Without a steady stream of new leads, your business is on a one-way path to either feast-or-famine chaos or an early exit. You’ll either find yourself scrambling during dry spells or simply won’t make it.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a killer brand, a product that perfectly solves customer pain points, or expertise that makes the competition look like amateurs.
If you don’t have a way to keep leads coming in, all that effort will fall flatter than an overbaked soufflé.
A strong lead gen strategy is like a magnet, pulling prospects into your sales funnel and keeping them engaged, so they’re not only primed to buy but keep coming back (and even referring others).
In this guide, I’ll break down exactly how to build a lead generation system that works.
You’ll get the steps, the insights, and everything you need to launch a plan that drives real results.
Ready? Me too. Let’s start with the basics.
B2B Lead Generation Overview
B2B lead gen is not the same as B2C, so the strategies and tactics you implement can’t be the same, either.
At least, not if you want your lead gen campaign to be successful (and we’re betting you are).
On the surface, the B2B lead gen process looks pretty similar: attract potential customers, generate their interest, convert them into buyers, make the sale, and make them so happy they become a brand advocate. Sounds simple enough, right?
B2B lead generation is the practice of identifying and attracting ideal customers for your B2B product or service.
Sorry, but it’s not actually as simple as it sounds.
B2C brands sell products directly to the consumer, while B2B brands have to sell not just to one individual but to an entire business. And that’s a whole different ballgame.
As a B2B brand, you also can’t expect to find your leads in the same places as B2C. So traditional advertisements and social media might get some leads into your funnel, but going after such a broad audience for such a specific product just wastes your time and money. Plus, hoping to find the right leads amongst all the traffic? Needle, meet haystack.
B2B lead generation involves inbound and outbound strategies designed to help you build visibility, awareness, and interest. And because you’re targeting a particular audience type, your strategies must be designed to only appeal to that specific target audience.
As you can see, effective B2B lead generation campaigns require strategic planning and thorough research, especially concerning product/market fit.
It all boils down to this: B2B lead gen is its own beast, and you have to know how to wrangle it if you want to get results. But before we go any further, you need to know the different types of B2B leads you’ll be encountering along the way.
How Does B2B Lead Gen Differ From B2C?
If you’re reading this, chances are you already know what B2B is and that your company is a B2B organization. B2B stands for “business to business,” which means you don’t sell to consumers. You sell to companies. If you sell to consumers, your company is a B2C organization.
While the acronyms are simple, there are a few other things to understand that separate B2B lead generation from B2C lead generation in some fundamental ways:
People Are Still People
They don’t become emotionless robots as soon as they are working with you in their capacity as professionals. For example, a Director of Marketing purchasing marketing automation tools also buys cars and homes. Like everyone else, they also have a sense of humor and probably an Instagram account.
Don’t forget to remain a human when you’re selling and marketing to businesses because a “lead” is a “person who happens to control some budget, who is interested in working with you.” Too many people lose sight of this and assume they’re talking to a procurement checklist. What does this mean? For example: take the bullet points out of your cold emails and tell stories instead.
The Opportunity Landscape Changes Dramatically
Strategies you can’t get away with when you’re marketing to consumers in their capacity as individuals now become viable because your value per lead in B2B is much higher than in B2C. That’s why companies selling to enterprises are often willing to pay thousands of dollars in total costs for a meeting with a Fortune 2000 decision-maker because the expected payoff is huge.
Meanwhile, a consumer-focused company getting a lead to put their @gmail.com address on their mailing list isn’t worth anything near that. People acting in their capacity as professionals have many different ideas about value and about what’s expensive or affordable.
Long story short: remain human, recognize that you’re interacting with emotional beings who nevertheless are wearing their “I’m at work” hat, and recognize the enormous value of a B2B lead. Finally, when you’re reading about lead generation tactics, make sure that the first thing you understand is whether you’re getting B2C or B2B advice because that’s the most fundamental perspective to adopt when you’re building up a lead gen program.
What Is a Lead Generation Campaign?
A lead generation campaign really is your recipe for marketing success. The aim of a lead gen campaign is to get leads into your funnel, score them and qualify them, and then nurture them through the buyer’s journey.
But how do you know you have all the ingredients you need to achieve your goals? Before you begin, ask yourself these questions:
Once you understand what a lead means to you, how you’ll implement your process, how much you can budget per lead, the kind of content you’ll create, and how you’ll manage sales enablement, you’re ready to begin.
This knowledge will equip you to plot out your lead gen campaign, following a process that takes you from the initial audience research through the execution of the campaign, to its analysis.
There are few things to keep in mind when planning your lead gen campaign. First, lead generation is not the same as demand generation. Most of the time, you’ll want to use both for maximum impact. Also, your lead gen campaign has to work in conjunction with your other marketing channels, especially content and SEO, if you want the best results.
What Is a Lead Generation Funnel?
As we said, your lead gen funnel might look a bit different from others, but all follow the same general concept — your leads enter at the top (the wide part of the funnel) and then move through the stages, getting closer to the narrower part of the funnel until they become a conversion.
The lead gen tactics you use will differ based on where your leads are in the funnel at any given time. Moving leads through the funnel is a combined effort between marketing and sales. While marketing usually handles the top of the funnel (getting leads in) and sales handles the bottom (turning leads to conversions), there’s a significant overlap.
