B2B Lead Generation
There are many reasons why B2B businesses opt to use lead generation methods – and so many see incredible results as a consequence. But what is B2B lead generation? What makes it so popular? What are some of the most common lead generation tactics? And what are the benefits of outsourcing to a lead generation company? Keep reading to find out all the above and more.
B2B Lead Generation
Lead generation is a great way to attract new enquiries into your business while building a rich sales pipeline. Its popularity as a marketing method is understandable, as, with the right lead generation help, you can capture prospects’ attention, and nurture them until they are in a position where they’re ready to buy your product or services. You can help your target audience find you more easily, as well as get a better understanding of your customers’ pain points, not to mention feed your hungry sales team with hot leads.
We’ll discuss all of this in more detail in the coming chapters, as well as defining what B2B lead generation is, its main goal, the key benefits, and tonnes more.
What is B2B lead generation?
B2B lead generation (Business-to-Business lead generation) is the process of identifying and attracting potential customers who have shown an interest in your company’s products or services.
What is the main goal of B2B lead generation?
The main purpose of lead generation is to first identify those who’ve shown an interest in your brand and its offerings, and second, grab their attention. You’ll need a carefully considered strategy and the right tactics that will allow you to identify potential clients, build relationships with them and, ultimately, drive revenue by converting those leads into paying customers.
It’s not all plain sailing, though. In order to get the most out of your lead generation campaigns, you need a carefully considered strategy, a great understanding of your target audience, and the use of a wide variety of marketing channels to reach and engage with potential clients. And it isn’t just connecting with leads; it’s about ensuring that those leads turn into delighted customers.
It’s also worth understanding the difference between lead generation and demand generation, as the two often work together but play different roles in your wider growth strategy. If you want to explore that distinction in more detail, read our guide to lead generation vs demand generation.
The key aspects of B2B lead generation include identifying your target audience, generating leads and capturing leads, nurturing those leads, scoring them, and passing them to your sales team in order to convert them to paying customers. We’ll talk about each of these points in more detail later on.
What’s the difference between B2B lead generation and B2C lead generation?
The difference between B2B lead generation and B2C lead generation (business-to-consumer) is that with B2B lead generation, it’s generally a business need, so it’s the business (or someone from that business) expressing an interest. This is in contrast to B2C lead generation, where an individual wants to use your services for themselves.
OK, OK. But what is a lead?
Before we dive into everything lead generation, let’s first answer the question “what exactly is a lead?”. This will help clarify the concept of lead generation.
A lead is a person who shows an interest in your business or its offerings. While in the past, cold calling was a popular way to generate leads, nowadays, leads more commonly come in the form of a prospect submitting their personal details in exchange for something that offers them some value.
Once your company has generated leads, you can soon begin nurturing them, which is a far less antagonistic method than just directly reaching out to someone with no prior contact.
As we progress through this lead generation explanation, we’ll uncover why not all leads are equal, and why lead scoring is vital in getting the best results from your lead generation efforts.
What is the lead generation process?
Lead generation is an integral part of the inbound marketing methodology, in which your aim is to attract loyal customers.
So, how exactly does lead generation work? Well, there are several steps that you need to follow. Let’s walk through them together:
Step 1 – Discovery
A visitor discovers your brand through one of the following: your website, one of your social media channels, or your blog.
Step 2 – Engagement
That visitor then takes the next step in their journey with your business by clicking on a call to action (CTA).
Step 3 – The Offer
The visitor is then taken to a landing page, offering them a piece of valuable content, an offer, a discount, or one of many other things. Here, they’re asked to provide their personal details.
Step 4 – Conversion
Your visitor fills out their personal information in exchange for said offer. They get their valuable asset, you get a new lead. It’s a win-win situation.
Lead scoring
Once you’ve generated a lead, you then need to score it. The process of lead scoring is a necessary part of lead generation, as it helps you separate the wheat from the chaff – i.e. the valuable leads from the not so valuable. You see, there will be people entering your site at all sorts of different stages in the buying journey. And,
according to Hubspot, only 10% of leads convert into customers. Some will be ready to buy, some will need some trust signals and further useful information, and some won’t be interested in your services at all.
So, how does lead scoring work?
Using a marketing automation tool, you can distinguish between your leads, based on a whole range of factors – from location to business size, behaviour, and even the social media platform they engaged with you on.
Leads are often categorised into the following categories:
- MQLs
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are leads that have previously engaged with your marketing efforts, but who aren’t yet ready to make a purchase.
- SQLs
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) are people who have demonstrated an interest in your product or services.
- PQLs
- Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) are people who have, for instance, used your product in a free trial and are now showing an interest in paying full price to continue using it.
Lead scoring will give you a much better indication of which leads are most likely to convert into paying customers.
Lead nurturing
You’ve likely heard of the term lead nurturing. This is another key step in lead generation that should be followed carefully. Leads need to be nurtured through various marketing and communication channels. This includes sending targeted emails, providing relevant content, and maintaining regular contact to build trust and move leads through the sales funnel.
