Whether you’re a startup or an established IT consulting company, generating new leads is essential in order to gain or maintain a healthy stream of business year round. 

There are numerous lead generation strategies worth experimenting with, but here are a few that we’ve found to be the most beneficial for B2B consulting companies.

Start with SEO 

Put yourself in a potential client’s shoes. When searching for an IT consulting company to work with, where is the first place you will turn to? The answer is more than likely Google. The internet–more specifically, Google–continues to be a top lead generator for many businesses with Google now generating 44% of all website referral traffic. To reach potential customers, it’s crucial that your IT consulting business comes up in searches when clients are doing their research. 

The first step in increasing your company’s chances of generating leads through Google is to optimize your website with search-friendly keywords. To determine which keywords to use, think about what your target audience would be searching for when trying to find your service. Oftentimes it’s something along the lines of “IT consulting firm in your city name” or “Best IT consulting firm in your city name” but there may be more specific terms you want to rank for. For example, you may want to go after “IT support help in your city name” There are several tools available to help you figure out which keywords would be best to use. Check out our past article on how to improve your website SEO to gain even more insight.

Then optimize website for lead conversion

There’s more that goes into optimizing your website than SEO. It’s also important to test multiple design layouts to identify the number of conversions, site engagement, and bounce rate. Taking the time to pinpoint what elements of your website resonate with your potential leads at the beginning can earn your business thousands or millions of dollars in revenue over the long term.

The key to conversion rate optimization is to strategically place clear and compelling call-to-actions (CTA) around the website. While you’re at it, rather than just setting up a bunch of CTAs, try to experiment by A/B testing different colors, keywords, and offers. That way you will continuously learn what messages and design elements appeal to your target audience the most. This article goes into more detail about how to optimize your website for lead conversion.

Inbound marketing

The sole focus of inbound marketing is to draw potential customers into your sales funnel through valuable content you post to your website. The idea being that leads who engage with your website content may eventually turn into prospects and eventually into customers. 

The key to creating compelling content is to think about your target audience and what kind of information they would find valuable as it pertains to your product or services. 

When it comes to the type of content needed in order to generate leads, it depends on the goals you’ve set up for your inbound marketing strategy. Blog posts, for example, are accessible to anyone on the internet so they would likely drive website traffic if that’s all you’re looking for. If your goal is to capture emails, though, then creating a white paper that requires users to enter their contact information would be your best bet. 

At the end of the day, a successful inbound marketing strategy combines multiple tactics that are each capable of driving visitors to your website.

Ask for testimonials 

The power of a testimonial is not something that should be overlooked. While potential customers are doing their research into which IT consulting company they should work with, they’re going to want to know what it’s like to work with you. And, more importantly, they’ll want to be reassured that they can trust your company. 

Testimonials provide the credibility your business needs when trying to engage potential leads. Reach out to your current or former clients and ask if they can write a positive review of your company on LinkedIn, Clutch.co, or Google. You can also use these testimonials on your own website to further establish your company’s credibility. 

Give PR a try

In addition to optimizing your website with search-friendly keywords and messaging that would draw potential clients in, it’s important to be cognizant of what else appears in results when people search for your company. This could be online reviews, contributed articles, or media mentions, all things that give people an idea of the reputation your company has. If you want to strengthen your online reputation, then earned media is a simple way to do that. 

Similar to the value of referrals, articles that mention your company will build more credibility around your brand. Earned media is essentially a third party media outlet vouching for your company, which builds more trust among potential customers. Given the complexity of winning earned media, you might consider working with a PR agency to help you develop an effective messaging strategy for your IT consulting company. 

Find referral partners

One of the better ways to generate new leads for an IT consulting company is to develop relationships with other businesses in your community or industry. Finding a partner makes a lot of sense in that you won’t compete with them yet you may share complementary skills to support your customers.

Referral partners for IT consulting companies might come in all shapes and sizes. For instance, say your company works extensively with small and mid-sized wineries in northern California, including supporting online and in-store sales and fulfillment. A good referral partner might be a website design company that specializes in working with wineries.

Another referral partner might be a local CPA firm, which can often advise its customers on the financial side of making IT investments. If the CPA firm knows and trusts the work you do, it might be more inclined to send over an occasional warm lead.

Ask customers, too

Don’t forget to ask for help from your customers. If you are doing a great job providing IT consulting services, then they might be happy to connect you with other business owners they know. It may not be your highest volume source of new leads, but a warm referral from an existing customer usually has a higher close rate than cold leads.

About Sam Lauron: Sam is a freelance lifestyle writer and a copywriter at Swyft, which has been listed as one of the best PR firms in Austin and a top digital marketing agency in Denver since its founding in 2011. Swyft has satellite offices where it offers PR in San Francisco and Houston.