Understanding the lead generation funnel is the first step in crafting a lead gen plan that boosts conversions and grows your brand.
Lead Funnel Stages
Remember the structure of the funnel — wide at the top, narrow at the bottom. Leads usually enter the funnel near the widest point. This is the attraction stage, where they’ve just become aware of the brand or aware that they have a problem that needs solving.
From there, leads move into the consideration stage, where they understand they have an issue and that several brands (including yours) can solve it.
Toward the bottom of the funnel is the decision stage, where the lead has weighed their options and chosen the brand they feel best meets their needs. Once they make a purchase (or take the desired action of the lead gen campaign), they’re a conversion.
But that’s not all! While those are the fundamental stages of the lead gen funnel, you can also invert it (think of an hourglass shape), and on the other side, the lead — who’s now a customer — becomes part of the referral process, bringing new leads into the funnel.
Each of the major stages of the funnel (awareness, consideration, decision) is denoted by widely accepted abbreviations: TOFU (top of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel), and BOFU (bottom of the funnel).
TOFU
This is the very first stage when leads first enter the funnel. At this point, they don’t really know your brand, and they may not even know they have a problem to solve. TOFU leads are cold leads — and they need plenty of nurturing to warm up to conversion.
If you’re targeting TOFU leads, you want to make sure any content you offer them is very broad and general and not sales-oriented. Go too aggressive, and they’ll probably shy away. Instead, focus on supplying them with information they need to become aware of your brand and what it offers.
MOFU
MOFU leads are in or near the consideration stage. They’ve got a problem, and they’re in search of a solution. MOFU leads can come into the funnel at this stage, or they may have moved here from TOFU/awareness.
MOFU leads tend to want more information than TOFU leads — they’re looking for in-depth content that provides specific details on what they’re trying to solve. Whitepapers, ebooks, and research reports are all great forms of MOFU content.
BOFU
BOFU leads are the warmest leads. They’ve gone through the funnel, so they understand their problem, they’re aware of your brand, and they know which solutions they’re looking at. Now, they’re ready to make a purchase decision.
The only thing standing in their way? Your competition. This is the point they’ve narrowed down their options, and your brand is in the running with some fierce competitors. Free trials, case studies, and product comparisons are all highly effective forms of BOFU content.
Types of B2B Leads
Sadly, not all leads are created equal. But once you understand the difference between them, you’ll be better equipped to adapt your lead gen strategy to acquire each specific type.
Within the realm of B2B, many marketers rely on the BANT methodology for lead qualification. What’s BANT?
The number of qualifications determines which type of lead you have. Typically, meeting one criterion means a lead is just entering the funnel, but as more criteria are met, they begin to journey through the types of lead qualification.
Generally, your leads will go from cold to warm. Cold leads are unaware they’re being targeted. They get warmer as they become more receptive to your lead gen tactics and eventually may warm up enough to be interested in conversion. You may also target already-warm leads specifically. Those will include leads who’ve already shown some interest in your brand, whether it’s because they signed up for a newsletter or filled out a form on your website. The types of leads run the gamut from cold to warm.
Information qualified leads
IQLs fall at the cooler end of the spectrum. They are only just entering your funnel, so they’re generally unaware of your brand or even that they have a problem your brand can solve.
They did, however, know enough to understand that they need more information, and that’s what drove them to give up their personal details — whether they wanted to download a whitepaper, access a free course, or get your gated content.
IQLs are necessary for top-of-the-funnel lead gen, but be wary — IQLs are prone to using then losing you. They want the information and they’re willing to trade their email address for it, but for many, no amount of nurturing will keep them in the funnel.
IQLs are the love ‘em and leave ‘em bad boys of qualified leads. You’ll always need them more than they need you. Still, there’s some hope of a happy ending because a handful of IQLs will continue to move down your funnel and become…
Marketing qualified leads
Let’s say you nurtured your IQLs by offering them a webinar or free trial, and they actually followed through with the next step.
These warmer leads are MQLs. MQLs are generally more receptive to lead nurturing because they have an established interest in your brand and how it can solve their needs. At this point, MQLs generally know they have an issue, and now they’re looking for solutions.
While they know your brand now (and likely some of your competitors), they aren’t quite at the decision-making stage yet. This is your opportunity to move them further down the funnel by offering branded content, which may include catalogs, spec sheets, insider how-tos, and exclusive deals or discounts.
Sales qualified leads
SQLs are the hottest leads and by far the most likely to become conversions. These leads have already taken advantage of your top and middle-of-the-funnel content — completed a course, sat in on a webinar, etc. — and they’re still on the hook.
This is where you’ll want a seamless hand-off from marketing to sales and where it helps to have a strong sales enablement strategy.
These leads have arrived at the bottom of your funnel, and they’re now in the decision stage, so they’re ready to pony up the money…if they choose your brand.
Generally speaking, you’ll want all three types of leads in your funnel, so you’re always getting more IQLs in at the top as your SQLs convert at the bottom.
MQLs Vs. SQLs — Key to Effective Lead Generation
When running a B2B lead generation campaign, there are two main types of leads you must focus on MQLs and SQLs. Focusing on these helps ensure that your efforts result in increased revenue.
So, what are MQLs and SQLs, and what role do they play in designing an effective B2B lead generation strategy?
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
An MQL is a lead that fits your ideal customer profile (ICP). They look like a promising potential customer on paper and have shown interest by interacting with your content or marketing team.