What are the main benefits of B2B lead generation?
Lead generation has so many incredible benefits for businesses and organisations like yours, across a whole range of industries. It can help boost business growth, and lead to an increase in revenue. It can even allow sales and marketing teams to work together more cohesively. All of this makes lead generation crucial for B2B businesses.
For a whopping 85% of B2B companies, lead generation is their main focus, according to Content Marketing Institute, which just goes to show the power it has as a marketing method. So, why exactly is that?
85% of B2B companies say lead generation is their most important marketing goal
Let’s take a look at the great benefits of B2B lead generation in more detail:
Acquiring new customers
The most pressing goal of lead generation is to bring in new customers (or clients – whatever term you prefer or use in your business), converting leads into customers. Generating leads will help you increase your pool of potential customers who’ve shown an active interest in what you offer.
B2B lead generation also helps you to target industries, sectors or organisations that align with your ideal customer profile, more precisely.
Building relationships
Lead generation is a great way to strike up and build relationships with potential customers. It allows you to engage with your leads, provide them with valuable content, and nurture them through your sales funnel.
It’s a brilliant way to build trust and brand awareness, to show your brand as the ultimate source of useful information for your chosen topic, and create brand advocates. Even if they don’t come to you for your product or services straight away, staying front of their minds through well-thought-out lead generation activities can still lead to future sales.
Collecting data
While the main goal of lead generation is to bring in revenue, it’s also a brilliant way to collect insightful prospect data. For example, it will allow you to discover contact information, demographic details, preferences and behaviour of your potential customers. Having this data in your armoury will allow you to personalise your marketing efforts to make them more relatable to your prospects, ultimately leading to more sales.
Qualifying leads
While getting tonnes of quality leads is everyone’s dream, not all leads are equal. Some will be more valuable than others. A great way to overcome this issue is to use lead scoring criteria to prioritise and focus your efforts on the leads that are most likely to convert. This is a fantastic benefit of lead generation, ensuring you’re not wasting your time and efforts on leads that won’t go anywhere.
Growing – slow and steady
Effective lead generation is about boosting sales – yes, of course – but it’s more than just immediate results. It’s also about building a pipeline of potential customers for the long term. You’ll know yourself, from a consumer perspective, that you’re not always ready to buy a product or service right away, but that you sometimes need time or a little convincing before you part with your money. Lead generation activities are a great way to ensure that when the time is right, potential customers will choose you over the competition.
Boosting ROI
Compared to some other forms of marketing, lead generation is often a brilliant way to boost ROI. If you spend your money wisely, you’ll see a great return. With targeted lead generation efforts, you’ll often see higher conversion rates and lower customer acquisition costs. By focusing your efforts on individuals or organisations that have shown an interest in your offerings, you can efficiently allocate your marketing costs, too.
Maximising revenue
The ultimate goal of lead generation is to boost revenue. As you take your leads through the sales process, the aim is to get them to convert into paying customers and generate new revenue for your business.
And that’s just scratching the surface
Lead generation is also great, for instance, in terms of scalability. It can be scaled up or down as needed, meaning it’s adaptable to your growth and marketing goals. It can bring about in-depth market research insights, too – grieving you a better understanding of market demand, customer preferences, and giving you valuable insight into which channels are working best. Knowing this can inform product development, pricing strategies, and future marketing decisions and campaigns.
So, now we know some of the key benefits of lead generation, let’s find out how you can get started, using some of the most common lead generation tactics.
B2B lead generation tactics?
By this point, you’re likely keen to get started on your own lead generation efforts, or at least figuring out how to get started. So, to help you out, here are some of the most common lead generation tactics.
Lead generation tactics can vary widely depending on your industry, your target audience, and your marketing goals. However, to give you a flavour for what you can expect, here are some of the best loved ways to generate leads:
Social media marketing
It’s been popular for some time now, but if you’re not yet using social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram to connect and nurture leads, don’t worry – there’s still time. Platforms like these allow you to nurture through organic posts, paid advertising, and engagement.
According to Social Media Examiner, an enormous ⅔ of marketers generate new business leads by focusing just 6 hours a week on social media efforts. This means it’s completely achievable to boost leads across your social media channels without spending too much time doing so.
66% of marketers generate new leads via social media by committing just 6 hours per week to it
Email marketing
According to a recent survey by APSIS, email marketing is the most common lead generation strategy among businesses. And with good reason. Email marketing allows you to send personalised, targeted emails to potential leads to nurture them through your sales funnel. It also gives you a great way to share valuable content and promote offers.
The three most common lead generation strategies:
Source: APSIS – 8 Marketing Automation Statistics – Explained
Event marketing
Next in line for the lead generation tactic throne is event marketing, with 73% of B2B businesses choosing it to aid their lead generation efforts. Events are a fantastic way to meet new potential customers, spread the word about your business, and generate new leads. So, it’s unsurprising that such a high number of companies are seeing the benefits it has to offer.
