lead is a commercial contact who is likely to go from a simple prospect, to a qualified contact and then to a customer.

The packaging sector is one of the sectors that has not taken advantage of digital marketing as a lever for growth, and this must be remedied. Lead generation costs much less and is more effective than traditional methods, when good practices are applied.

This new strategy is a pillar of inbound marketing, which consists of bringing customers to you on the internet. But before implementing any inbound marketing-based strategy, there are three essential steps to converting a lead into a customer and it is essential to match these steps to your business:

- Attract: bring visitors to your website

- Engage: transform your visitors into leads and your leads into customers

- Delight: keep your customers and strengthen your relationship

  Packaging industry: Best practices for generating       qualified B2B

Let's talk about serious things! We have selected for you the best practices to adopt for your packaging company and save time on your commercial transactions. 

Define your buyer persona and know their challenges

The first question to ask yourself when choosing to define a lead generation strategy: do you know your prospects? And most importantly, do you know their needs?

Depending on their sector, their size or the products they market, the needs of your prospects are obviously not the same. The key: to offer the right people the products that suit them. The archetype of the best buyer, your target, this will be called your marketing persona.

Also think about Product / Market fit, which consists of matching your packaging and packaging ranges to the current needs of your customers. You will never offer a company in the food sector packaging intended for the cosmetics sector. Depending on their issues (eco-responsibility, costs, etc.), you will not approach them in the same way.

What are the current needs of your targets? How do your products meet these needs? This is what you need to think about.

>>> LEARN MORE ABOUT : B2B Marketing and Packaging industry : how to boost your sales ?

Create relevant content for your target

When you know the challenges of your customers, you will be able to offer them relevant content thanks to your expertise. The aim is to provide them with high added value content to create confidence and increase your legitimacy as a packaging supplier for their companies.

Create for example:

• white papers,
• product catalogues by sector,
• infographics,
• blog articles,
• content pages on your website,
• videos,
• webinars,
• customer testimonials,
• case studies,
• podcasts 

Note: to generate leads thanks to this content, it is important to make a good mix between free access content and other content available only in exchange for the contact details of your prospects. Free content legitimizes your expertise while premium content allows you to generate leads.

To collect this information, you need to create action buttons (Call-to-action) and forms allowing your leads to fill in their contact details and receive their content.

Depending on its nature, the content created can then be used to attract, convert or retain your leads. It can also be used for lead nurturing, which involves nurturing a prospect who hasn't yet purchased your product, with personalized content until they buy it.

   Optimize your natural (SEO) and paid (SEA) referencing on search     engines

The vast majority of buying cycles today begin with a Google search. While most packaging companies own a website, many underestimate the importance of search engine optimization for that same site and its content.

This is called natural or organic referencing (SEO: Search Engine Optimization): to get back to the top of Google searches, you have to produce quality content that meets a certain number of criteria.

This helps attract prospects who perform a precise search: the more the content you offer responds to this query, the more Google will highlight it. In addition, visitors will convert into qualified leads on your website.

The starting point is query intent: this is the keyword your prospect uses to conduct their research.

For example, if you specialize in cosmetic packaging: researching the keywords "mascara packaging supplier" is likely to interest you. To position yourself at the top of this search on Google (or Bing, or Ecosia…), you will need to create a page on your website that responds to this request.

This could be a site page titled: Mascara Packaging Supplier showcasing your products and how they are made.

To get back to the top of the search: you can also opt for paid referencing, also called SEA (Search Engine Advertising). This requires creating a Google Ads or Bing Ads account and bidding on a list of keywords that are interesting for your

>>> STAY UP TO DATE : Digitalization of packaging manufacturers: 5 strategic challenges

   Use social networks (SMO) to make yourself known

Social networks (Social Media Optimization) are a must, not to be neglected, not only for your brand image but especially for lead generation. Depending on your target, you will be able to focus on the relevant social networks.

In a B2B market, having an active LinkedIn account with high added value content is obvious. But be careful not to neglect other networks that could become growth levers: for example, recent news has seen the explosion of small brands (small businesses) on Instagram with associated packaging needs.

Think outside the box for direct prospecting

If your salespeople spend a lot of time looking for new prospects in vain, think about creating more effective prospecting strategies, inspired by the world of digital start-ups: today, they swear by Growth Hacking.

This is a method of generating a lot of leads very quickly by turning away from traditional prospecting methods.

For example, you can set up automated prospecting by creating sequences of emails that are sent automatically to your prospects at regular intervals (marketing automation). Many tools and CRMs (such as Hubspot) allow you to perform this kind of sequences.

Another example: you can also prospect your target directly on LinkedIn, or collect the contact details of people who attend a trade fair dedicated to packaging and then contact them again ...

>>> MORE TO READ : 4 benefits of hiring a Digital Marketing Agency specializing in the Packaging industry

 To conclude

There are as many lead generation strategies as there are companies: depending on the channels used by your prospects, it's up to you to choose the right mix between these different practices. Now you understand: the important thing is to create the ideal conversion funnel for your personas and to match your content to the needs of your prospects. You also need to properly organize your Marketing and Sales departments to be able to communicate the same consistent message to the prospect until he becomes a customer.

If you want to save time in setting up your new digital marketing strategy, get support from a specialized marketing agency. Pack-2B is the agency that has understood the challenges and your sector for 25 years: we are at your disposal to accelerate your digital transformation.