Leads are the soul and blood of any business. 

However, it can be quite a challenge to consistently find and manage a steady flow of leads that actually convert.

In fact, 41% of marketers say generating more leads is one of the most prominent challenges they face. Meanwhile, 80% of new leads don’t make a purchase. 

This happens because not all website visitors are ready to buy or fit your ideal customer profile. 

Hence, businesses must focus on creating a strong lead-generation strategy that attracts relevant leads. Especially for new businesses, as they need to concentrate on lead generation and building their brand. 

Without revenue from these conversions, it can be tough to stay competitive, no matter how great your products or services are. 

So let’s get started!

What is B2B Lead Generation?

In the B2B world, businesses cater to other businesses. This means your lead or potential buyer would be some other business that could benefit from your service or product.

So, the B2B lead generation process is all about finding other companies who need the product/service you provide and then nurturing them into a paid client. 

For example, an accounting software company might generate leads by creating informative content about tax regulations aimed at business owners. By providing valuable information or solutions to other’s pain points, the accounting software company can attract potential buyers and also establish credibility as a leader in the industry.

Why is B2B Lead Generation Important?

Leads keep the business running. Without leads in the pipeline, who will your sales team sell your product or service to? 

Here are some solid reasons why B2B lead generation is important:

• Drives Sales and Revenue – Without a pipeline of interested businesses, sales opportunities dry up. Strong lead generation attracts qualified leads, which are more likely to convert into sales and boost revenue.
• Fuels Marketing Efforts – B2B lead generation provides valuable customer insights that guide marketing strategies. You can create content, target specific industries, and identify the most effective channels to reach your ideal customer.
• Improves Sales Efficiency – Sales reps can focus on closing deals with qualified leads, rather than wasting time on unqualified prospects. This boosts the results coming from your teams’ efforts. 

Types of B2B Leads

There are two types of leads we keep hearing about: 

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

MQLs are potential buyers who have shown interest in your company through your marketing efforts (e.g., downloading ebooks, reading a blog, and attending webinars). 

This kind of lead might be aware of a general need but hasn’t identified a specific solution yet. Marketers nurture MQLs with educational content to move them further down the sales funnel.

Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

SQLs are marketing-qualified leads who have expressed a stronger buying intent. 

They’ve likely interacted directly with your sales team (e.g., requested a demo or expressed a specific need). SQLs are considered high-priority leads with a greater chance of converting into paying customers.

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B2B Lead Generation Process

1. Identify Your Buyer Persona

Buyer personas represent the ideal profile of a potential customer for your business. 

By combining industry research, competitor analysis, and existing customer data, you can develop a comprehensive buyer persona that outlines their firmographics (company size, industry, location), demographics (age, job title), needs, challenges, goals, and buying behavior. 

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You can use these insights to understand who your ideal customers are and what matters to them. You can then create positioning and messaging that resonates and make informed decisions about how and where to reach them.

This allows you to create impactful marketing programs, campaigns, and activities that will attract and engage your target audience and attract more quality leads.

2. Select Appropriate Strategy to Attract Leads

Now that you know about buyer personas, it’s time to use that information to figure out channels and content that work best for them. From this point, it is all about attracting relevant leads that fit into that profile and engaging them. 

For this, you can start with –

• Creating informative blog posts, ebooks, or eye-catching infographics that grab the attention of your target audience and establish you as an expert.
• Share your content on social platforms they use, like LinkedIn, industry groups, newsletters via emails, etc.
• Use SEO or PPC ads to target high-value prospects. 
• Track what content resonates, which ads are performing better, and where the traffic is mostly coming from. Then, adjust your approach to attract even better leads.

3. Lead Qualification & Prospecting

Now that marketing efforts have created a pool of potential customers (leads), it’s crucial to identify the most promising ones. This is where lead qualification and prospecting come in.

Qualification involves assessing each lead’s buying stage and needs to see if they’re a good fit for your business. Are they just aware of a problem, actively considering solutions, or ready to make a purchase?

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Understanding the buying stage lets you choose the right way to approach your leads.  

Leads in the early stages need informative content to educate them. For those further along, reps can offer consultations or demos that address their specific requirements. 

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This nurturing process helps convert high-potential leads (MQLs) into sales-ready leads (SQLs) who are closer to becoming customers. 

4. Lead Closing by Making a Sale

After pinpointing promising leads, it’s time to close the deal!

The closing stage is where sales reps convince them to choose you. Reps will explain how your product or service directly benefits them, highlighting the features that solve their specific problems.

Think of it as explaining why a particular phone is perfect for them—great camera, long battery life, etc. Clear communication and showcasing your value are key to closing the deal and winning a new happy customer!

Sometimes, it also involves a lot of back-and-forth, follow-ups, and patience in pushing the lead to the buying stage, and sometimes, it might not turn into a sale. However, you should always learn what works and what doesn’t to enhance your entire B2B lead generation process further.

B2B Lead Generation Strategies That Actually Work

1. Content Marketing & SEO

Content marketing attracts potential customers by establishing you as a thought leader. 91% of B2B marketers use content to spread awareness about their company and generate good leads. Here’s how: 

Content Creation: Create high-quality content like blog posts, videos, infographics, and eBooks to educate and engage your audience.

SEO Optimization: Then, optimize your content with relevant keywords that people are looking for to make your content rank better on the search page and have wider visibility to the right audience. 

2. Use Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are high-value content resources offered in exchange for prospect contact information, such as a company email address and business phone number.  

