How to Generate B2B Leads? The Latest Strategies
Selling to businesses can be much more challenging than selling directly to end customers, as the process is much longer and more complex.
However, just because it can be difficult doesn’t mean it should be. To make the sales journey much smoother, you need to understand how to generate B2B leads.
With an increase in lead generation, as well as their qualification, your chances of closing deals increase.
With that in mind, we’ve outlined the key strategies for you to learn how to generate B2B leads. Keep reading the article to find out more!
What are B2B Leads?
First and foremost, it’s worth remembering that B2B stands for business to business, which means it’s a business model where the company aims to sell to another business.
This is different from the B2C market, where sales are strictly targeted at the end consumer, so the lead capture and nurturing strategy happens more directly.
But what you should consider is: what do I do to capture these leads?
After all, the variables in a B2B journey are much more complex than those in B2C; you’ll need to consider:
- If your company offers a highly specialized service, making lead capture difficult;
- Which employee of the company will propose the service to the team where they work;
- Who will make the decision; and even the best time to make the sales approach.
In other words, there are various factors to consider before starting your lead generation strategy.
But don’t worry, we’ve outlined the key points here for you to understand how to generate B2B leads and improve your business results.
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How to Generate B2B Leads?
There isn’t a 100% effective magic formula on how to generate B2B leads, but there are strategic ways to optimize and improve this process, such as inbound marketing, prospecting, and events.
However, before discussing them, it’s necessary to understand the lead generation process, that is, the step-by-step process done by marketing and sales teams to convert the lead into the coveted customer.
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The B2B Lead Generation Process
First of all, to have a customer, you need to have a lead, so the first step is to capture these potential buyers, along with their contact information.
Next, you should focus on building a relationship with this lead, whether through social networks, email campaigns, or offline media.
The third step is lead qualification and prospecting, that is, what is the likelihood of them making a purchase.
To determine the chance of a sale being closed, you should base your research on the following points:
- Awareness: Is the lead already aware of the need they face and that they need the service offered by your company? If not, they will consume content such as blogs, success stories, and e-books.
- Consideration: Here, the lead already knows exactly what they need, but before choosing a service, they will thoroughly research their need and what their options are.
- Decision: It’s time for the lead to choose, so they will schedule meetings with the companies that best meet their needs and score what they need most to finally close the sale.
The fourth and final step is the sale closure, where your leads become customers and are referred to the customer success team for integration.
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The Most Well-Known Strategies for B2B Lead Generation
Now that you know how to generate B2B leads, let’s move on to the most well-known and effective strategies to make this goal a reality!
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Active Prospecting
Active prospecting involves creating, nurturing, and building a relationship with a network of contacts, aiming for these leads to convert into sales.
To carry out prospecting that yields results, you need to have defined the ideal customer profile, so think about the size, average revenue, and industry of the companies that may be interested in your business.
Furthermore, keep in mind what sets your company apart from others, focus more on the qualities than the characteristics.
With these points in mind, let’s talk about active prospecting: if your company acts in person, create banners/folders to assist salespeople. If it’s online, invest in a good presentation to send along with emails.
Remember to use social media platforms like LinkedIn and specific groups to find companies that fit your business profile.
Inbound Marketing
According to a study published by Demand Metric, Inbound Marketing costs 62% less compared to Outbound Marketing and still generates 3 times more prospects.
This strategy will focus your efforts on creating content such as e-books, newsletters, blog articles, social media posts, webinars, among others.
By offering this content in exchange for a click or subscription, you’ll be capturing the visitor’s attention, a crucial moment for them to become a lead.
Events
If your company is attending a gathering, fair, or conference, seize the opportunity to invite your industry contacts, friends, and even people who show interest in your business.
During the event, create specific landing pages (LPs) that arouse curiosity and encourage people to contact you later to learn more about your business.
Additionally, distribute giveaways at the end of the event and don’t forget to nurture these leads shortly afterward, keep in touch.
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Bonus Tip: Know Your Audience
We’ve already talked a bit about the importance of knowing your customer profile in the lead generation process section, but it’s crucial to emphasize this point: know your audience.
It’s essential to create a persona, remember to base it on data, experiences, and real problems:
- Understand your audience’s needs
- How do they behave on social media and search engines?
- Will your company serve at a local, regional, or national level?
- How is your market area?
The more you niche down this audience, the easier it will be to generate more qualified leads, as they will already be educated and understand their situation better.
What’s the Best Tool for Generating B2B Leads?
Software and apps are in the market to streamline work, and this is no different for B2B lead generation.
Take advantage of tools involving CRM, SEO, Chatbots, and Heatmaps to further increase your results.
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CRM
By having a CRM integrated into your business, you can segment your leads, specifying where each one is in the process, which helps the sales team’s work.
If you know where your potential customer stands, you’ll know the exact time to approach them.
Leadster has prepared an article on the 11 Best Sales CRM Software in 2022, be sure to check it out!
SEO
SEO is one of the Inbound Marketing strategies and is essential for your website and blog to be found on search engines, after all, according to the Lead Generation Panorama in Brazil, 31.59% of B2B segment visits come from Organic Search.
With SEO strategies come their analyses, essential for you to discover your audience’s behavior.
Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest offers free SEO reports.
Heatmaps
How far are your visitors going on your pages? Is your website well-structured? Are your blog posts being read, do people go all the way?
These are some of the questions that can be answered through a Heatmap, a tool offered, for free, by Crazy Egg.
Chatbots
After understanding how to generate B2B leads, do you want to bring qualified leads to your business and obtain contact information more quickly?
Currently, forms are no longer yielding results, in fact, people don’t even go halfway through them.
Now, with a chatbot tool, your leads will have a personalized, instant, and humanized approach, always focusing on interaction.
As a result, your company will witness a 3-fold increase in qualified leads, which will positively impact your lead generation.
Leadster offers this type of service, and below, you’ll see a case that proves the efficiency of chatbots.
Nilson’s Story
“After Leadster, we had 4 times more qualified quote requests, earning an additional 55 thousand reais” – Nilson Toledo, CEO of Cosiaço.
Is your B2B business struggling with ads because the cost is high, your quote generation is low because the WhatsApp button has brought in highly unqualified leads, and the contact forms are not even being answered?
This was the situation that Nilson Toledo, CEO of Cosiaço – a company in the metallurgical sector – found himself in: a lot of investment for little sales.
If we’ve already mentioned here in the article that the B2B sales process is more complex, imagine it without the right tools and still losing money with some strategies?
Nilson then decided to bet on Leadster’s chatbot, even though the tool wasn’t well-known in the market, he realized there was something there that could help him.
And it really did happen; in the first week after implementation, they had a 150% increase in daily lead capture.
“We didn’t even need to finish the 15-day trial. In one week, we generated more qualified quotes than in the last six months.
How about achieving results like these for your business? Now that you know how to generate B2B leads, in a few steps, you can triple your potential business generation.