Despite showing interest, they haven’t entered your sales funnel yet as they’re still on the “Evaluation Stage” of your buyer’s journey. MQLs are solution-aware and on their way to becoming product-aware. MQLs are best left to the marketing department to work on them until they’re ready to talk to sales.
Defining what qualifies as an MQL for your brand is important as it helps you:
- Focus your efforts on leads that are more likely to convert.
- Speeds up the process of moving them along your funnel.
- Helps improve the targeting for your marketing efforts.
- Helps you refine and personalize your lead nurturing process.
To run an effective B2B lead generation campaign, you must have a clear definition of what your MQLs look like.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
SQLs are leads your sales team qualify as potential customers. These should be moved to your sales funnel and handed to your sales team to nurture them to the finish line.
SQLs are closer to turning into closed deals as they are solution aware and are looking to make a purchase. All they need is the right content to convince them that you have what they need. This is where your sales team should have sales-focused content designed to answer any reservations they may have about getting your product.
Defining and identifying your SQLs is an essential aspect of running an effective lead generation campaign as it:
- Improves your team’s efficiency.
- Results in more deals being closed.
- Improves the quality of your customer base, resulting in increased customer retention rates.
Sending leads to sales prematurely can result in wasted time and resources. That’s why you must ensure you determine the criteria that make for an SQL in your organization.
Defining your MQLs and SQLs will help ensure your lead generation efforts pay off. It also helps create stronger teams that work better together to grow your business and revenue.
How Much is a Lead Worth to You?
Corporate leads are worth a lot more than individual leads. But how do you calculate how much each lead is worth? It’s important to know this so you can figure out how much you’re willing to spend on lead generation.
Here’s one equation you can use to calculate this:
[Lead to Opportunity Conversion Rate %] x
[Opportunity Win Rate %] x
[Average Deal Value $] = Lead Value
I’m defining an “Opportunity” as a sales opportunity within a qualified account that you believe has a good chance of becoming a client of yours. Your ‘win rate’ is the percentage of these opportunities that convert into paying customers.
Average Deal Value is a little trickier. You can think of this as the annual revenue per customer, the lifetime gross profit (revenue less cost of sales) per customer, or some combination thereof. We suggest you think of your average deal value as either the first-year or lifetime gross profit you can expect from your typical customer.
If you’re a software company with a huge customer lifespan – several years, let’s say – you may end up over-spending on lead generation if you assume several years of revenue per customer. However, if you’re a B2B services company with an average contract size of $5,000, but your typical customer orders from you 3X over the course of their first year doing business with you, then you’re better off thinking of your average deal value as $15k, rather than $5k.
Let’s plug some numbers in here, to do an example:
Lead to Opportunity conversion rate = 50%
Opportunity win rate = 25%
Average deal value = $40k
Value per lead = 50% x 25% x $40k = $5k
Now, you know how much each lead is worth to you. You shouldn’t spend that whole $5k to acquire that lead, or you wouldn’t be making any money – you should spend anywhere from $600 – $1200 to acquire each lead so that you have profit left over.
What this means is, when you’re thinking about different lead generation strategies, you should be highly suspicious of any type of tactic that seems to offer leads for $10 – $80 apiece. Something is wrong with this, or they’re using a wildly different definition of “lead” than you are. Similarly, you shouldn’t invest in programs that result in a $2000 – $3000 cost per lead because you know your efficiency will be too low since you’ll be spending an overly-large chunk of your profits on marketing.
How To Create and Execute a Lead Generation Campaign Strategy
Now that you know what a lead gen campaign is and how it should be structured, let’s dive into the details of how to create and manage your campaign. Here are the 17 top tips from our experts on how to do it:
1. Establish campaign objectives
Your campaign objectives are the goals you want to meet by the time your campaign has ended. It’s easy to say you want “more leads” and “more revenue,” but you first have to understand exactly what that means to you. Are you looking for a certain level of lead qualification (IQL, MQL, or SQL)? Are sales your only conversions, or can that be a downloaded piece of gated content or a form fill?
Once you know the answers to those questions, you can start to outline your campaign objectives against your lead gen funnel.
As you see above, your audience may be at various stages within the funnel, and your objectives will change depending on where they are and where you want them to end up. For instance, if your goal is to guide leads who are already aware of your brand toward the consideration stage, you’re going to want to see increases in traffic, views, and engagement. But if you want to raise brand awareness, that may be the hardest objective to measure. In that case, you’ll look mainly at reach and impressions.
Once you’ve got a good handle on your goals, it’s time to start analyzing your audience.
2. Define your buyer persona
Creating a buyer persona is one of the first and most critical steps when building your lead gen funnel. You’ve likely already done some in-depth research on your buyer persona, but if not, there are a few tips to keep in mind:
Your buyer persona should be more detailed than a general target audience (so you’re not targeting every possible SaaS lead – just the right ones). You want to have not just demographic information but psychographic and behavioral attributes as well.
2: Research your audience and Identify problems they face along their journey
Remember that your buyer persona has a problem, but they may not yet be aware of it, especially if they’re at the very top of the funnel. Once you have your buyer persona nailed down, you can begin to do some specific customer research to find their most pressing pain points.
Remember, as depicted above, a pain point is not a solution. When they’re still early in the funnel, they aren’t looking for a solution yet, so if you come storming in with one, you’re likely to scare them off.