Lead magnets nurture leads by providing valuable content that addresses their specific pain points or interests. They also position your company as a trusted resource.

Lead magnets act as incentives to entice potential customers to subscribe to your email list.

Check out the types of lead magnets you can use in the infographic below: 

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You promote these lead magnets in different places, such as emails, landing pages, website pop-ups, social media posts, etc., and the more interested leads who want to download it exchange their email to receive it. 

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most used strategies to generate high-quality B2B leads. It is in fact the primary choice of about 89% of marketers for generating leads. 

It gives you the platform to target and engage with the decision-makers directly and offer them solutions that your business delivers. 

Benchmark Email makes it easier to manage, automate, and personalize these email campaigns to engage leads effectively.  

For example, a lead may sign up to your subscriber list in exchange for good content. Now that you know what the lead is interested in, you can plan automated campaigns to send timely, highly relevant offers, good content, etc., to warm them up. 

4. Social Media Marketing

A social networking platform like LinkedIn is an absolute B2B Lead generation & prospecting platform. About 43% of people use social media platforms to research what to buy and where.

You need to start by creating a professional and informative social media profile that showcases your company’s expertise, experience, and brand personality. 

Consistently share informative and engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Create awareness about how your solution can help solve major pain points in the industry. You can track the performance of your campaigns using social media analytics tools like Statusbrew or Hootsuite. 

You can also identify and connect with relevant businesses and individuals in your industry by joining groups, following industry influencers, and attending online events. 

Try to spark conversations and engage your target audience to develop a good relationship and nurture the interested leads.  

5. Chatbot Marketing

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular tools for B2B lead generation. They act as virtual assistants who can automate tasks and interact with website visitors 24/7, minimizing the chance of missing out on a good lead.

They chat with website visitors, answer questions, and qualify leads by gathering information.  This also frees up sales reps to focus on high-potential leads. Chatbots can even schedule appointments, suggest relevant content, and personalize interactions to nurture leads. 

By analyzing user data collected by chatbots, you can further refine your marketing strategies and chatbot responses for even better results. Overall, chatbots allow businesses to proactively engage with leads and offer several benefits, including improved customer experience, cost-effectiveness, and scalability. 

6. Video Marketing

90% of marketers suggest that using video can assist with generating leads.

People won’t give their information to just anyone, which is why establishing trust is a crucial aspect of lead generation. Videos are known to build trust between consumers and businesses. 

There are many types of videos that can help with lead generation, such as:

• Brand Videos that showcase your brand’s identity and help build trust.
• Video Ads to grab attention and give a clear message about your product/service. 
• Video Testimonials and success stories share the experiences of your happy customers and pique new customer interest.
• How-to and FAQ Videos that address common customer questions in a clear and informative format while highlighting your product’s strength.
• Tutorial Videos to educate viewers on your product’s functionalities and how it solves their problems. 

7. Influencer Marketing

Influencers bring credibility and depth to brand content, benefiting both the brand and the influencer by reaching new audiences. 

72% of B2B businesses believe that the quality of customers from influencer marketing campaigns surpasses that of other marketing types. 

Although most marketers consider influencer marketing a top-of-funnel tactic, B2B influencer marketing functions across the entire marketing funnel. 

To make this tactic effective, you need to seek out influencers who are established figures in your industry and have a deep understanding of the challenges your target audience faces.

8. Paid Advertising

Paid advertising can help you quickly reach a large, targeted audience. 

It allows you to target specific demographics, interests, or geographic locations and connect with the right people at the right time.

What makes paid advertising worth trying is that it generates 50% more conversions than organic traffic. There are various forms of paid advertising, such as search engine advertising, social media advertising, display advertising, and more. 

The primary goal of paid advertising is to drive traffic to a landing page or website, where businesses can capture leads through forms, calls-to-action, and other conversion elements.

9. Publish White Papers and Case Studies

By turning your expertise into informative white papers, case studies, or success stories, you can capture high-quality leads who are genuinely interested in what you offer.

When you offer valuable insights about the industry or share stories on how you have helped certain business or industry sectors solve specific pain points, you establish yourself as a credible and trusted authority.

People facing similar issues would be keen on reading the content pieces and even try reaching out to you for help. This gives you a valid lead to nurture.

White papers and case studies are also often used as gated content, helping to capture lead details. You can even reveal some of the content to the public and ask them for an email or to sign up to continue reading. 

10. Do A/B Testing for Optimizing Landing Pages

A/B testing is a powerful tool for optimizing your lead generation process. 

It provides concrete, data-driven insights into what is and isn’t working. Experiment with different variations of your messaging, design, and targeting to discover the most effective combination.

This allows marketers to make informed decisions rather than relying on assumptions or guesswork. A common example of A/B testing in lead generation is with email marketing subject lines. 

Subject lines help capture recipients’ attention and entice them to read the full message. However, crafting an engaging subject line can be challenging. 

But with A/B testing, you can create different versions of your email subject lines and test them with various segments of your email list. The results can help you determine which copy is working better and can drive higher email open rates.

Generating High-Quality B2B Leads 

Getting good business leads involves using different methods.

All the above strategies have their benefits—publishing useful content helps you become a trusted source, lead magnets help you find interested leads, social media helps people know about your brand, and so on.

But no matter which method you go for, make sure to validate each lead that enters your system, such as their phone number or email address so that you have a place to reach out to them. And not just wasting efforts seeking invalid leads.