Date
15th October 2024
Technology professionals are some of the savviest audiences out there. They have to be.
The information and technology industry is constantly evolving, and so IT lead generation has to meet the needs of professionals who are continuously looking for useful, up-to-the-minute business intel.
According to SurveyMonkey, IT purchases having grown since the pandemic, and the number of people involved in every technology purchase has grown too. There are more decision-makers than ever to target with B2B IT lead generation in 2025.
Therefore marketers have to work hard to ensure their IT services lead generation is authentic, trustworthy, and stands out from the crowd.
In this guide to IT Lead Generation we'll be exploring:
- How to generate leads for IT sales.
- The IT lead generation methods that are most likely to bring you success.
- What sort of IT lead generation supplier you should choose (and why).
How to Generate Leads for IT Companies
We'll start with an IT lead generation definition.
B2B lead generation in IT services is all about finding ways to engage professionals with your business, connecting with the right people, and pulling them into your marketing funnel to hopefully sell to later.
In its simplest forms, the end game for lead generation is to get relevant prospects' business card information.
However, it's also important to educate your new leads and understand their challenges before even thinking about selling to them.
There are lots of ways you can nurture leads through the marketing funnel. For example, you may choose to work with a lead generation agency to help you warm your leads up, and get them engaged with your brand so that they're ready to buy your products. Take a look at Headley Media's Nurture Track services as an example.
That's the basic process, but when it comes to IT lead generation companies need to be even more robust and transparent.
Some lead generation tactics can be perceived as marketing gimmicks by tech-savvy audiences, which includes most of the technology industry, especially IT professionals.
There's no question of 'tricking' these audiences into giving you their details - so only the most transparent and trustworthy lead generation companies for IT services are likely to succeed.
To build brand trust and generate ROI you need to ensure your B2B IT lead generation techniques are:
- Completely transparent
- Trustworthy
- And importantly, give real value to your audience.
IT lead generation ideas
Lead generation for IT companies lends itself particularly well to out-of-the-box thinking. Here are some of our favorite IT lead generation techniques:
Live chat
Live messaging and chatbots are both great for IT leads generation: they're easy for customers to use, reassuring to see, and make your website feel interactive and dynamic. They’re great for converting website visitors into qualified leads: the lead has engaged with your brand and left you with useful intent data.
Free tool
A free tool on your website = fantastic lead generation for IT services. You’re showing potential customers a little of what you can do, gathering data from them, giving them a reason to come back to your website, and gaining opportunities to offer a trial or demo of your full product.
Creative display ads
Display advertising can work really well in IT lead generation, particularly if you’re running it alongside a content syndication campaign. Your ads in this case will create a ‘surround sound’ effect on your leads and nurture them through the funnel. With rich media available including video, display ads offer more opportunity for brands to showcase their flair, and IT companies are usually really good at this - so don’t miss out on creating colorful, exciting ads that resonate with your leads.
Content marketing
The industry is always changing, and that’s great for content marketers doing lead generation for IT. There are always hot topics to write about, and updates so you can repurpose existing content. Whitepapers, eBooks, case studies, research reports, webinars and videos - anything useful that you can gate - are all fantastic for IT B2B lead generation. And don’t forget blogs and social media posting for your top-of-funnel content marketing - these are great for demand generation.
Content syndication
When you’ve hit the limit of how far your organic social media presence can reach, consider content syndication for lead generation in the IT industry: there’s a whole world of decision-makers out there in many countries, who are looking for valuable content for business research. More on that in the next section...
How to generate leads for IT services? We find it's all about offering the most useful, unique content you can - whether that's a free tool from your software package, or simply the most up-to-date insight into the pain points of your target sector. Chloe Addis Head of Marketing @ Headley Media
Content Syndication for IT Lead Generation
Hopefully it's clear by now that the best IT lead generation ideas involve giving away useful content for free – in exchange for business card information.
Your content should relate to their business interests and should be topical and useful.
For example, IT security professionals might be looking for updates and reports on cyber hygiene, zero trust access, and DDoS attacks. Whereas telecommunications decision-makers will need case studies and top tips on topics such as network encryption, 5G implementation, and WAN-as-a-service.
Therefore it helps if your content is published where the target audience can easily find it, such as relevant content syndication platforms.
Social media marketing is one of the best-known ways to distribute your content, but content syndication for lead generation works even better.
Content syndication services give you full control over your strategy, your costs, and the number of IT leads you get for your budget.
Lead Generation for IT – How to Get Started
The chances are you're already carrying out strategic IT B2B lead generation strategies. But perhaps they're not hitting the mark? Or you want to shake up your strategy.