Instead, focus on figuring out what those specific pain points are, then work to make sure they’re aware of them and slowly begin to guide them toward solutions (that only your product can offer, of course).
You may already have a good idea of who your buyer persona is or which target audience you’re aiming for. But if you’re a startup growing your brand, expanding into a new market, or just need new leads in your funnel, you’ll want to really dive into the research here.
There are many ways to research your audience. You could survey existing customers, invite loyal customers to participate in a focus group, or check out your competitors’ followers on social media.
Remember, you want your audience research and your buyer persona to be as detailed as possible. This should go well beyond demographics and should include psychographic and behavioral attitudes.
3. Map your customer journey
Usually, the buyer’s journey falls into the same general stages as your funnel. But a customer journey can be a bit more in-depth, with more steps along the way and more teams and individuals involved. This is especially true for B2B brands that tend to have a much longer buying cycle.
While there are stages of the buyer’s journey that remain consistent across industries and business types, some will be unique to your brand.
Once you know who your buyer persona is, you can break that down even further into your campaign target. This is an incredibly specific and narrow segment of your audience that you plan to aim for directly.
Your campaign target will be a combination of several factors — your ideal buyer, their position in the funnel, and where you want them to be in the buyer’s journey. Then, you’ll need to consider how to reach that specific audience in order to achieve your campaign objectives.
4. Choose Your Campaign Type
There are a wide variety of lead gen campaign types, and the one you choose will usually depend on the other factors you’ve considered up to this point — target audience, funnel, objectives, etc.
Let’s take a closer look at varying types of lead gen campaigns and how they can work for your brand.
Inbound lead generation
Inbound lead generation falls under the umbrella of content marketing. It involves creating content assets (usually called lead magnets in this context) that draw leads into the funnel. Content can be gated or ungated and can be designed to align with each stage of the funnel. Inbound also includes other types of organic and paid marketing, like SEO and PPC.
SEO
Search engine optimization is one of the most effective ways to connect leads with your brand. It involves targeting keywords related to your brand so you’ll pop up in search results. SEO works best when you target specific, long-tail keywords that fulfill user search intent.
Content marketing
Content marketing will vary depending on where in the funnel you’re targeting your leads. TOFU content will include more general information, blogs, listicles, etc. MOFU content gets more in-depth with ebooks and whitepapers, and BOFU content really pushes the brand with free trials, case studies, and demos.
PPC
PPC is a form of paid inbound marketing. You can target PPC campaigns to raise brand awareness or make a specific offer. Your goals will guide the type of PPC campaign you run. If you want more traffic (so, more new leads in the funnel), you’ll probably run an awareness campaign. If you want warmer leads, a retargeting campaign may be your best bet.
Email marketing
Lead gen relies heavily on email marketing, which is often made easier through marketing automation. Inbound email marketing involves getting leads to sign up or subscribe to your newsletter or mailing list. Once you have them, you can follow up with a variety of campaigns to nurture them through the funnel.
Social media
Your social media platforms are a powerful asset to bring leads to your brand. You can run paid social posts to gain new followers and also use your platforms organically to engage with and nurture existing followers.
Outbound lead generation
Outbound lead gen shifts the power dynamics — in this case, you become the pursuer trying to woo the lead into your funnel. Here are some of the most popular methods of outbound lead gen:
Social media outreach
Outbound social involves reaching out to leads directly, usually through direct messages (DMs). This can be a risky approach, as people don’t always like it when strangers (especially brands) slide into their DMs. Make sure you’re doing the inbound work first — creating an organic presence for your brand — before you get too personal.
Cold email outreach
Outbound email entails sending emails to people, companies, or lists you haven’t contacted or interacted with before. You’re casting a wide net with cold emails, so you want to make sure they’re as personalized as possible.
Content syndication
Content syndication is when you distribute the lead gen content you create across multiple channels to make sure it gets in front of exactly the right audience. Cold emails would fall under the umbrella of content syndication, as do other approaches like telemarketing.
Cold calling
As mentioned above, cold calling, or telemarketing, is a form of content syndication. This isn’t an easy tactic, as you need to have a lot of data (valid phone numbers) to begin and a team that’s confident and comfortable on the other end of the line (and used to getting hung up on).
Referral programs
Referral marketing is probably the most hands-off outbound approach because your existing customers do a lot of the heavy lifting. They’re the ones bringing new leads into the funnel, so what you need to focus on is equipping them to do that. Offer incentives for referring new customers or contest entries for social shares, etc.
Content and lead generation go hand-in-hand. You can get all the leads in the world into your funnel, but if you haven’t created the right content, you’ll see them quickly exit.
Consider your audience, your goals, your funnel, and the type of campaign you want to run, then work on plotting out the content you’ll need to support it.
Start thinking now about where you’ll distribute this content. You’ll likely want it on your blog and your social media platforms. But think outside the box as well. You may want to supplement with a paid campaign or look at engaging in forums like Quora and Reddit. You may also want to pursue guest post opportunities, appearances on podcasts, etc.
5. Create the right offer for each stage of the buying cycle
As we’ve mentioned, what you offer your audience depends quite a bit on where they are in the funnel and what stage of the buyer’s journey they’re at.