Content marketing
Content is to lead generation what crackers are to cheese. The two just go together beautifully. Creating valuable, relevant content, like blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, webinars and infographics is a great way to attract and engage potential leads.
In fact, 80% of B2B businesses say they generate leads through content marketing efforts. And…businesses that publish 15 blog posts a month are said to generate an enormous 1200 new leads, monthly (Source: LinkedIn).
Create a strategy to attract leads organically by providing valuable information and resources that solve their problems or address their needs.
80% of B2B businesses generate leads via content marketing
You might also want to try quizzes and surveys, which allow you to capture leads in a more interactive way. These are great for capturing leads while providing valuable insights or entertainment.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is another excellent method for generating leads. Running paid advertising campaigns on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or LinkedIn Ads allows you to reach a specific audience and capture leads in a new way.
If you’re exploring paid search specifically, our post on Google Smart Campaigns looks at how automated PPC campaigns work in practice.
Webinars and Workshops
Hosting online events to educate your audience and collect contact information from participants is a brilliant way to engage your audience and engage with them in return.
Referral Programs
Encouraging satisfied customers and partners to refer leads to your business in exchange for incentives or rewards works well for many businesses. It works beautifully in B2C, and it works just as well in B2B.
Content Syndication
Sharing your content on third-party websites or platforms to expand your reach and attract potential leads from other online communities is another excellent way to generate leads. It’s important, though, to choose your syndication wisely, ensuring it’s in line with your brand’s beliefs and values.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
By optimising your website for search engines like Google or Bing, you’ll be able to improve your organic visibility and attract potential leads searching for information related to your products or services. For more practical advice on improving your visibility, read our guide on how to get found online.
If your campaigns are getting seen but still not generating the right response, our guide on why your marketing campaign might not be landing looks at where performance can break down.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Focus your efforts on specific high-value target accounts by tailoring your marketing strategies and messages to their needs and pain points. Understanding your audience properly is a huge part of this, which is why we recommend reading our guide on defining a target audience.
And if you’re in it for the long game? Try the following lead generation tactics, which are slower burners, but which can produce incredible results.
Landing Pages
When it comes to getting people to sign up to your offer, or do whatever it is that you want them to do, having a great landing page in place is vital.
Creating clear, carefully worded landing pages for specific offers is a fantastic way to capture leads. Optimised landing pages should contain enticing calls to action (CTAs) or carefully considered forms.
If you want to better understand how landing pages support conversions and lead capture, take a look at our guide explaining the main purpose of a landing page.
As with many marketing activities, the effectiveness of these lead generation tactics can vary. So, it’s important to keep a close eye on your strategies, and adjust if necessary, based on your goals and your audience. Combining tactics in a cohesive way can also yield great results.
Lead Generation Tips and Tricks
Whether you’re looking to get the most out of your lead generation efforts, or utilise a lead generation company to do the heavy lifting for you, here are some tactics to consider.
Optimise page load speed
One of the biggest offenders that leads people to leave your site and head straight to a competitor is
slow page load. Anything less than 3 seconds will drive visitors away, and you’ll lose your chance to generate leads.
Improve your SEO efforts
While SEO can seem like a daunting job, it is a necessary one.
If you want to get people to your site, they first need to be able to find it in the huge abyss that is the internet.
By ensuring you’re following good SEO protocol – using the right keywords.
Optimise for mobile
People use their smartphones day in, day out, nowadays. And it’s no different for B2B businesses.
According to Smart Insights, half of all B2B searches are done via mobile.
This means your site needs to be optimised for mobile visitors if you want A) to generate as many leads as possible,
and B) to delight your visitors.
Step up your UX
When it comes to lead generation, user experience (UX) is crucial.
Do you have relevant call to actions (CTAs) across your lead gen efforts? If so, are they clear and effective?
If readers are missing them or simply not clicking, it’s time to review them and do some testing to see what wording
and placement works for you.
Produce something of value
If you’re going to spend time creating a piece of content in your pursuit for awesome lead generation,
make sure that what you’re producing offers something of value. Assess who your
target audience is,
whether the theme or topic is right for that audience, what content type they prefer (blog, guide, video),
and the relevant distribution channels. First and foremost, the content should be worth them giving you their details for.
Make it easy to share
You’ve gone to the effort of creating an incredible piece of content that your target audience is going to love,
so it’d be remiss not to make it as shareable as possible. And as easy to share as possible, too.
For a deeper breakdown of building and improving effective lead generation campaigns, read: How can you conduct effective lead generation?
Outsourcing to a B2B lead generation company
If you’re still not sure where to start with your lead generation efforts, don’t worry – you’re not alone. It’s a complex balancing act. But outsourcing to a business that has a long background of success with lead generation is a great idea. With the right B2B lead generation company, you’ll be able to have input, while knowing that you’re in experienced hands that you can trust.
KAYBE works with a wide range of B2B businesses, across a variety of industries, to successfully generate excellent leads. Fancy learning more about how KAYBE will help you build a rich sales pipeline? Get in touch! We’d love to hear from you.