The marketing departments of most B2B IT companies are producing valuable content, in the form of blogs, whitepapers, eBooks, and webinars, typically publishing and promoting them via their own website, email, and social media.
As your content is shared, it may be seen by new-to-brand audiences, who might follow you on social media or sign up for your email newsletter to see more of your content.
If your website, email, and social media channels are working well for you already you're off to a good start. You can use your established audience to direct people to further landing pages on your website where they can give their contact details in return for more content, for example, webinars and newsletters. A classic, and effective, IT lead generation tool.
However this IT lead generation strategy is often most effective for nurturing your existing audiences. What about if you need to reach fresh IT and technology decision-makers regularly? Which, as an IT marketer, is highly likely to be part of your remit.
IT Lead Generation Example
If you need to reach new audiences, transparent content syndication via a reputable 3rd party company is an effective strategy focused on direct ROI.
A lead generation specialist can publish your whitepapers, eBooks, case studies, and research reports on a content library designed specifically for IT professionals.
These content libraries are used as useful reference hubs for people in the IT industry.
Let's take a look at Headley Media's IT content hub, IT Corporate, as an example.
IT Corporate is not only a trusted source of educational information, but also a refreshing change from normal internet browsing. IT Corporate's websites are clean, uncluttered, and free of external advertising and clickbait.
Using the IT Corporate site as a research tool is free, and it's easy. All the content is categorized based on topic, so our audience can easily find what they're looking for.
So, how does IT Corporate create leads? Because each piece of content on IT Corporate is gated, which means the user has to fill in a form with, at the very least, their name, job title, company name, and business email address.
We then supply those leads back to you – the business the content belongs to – on a Cost Per Lead (CPL) basis. Take a look at our full lead generation process for more detail.
The example above shows the process of content syndication and how it can support your IT lead generation at its simplest, but there are lots of ways to enhance your lead gen.
For example, a Nurture Track campaign sees each lead download at least two pieces of content, filling in their business information each time, and giving their explicit consent to hear from the content provider. So not only are they a lead, they're an engaged lead, expecting to hear from your brand.
You can also enhance a campaign by putting more questions on the gated form for your content, one of the easiest ways of finding out more about a lead and determining how ready they are to hear from your sales team.
Plus, we use full digital tracking across our content libraries to track what content each lead is reading, giving us 1st party intent data. Enhancing your campaigns with intent data targeting is another great example of an effective strategy in lead generation for IT companies.
IT Lead Generation Companies – What to Look Out For
So, how to generate leads for IT companies? The answer is use a specialist IT lead generation agency to reach a wide but niche audience.
Cloud computing, IT security, SaaS, big data, data warehousing, storage, hardware, email management, network services, mobile computing, and telecommunications: there are dozens of specialist IT topics that require continuous refreshment of industry knowledge.
So if you're supplying one of those markets, the chances are you have valuable resources that you could use for lead generation in the IT industry.
A trustworthy IT lead generation specialist should have their own audiences within these markets. They should be able to put your content directly in front of the audience you're trying to target.
Look for an IT lead generation company that owns its own content libraries. This way you can be sure your leads aren't being bought from a 3rd party agency, so the data is more likely to be accurate.
Why Is Transparent IT Lead Generation SO Important?
We've capitalized the word 'SO' because we mean business!
Getting to the source of your IT leads is one of the most important considerations when running lead generation for IT.
Therefore, you should only work with an IT lead generation specialist who you can trust. That means the IT lead generation services you work with should be able to offer full digital tracking, so you can see what content your leads have been exposed to, and build a picture of who they are, where they've come from, and how much they know about your brand.
For optimum lead authenticity, the agency should be able to show you the entire process from the leads' perspective – their reader journey.
They should also have a process for authenticating each lead: checking their business details are correct through secondary sources, such as LinkedIn and regional business directories.
There's a world of difference between the good lead generation companies for IT services and the shady ones. In our experience, only the good ones know how to generate leads for IT services and deliver a solid return on investment. Reputable IT lead generation companies also allow you to budget precisely, with a clear CPL to show exactly where your marketing budget goes.
We're so proud to have won the 2024 Dick Reed Award for Most Collaborative Lead Generation Company. Check out our testimonials to see why brands all over the world choose us for their IT lead generation services!
The Complete Guide to B2B Technology Lead Generation 2023
The Complete Guide to B2B Technology Lead Generation is packed with advice for lead generation for IT companies in 2023. Download your ungated copy now.