You wouldn’t, for example, want to offer a top of the funnel (TOFU) lead an in-depth how-to or product spec sheet. You also wouldn’t want to offer a BOFU lead who’s ready to buy a generic, awareness-focused checklist.
Make sure your offers are strong and that they’re designed for each audience segment at the particular funnel stage you’re trying to target with your campaign.
6. Design and optimize the campaign
There are three phases to this process if you want to get the best results out of your lead gen campaign:
- First, create the landing page you’ll direct the audience to, where leads will be captured.
- Next, set up email automation to nurture leads once they’ve signed up.
- Finally, monitor your campaign through A/B testing and make adjustments as needed.
Each of these three elements is critical to the performance of your campaign. The landing page will hook the leads with a strong offer and clear CTA. The email nurture campaign will reel them in with other valuable and relevant content. And the A/B testing will keep squirmy leads from wriggling away by narrowing down the strongest content and creative.
7. Promote your offer
There are many ways to promote your lead gen offer, but most of them fall into two groups: paid or organic. Paid advertising is just as it sounds — you pay for ad placement, whether it’s in search, display ads, or on social media. Organic is unpaid promotion. This usually happens on owned or earned media — your blog, your social media profiles, your website, news releases, etc.
There’s no right answer to which is best for your brand. Often, you’ll want to use a combination of paid and organic channels to get maximum results. Wherever you distribute your content, be sure that it’s aligned with the audience and designed to reach your campaign objectives.
8. Use the right lead generation tools
When you’re planning out a lead gen campaign, the good news is that you don’t have to go it alone. There are numerous tools out there designed to help you find and capture the right leads for your brand.
To start, you’ll need a solid CRM, like HubSpot. Then you’ll want a form scraping tool, which gathers all the information from your lead gen forms and compiles it for you. You may also want additional tools, like heat maps that show you what actions visitors take on your page or CTA templates that help you design CTAs that convert.
9. Ensure your messaging is consistent and delivers on the promise
When you’re putting together an offer and the creative around it (copy, visuals, CTA, etc.), you want to make sure that you’re not overpromising. In this era of slick advertising and savvy consumers, your leads will know when they smell a rat.
Make sure your messaging — from ads to social posts to landing pages and emails — is consistent and accurate. Remember that your end goal isn’t just snagging an email address or a phone number — it’s nurturing a lead that will become a customer — one that will hopefully keep coming back for more and bringing others with them.
10. Perform lead scoring
Lead scoring is a methodology in which you assign points for certain actions and use those points to qualify your leads on a spectrum from cold to warm.
Your leads should look something like this:
- IQLs: Information Qualified Leads are the coolest and have likely only taken one action on your lead scoring model.
- MQLs: Marketing Qualified Leads are warmer and have taken a couple actions. They are familiar with your brand and are likely in or getting near the consideration stage.
- SQLs: Sales Qualified Leads are the warmest. They’re in or near the decision stage and are ready to choose a brand and make a purchase.
11. Collaborate with sales team to qualify leads
How do you know what actions take an MQL to SQL? You can’t know if you aren’t working closely with your sales team.
At the same time, if your sales team doesn’t know what you’ve done to nurture the lead to the point they’re handed off to sales, they don’t have the information they need to close the deal.
What you need is a solid sales enablement strategy to ensure that marketing and sales are working together for a seamless transition.
12. Create a social media strategy for lead generation
You’ve got to be strategic if you want to leverage your existing social media profiles for lead generation. The first and most important consideration is which platform to focus on. You want to be where your audience is already hanging out. So, for instance, your B2B crowd is much more likely to be on LinkedIn instead of Instagram.
Speaking of LinkedIn, it’s an excellent tool to use for lead generation. You can use a combination of organic content distribution, paid posts, and LinkedIn’s lead gen forms to maximize your leads and bolster your brand’s presence.
13. A/B test all components of your lead gen campaign
A/B testing is one of the surest ways to guide your lead gen campaign to success. In fact, all growth marketing hinges on testing and experimentation, and for good reason — it delivers results.
A/B testing works so well because of its simplicity. You test just one component at a time — headline, CTA, offer, etc. — and then make adjustments as you go.
Be sure you’re testing every piece of your campaign, from your ads to your landing page to your social media posts — but only ever one element at a time.
14. Create a communications strategy to follow up with leads
Getting leads into your funnel isn’t worth much if you aren’t following up and communicating with them regularly. Often, the next step in a lead gen campaign is an email campaign. A nurture campaign can be automated to ensure emails are sent whenever the appropriate trigger (a certain action or a period of time) is met.
Just remember how crucial this is. Because if a lead takes an action but doesn’t hear from you again, they’ll be in and out of your funnel at record speed.
15. Track everything
One of the last but most crucial steps of this process is to monitor and analyze your lead generation campaign metrics. The metrics and KPIs you track will be determined by your original campaign objectives, but some of the most common would include traffic, downloads, and conversions.
However, you likely want to pay attention to micro-conversions as well. Micro-conversions are those that don’t necessarily generate revenue but do move the lead further down the funnel and increase the chances of a full conversion.
Micro-conversions can cover many actions, like downloading a discount code, watching a video, or sharing a social media post.
Lead Generation Strategy Ideas
As we’ve said, B2B lead gen is a whole different animal from B2C. While some strategies may cross that divide, for the most part, you’ll want to implement different tactics for a B2B audience. Here, we have 17 killer ideas that will get leads in your funnel and move them through to conversion.
