B2B Lead Generation Strategies Integral To Growth
Kudzai Machingawuta
When it comes to B2B lead generation, can we pinpoint what really works? The tussle for new business is present more than ever. In an ever-changing landscape, any Revenue Leader knows you must continue to test different strategies to reach your audience, grow your brand and ultimately close business. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to generating leads faster, if it were that easy, everyone would be rich.
B2B lead generation isn’t easy. So before we run, we need to understand how to walk. Let’s make sure we are on the same page with some key parts that need to be completed before you even look at your lead generation strategies.
B2B lead generation isn’t easy. So before we run, we need to understand how to walk. Let’s make sure we are on the same page with some key parts that need to be completed before you even look at your lead generation strategies.
What is B2B lead generation?
B2B lead generation is the process of identifying the ideal customer for your product or service, then attracting them to buy.
Generating quality leads that can be moved into the sales pipeline is an essential activity for B2B sales and marketing teams. As more leads are generated, the better the top of the sales pipeline looks and the greater the overall growth of the company. But is it that simple? A lot depends on how effective your B2B lead generation strategy is and how efficiently you can measure the ROI from it.
What type of businesses need lead generation?
Most companies that require customers to survive will need lead generation. Business to Customer (B2C) companies, such as retailers, restaurants, and service providers target the public. Business to Business (B2B) companies sell their products and services to other businesses. Both are reliant on customer revenue for their survival and dependent on leads to keep their business afloat.
So what does the B2B process entail?
If you’re serious about lead generation, you will need to make sure your sales and marketing teams are fully aligned with your goals, targeting criteria and how it will generate revenue. Before deciding which lead generation strategy will be most effective, you need to ask yourself a few essential questions, which we will get into in a minute.
Step 1: Find B2B leads. Find out the contact information of all your prospects. Build your lists from scratch, they will be more reliable.
Step 2: Reach out to your leads. With a list of hopefully quality leads, reps reach out through email outreach, phone calls and social media, or by replying to incoming inquiries.
Step 3: Qualifying and prospecting high quality leads.
Step 4: Finally, after multiple meetings a decision is generally made, the vendor picks you and is transferred to customer success.
By now, you’d think companies would’ve cracked the code to collecting data and perfecting lead generation strategies, but unfortunately, it is not that simple. People still struggle to this day to effectively generate leads and grow their business. They seem to have everything right with their product or service, but can’t seem to get it right when selling it.
There are a few questions that you need to ask yourself when plotting a good strategy for lead generation. It is the what, who, where, when, and why of your sales and marketing process. These questions will help streamline your lead generation process and uncover unique insights that could aid you in your process.
What do your potential customers want?
Once you know your targets, the next step is to find out what their needs are. What are their goals? What are their pain points? This will help you understand what value to deliver and how to tailor the message to solve their problems with your solution.
What can you deliver?
This is what makes you stand out. Unique selling propositions define what your organisation is all about, your message should be communicated right from the onset and throughout. It shows them what makes you different and what difference you can make to their business with your valuable services.
Who is your lead and how do you reach them?
All of your teams need to be in alignment with who the lead is. Be sure to clearly define the company’s targeting criteria otherwise, you will often find that your emails do not get responses because the wrong people are receiving them. Use a combination of content marketing and paid advertising to reach your leads on the channels they frequent. Make sure you have a research team to scour the web and get all the information on your prospects.
At what point in the sales process do you want to generate leads?
You should be generating leads at every touchpoint and all the steps in your cycle should generate leads. Of course, there will be a vast difference in interest at this stage, but from here we can break them up and respond to them individually. The same technique will not work for everyone; you may have people who are still learning about their problems and need nurturing. On the other hand, you may have prospects who are already in the buying phase. Ideally, you would want to qualify them as quickly as possible to be able to maximise your conversion rate.
Why is B2B lead generation important?
It’s no secret that businesses need a steady pipeline of new leads to survive and grow. B2B companies, in particular, need customised strategies that reach the right audiences because not everyone may be at the same stage of their customer journey.
A business needs to generate leads because, without leads, most businesses will lack the sales and customer base needed to grow. Companies cannot rely on their intuition, they need developed strategies for specific types of customers they want to attract. If a company doesn’t have a strategy, it won’t know who to target, and without targets, it will struggle to generate leads.
Why is it important for sales teams?
It helps you discover your total addressable market. B2B lead generation highlights how much of the market is receptive to your pitch.
It ensures you are contacting leads using the most up-to-date data.
B2B lead generation improves the sales cycle process by ensuring you are dealing with prospects who are most likely to buy, thus being able to increase conversion rates.
Why is it important for marketing teams?
With B2B lead generation, you can learn who is your perfect customer and where they spend their time.
Knowing your customers allows you to create content that is relevant and valuable to them and their businesses.
By targeting the right people, you build stronger brand awareness.
With B2B lead generation, all marketing activities can be tracked and monitored, making it easy for you to refine your marketing efforts and justify the budget spend.
Why is B2B lead generation so difficult?
Remember, the secret lies in engaging customers and prospects the right way. Creating content that captures the intention of your prospects is complex. Not every consumer will be compelled to like your product or service off the bat, unless you must make it relevant to them.
Lead generation has become even more difficult with increasing amounts of competition. We want large amounts of data, but not any type of data. Having an abundance of it makes it difficult to track, reach, and engage with the ‘right’ potential prospects. As a result, many people outsource, it does save you time, and it ain’t a bad thing at all.
What are the main challenges faced in lead generation?
Many factors make acquiring quality leads difficult, even for successful companies. Lead generation is a very time-consuming and resource-demanding process. It can take hours for copywriters to create bespoke creative copy, especially if the Sales Development Representative (SDR) is reaching out to multiple industries and professions.
It can take SDR’s hours to research and create personalised add-ons for the messaging. These efforts are all in vain if the lead isn’t a good fit. Lack of resources will result in employees feeling burnt out, so you need to make sure you get the balance right.
With B2B lead generation, there is no magic combination of actions that will always nurture prospects. What works for everyone else, may not work for you, so try out different things. You don’t want to be stuck wondering why your campaigns aren’t working when they fail.
A negative outcome can cause serious consequences: bad quality results will cost your company more time, resources, and most importantly, money. Hence, we always recommend cutting off unqualified prospects right off the bat.