#1: Assemble the perfect go-to-market team
Whether you’re a Marvel fan or DC fan, you know this: having the right team makes all the difference. What would the Avengers be without Iron Man? Or the Justice League without Superman?
Fortunately, you don’t need to have supernatural powers to assemble (or be part of) an amazing lead gen team. What you do need is a team of individuals who are all committed to the cause and are ready to play their own part in achieving your shared goals.
The important thing to note here is that successful lead gen will cross teams and departments. It’s critical to have a sales enablement strategy to ensure the transition between teams is smooth and seamless. But what happens if you don’t have an internal team to do the heavy lifting? That’s when you want to look for an outsourced or third-party partner to offer you the support you need. At RevenueZen, our lead gen experts can craft a B2B strategy that helps you acquire IQLs, MQLs, and SQLs, but even better, helps you convert them into customers that keep coming back for more.
#2: Use LinkedIn to attract leads
Remember, if you want to move leads down your funnel, you need to hang out where they are. For your B2B audience, where they are is typically on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great place to share your lead gen content, and applying a little organic elbow grease is sure to get you new followers and potential IQLs.
However, if you have some money to put behind it, you can plan a paid social push using LinkedIn’s lead gen forms.
Lead gen forms on LinkedIn tackle one of the biggest lead gen challenges of all — getting potential leads to submit forms from their smartphones. With LinkedIn’s lead gen forms, you can now custom target your social audience, no matter where they are in the funnel.
Remember that LinkedIn users are looking for thought leadership and educational/learning opportunities, so make sure any lead gen content you share offers both.
#3: Create a content marketing strategy
Content should be at the heart of your B2B lead gen strategy. B2B buyers aren’t looking for fluff or slick ads — they want valuable information that serves a purpose, and that’s what you’ll need to deliver if you want them to stick around your funnel.
In spite of the importance of content to B2B lead generation, there’s a pretty shocking number of marketers who never create a documented strategy. However, those who do tend to have the most successful campaigns.
So how do you put content marketing to work for your lead gen strategy? Here’s how:
Prioritize long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords sound complicated. Who wants to rank for “purple polka dot women’s shirts” when you could rank for the much higher volume “women’s shirts” and get all that traffic instead?
Here’s the deal: People searching for “women’s shirts” might be interested in browsing what you’ve got to offer, but they’re also looking at all your competitors, so they aren’t too likely to convert. Someone searching for “purple polka dot women’s shirts,” on the other hand, will be thrilled to find that you’ve got exactly what they’re searching for, and therefore they’re far more likely to convert.
Make sense?
With long-tail keywords, you’ll be up against less competition and more likely to win conversions. While the example above was B2C, the same basic ideas hold true for B2B as well. If someone is searching for a product or service you offer, you want your keywords to be as specific as possible so your leads are already warm when they jump into your funnel.
Conduct competitor analysis to learn what works for competitors
Speaking of the competition, you’ll want to know what they’re up to at all times, so you can protect your potential leads (or snatch them out of their claws). A competitor audit will help you do that. You can use an SEO tool like Ahrefs to find out what keywords they’re ranking for, so you can work to outrank them, either organically or with paid search.
You can also conduct searches for your brand and your competitors. The results will give you insight into what your audience is really looking for. Check out the “People Also Ask” section in Google results to find other opportunities to rank for new long-tail keywords as well.
Create content that helps your target audience understand your core offerings
The B2B audience is driven by learning. They crave information and want to know how things work. They are also outcome-focused, so anything you produce should lean heavily on the outcomes they can expect from using your product or service.
Remember to keep content simple, narrow, and clearly focused. Instead of creating piles of scattered marketing collateral, hone in on a few key pieces you can share on your site and across your social media platforms.
Create evergreen content that continuously generates leads
Evergreen content is that which is relevant no matter when a lead accesses it. It is not dated or reliant on a particular time frame. What’s even better is that it is a cost-efficient way to manage your content. You can create and publish evergreen content at any time, and you can come back to it and refresh or repurpose it to maximize your impact. And what’s more, over time, evergreen content just performs better than dated or timely content.
Your evergreen content will continue to pull in new leads without you doing much to it. However, as mentioned above, you can also choose to update it to get even more out of it.
Conduct and publish original research
Primary research is a huge driver of new leads, particularly within the B2B audience who are focused on acquiring new knowledge.
Publishing your original research offers numerous benefits to your brand. For one, it positions you as an automatic thought leader in the subject you’re researching. It can also get more eyes on your brand if it’s picked up by another publication. And it fulfills your audience’s need for data and information.
Remember that these potential leads want to know all about your product and how it will solve whatever problems they’re experiencing. But it doesn’t come easy. In fact, most B2B buyers see 13 pieces of content before they make a purchase decision.
Luckily, research is a pretty heavy hitter. They can argue fluff, but they can’t argue data.
Tap into alternate audiences with guest posts
Guest posting is one of the top tactics used by outreach specialists to build links and increase authority for a brand’s website. A successful guest post will get your brand in front of an entirely new audience and should significantly increase traffic to your site. In fact, you might see anywhere from 50 visits up to 500.
An added benefit of guest posting is that it seriously boosts your search rankings and plays an integral role in your comprehensive SEO strategy.
Create viral content that gets social shares
Viral content isn’t just a happy accident. You can work toward creating content that goes viral and use it to get your leads engaged and moved further down your funnel.
The first and probably most important pillar of viral marketing: It makes people feel something (usually a good sort of something).
You can also incentivize leads to make your content go viral. Once you create something that evokes a strong emotion, you can offer some goodies in exchange for social shares. That might be exclusive discounts, contest entries, or product upgrades.
Publish more case studies
We’re not saying that B2B buyers are nerds, but they really do love their data and numbers. One of the best ways to showcase that information is through a case study.
In addition to sharing the indisputable facts and outcomes of using your product or service, a well-executed case study will help B2B buyers make a case of their own. Most of the time, your B2B audience needs to get buy-in from their higher-ups — sometimes numerous times. Giving them well-developed and in-depth case studies makes their job easier and makes you more likely to get a conversion.
Answer questions on forums like Quora and Reddit
When we say, “be where your audience is,” we often mean social media. But remember that there are probably other places they’re hanging out online, and they might very well be looking for product recommendations and reviews in those places.
Always search Quora and Reddit for users asking questions about your brand, your competitors, or the products or services you provide. It’s a great way to engage with and win leads, and it boosts your reputation as a thought leader.
#4: Optimize landing pages for conversion
Getting traffic to your site is one thing, but keeping them there long enough to get them to convert is something else entirely. You’ll want to make sure your landing pages are optimized to provide a great user experience and offer a clear end goal.
Don’t be afraid of a long landing page. As long as it isn’t too cluttered or difficult to navigate, a landing page with more information will probably outperform all your shorter landing pages. In fact, longer landing pages can generate up to 220% more leads.
Here are a few landing page tips to keep in mind:
- Only include one single CTA throughout.
- Position the CTA at critical locations — above the fold, in the sidebar, and at the bottom of the page.
- Use your top keywords throughout the page.
- Don’t link to or mention other others/promotions — keep the focus singular.
- Make forms simple, quick, and easy.
- Include an estimated time to read or time to complete a form.
#5: Video marketing
Video marketing is a popular choice for lead gen, whether it’s B2C or B2B. Though the strategy behind each will differ, the results show that video marketing is consistently a high producer of qualified leads.
So how should a B2B brand utilize video marketing? Here’s how:
Educate with YouTube videos
Remember that your B2B audience wants to learn something, so when they watch one of your videos, that comes with certain expectations. They expect to be informed and enlightened, and they expect you to be the expert on the subject.
Fulfill all of that by creating in-depth YouTube videos about your product, service, or industry. Remember that YouTube is the second-largest search engine, so be sure your videos and descriptions contain your most important keywords.
Live videos
Your leads might be more likely to respond if they feel they’re part of the conversation and not just watching a canned video. Live videos like webinars, events, or unscripted content like AMAs (ask me anything) allow your leads to become participants with your brand and encourage them to stay on the hook and in the funnel.
Send personalized videos to qualified leads
Remember when we said that B2B lead gen has been changed forever by the remote revolution? It has. With events becoming less commonplace and most communication happening digitally, it’s important to look for new ways to personalize your strategy and create real and authentic connections with leads.
One way to do that is through a personalized video. This is most successful when used as a precursor to a live, real-time connection, like a phone call or video chat. Record a video that’s casual and informal, and be sure to use your lead’s name. Speak to them with authenticity, and you might find they’re much more open during face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) communication.
#6: Leverage distribution platforms to push content to market
Where you push your content is every bit as important as what content you create. The most effective channels for content promotion and lead generation vary depending on whether you’re planning a paid or organic content strategy.
With paid marketing, social media and paid search get the best results. Results with paid campaigns also come much quicker, so if you’re looking for fast traffic and revenue, that might be your best bet. Organic, on the other hand, typically takes longer and needs a carefully planned strategy for both content and SEO. Social media is also incredibly popular, but for B2B marketers, the platform you choose is absolutely critical.
As we’ve mentioned, LinkedIn is the top spot for B2B content promotion. But you probably won’t find your audience on Instagram, so keep that in mind when building your content strategy.
#7: Grow your email list
Email marketing went through a slump a few years ago, but now it’s back and better than ever, especially when it comes to B2B leads. In fact, it’s been rated the most effective tactic you can use for B2B lead gen.
Warm up your cold leads with a funny email…
…or tempt MQLs with exclusive sneak peeks on major product launches and updates.
Your email list is your old reliable. It’s the safety net that will be there when your other tactics aren’t getting the results you want. Just remember to clean it up regularly to maximize your results.
#8: Collaborate with B2B companies offering complimentary products
Collabs are all the rage right now, but they aren’t just for TikTok videos. Look for brands that offer services or products that complement your own. For instance, if you provide project management software, you might partner with a calendar or scheduling app that you can integrate into your own product.
Do some research, and start reaching out to brands that might be amenable to a mutually beneficial partnership.
#9: Sales and demand generation should work together
Demand generation usually happens at the top of the funnel and is mostly concerned with brand awareness. Conversely, lead gen happens more often toward the bottom of the funnel and involves lead scoring and qualification. Lead gen is also much more likely to work closely with sales, as they are nearer to the conversion point.
However, if demand gen isn’t also working with sales, it’s going to be harder to get colder leads down the funnel. It’s best to work out a sales enablement strategy that builds rapport between sales and demand gen, so by the time they get to the bottom of the funnel, the sales team knows what to expect.
#10: Use social proof to earn trust
Social proof doesn’t have anything to do with social media. In fact, it’s way more old school than that and dates back to the original form of advertising: word-of-mouth. Social proof is made up of all the cues we get from the world around us that tell us that a brand is something we want to try.
It’s a fact that most consumers are more likely to purchase something that someone else they know and trust has purchased, and it’s no different for B2B buyers. This is why case studies that feature real customers are so powerful. Also consider prominently displaying your reviews and ratings and any professional certifications or awards.
#11: Include live chat on your website
Live chat is now the preferred method of communication for most B2B buyers. Want to know why?
It’s interesting to note that B2B uses live chat for sales far more often than B2C or for its most common usage, customer support. The speed and accuracy of live chat make it a perfect avenue for nurturing leads and helping them through the funnel.
#12: Use pay-per-click to get quick results
As we mentioned earlier, if you’re a B2B brand that needs to make sales now, you can’t really find a better way than PPC or paid advertising. It’s cost-effective and fast. For unestablished brands or startups, it also provides an opportunity to play in the sandbox with your biggest competition. When you’re paying for ad space, you can outrank even a long-established company that’s put years into SEO.
What types of paid ads should you be using?
Google ads
Google ads often come in the form of paid search. These are the SERP (search engine results page) listings that appear at the very top of results. They are always clearly marked as an ad, but they are a powerful tool to get you to the top of the pack, quickly.
You can also use Google Ads for display ads, which are banners or sidebar visual ads that appear on various websites. All Google Ads can be highly targeted so you can hit the exact audience you’re looking for, usually by selecting your priority long-tail keywords.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are extremely versatile and reach a vast audience. Even though LinkedIn is best for B2B, you can’t beat the reach you’ll get with Facebook. Plus, Facebook allows you to create a seemingly endless array of ad types, so you can keep things fresh and interesting.
Shopping ads, image carousels, videos, and more will make your ads stand out.
Use retargeting and remarketing to convert visitors
Retargeting is one of the most effective ways to push leads through the funnel, especially when you’re trying to transition MQLs to SQLs. Your audience has already shown some interest in your brand, either by clicking on a previous ad or visiting your site. Now is your opportunity to appeal to them again, with an exclusive offer or an urgent countdown that a deal is about to expire.
Leads in your retargeted audience are much more likely to convert.
#13: Make it easy for leads to book a demo
How many clicks does it take to get to a real person? If it takes too many, your leads are likely to bail. You want to create a form or live chat submission process that is simple, quick, and easy, so your leads can book a demo without hassle.
If you combine this with a frictionless onboarding process in the post-sale stage, you’ll end up with highly satisfied customers that are more likely to give you referrals and put new leads into your funnel.
#14: Use freebies to generate leads
The best B2B brands have one thing in common: they give away their best product for free.
Sounds like bad business, right?
Wrong. Turning your top product into a freemium or forever-free model is one of the top ways to get a consistent stream of warm leads.
Just like Buffer, one of the top social media management tools, offers free access to its platform:
Or how design tool Canva has a forever free plan:
Freebies are even better than demos or trials because the commitment is so low for leads to get on board. Once they do, you can sell them on premium packages and upgrades based on their needs.
#15: Diversify your efforts with social media
Social media is a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds, and some of the most powerful branding is happening there. As we mentioned, LinkedIn is your priority when it comes to building social media strategy, but you shouldn’t ignore other platforms. In fact, just be sure you’re not ignoring social at all.
Be sure to check out what your competition is doing on social — which platforms they’re most active on, how they engage with followers, and what they’re posting to find new leads — and then borrow their ideas where you can.
#16: A/B test everything
A/B testing is such an easy thing to do but often gets overlooked when implementing a complex B2B lead gen strategy. However, A/B testing everything you do is crucial to your overall success.
The most important fact to remember with A/B testing is that you should only test one element at a time. That might be the copy for a PPC ad, a headline on your landing page, or the CTA that should drive your leads to convert. This is a simple method of testing that delivers clear results.
#17: Measure results
Some results will be obvious — if you’re getting more traffic and more sales, you’re doing something right.
But what if things aren’t working exactly as you’d hoped? Digging into the data will give you the insights you need to correct course and adapt. If you’re struggling to get leads into your funnel, maybe you need to take a closer look at your buyer persona or the social media channel you’ve invested the most in.
Or if your content is killer, but conversions are low, look carefully for where your warmed-up leads are jumping ship. If it’s right before they seal the deal, there could be a hiccup with your sales enablement strategy and the handoff from marketing.
You want to keep an eye on all the results — not just the good ones. Often, those vanity metrics paint a lovely picture, but they obscure the view of what’s actually happening. Remember — numbers don’t lie. So dive deep, even when they aren’t the numbers you want to see because they will always be your source of truth.
Hire a Lead Generation Company to Create and Execute Result-Driven Lead Campaigns
Putting together a lead gen campaign comes with a lot of planning and consideration, and if you don’t have a dedicated lead generation team, it can be pretty overwhelming. It pays off in the end to go with a trusted agency partner and work with them to design a campaign that brings in leads and nurtures them through your funnel.
At RevenueZen, we’ve got a lead generation team working in conjunction with experts in SEO, content, email, paid, and inbound marketing, so we’ve got all your bases covered.
