Lead generation can target individual customers or businesses, depending on your requirements.
Let’s explore lead generation in more detail and look at some of the best practices to get your business to the next level.
What is B2B Lead Generation?
When your target customers are businesses, you will need to find some B2B leads.
The thing about lead generation is that leads need to be qualified to be of any actual use.
Unqualified leads have a higher chance of wasting your sales team’s time. Not only is this frustrating, but it is a waste of your money.
You want to focus on qualifying leads early in the process, so your team spends their time well, and you get a good ROI.
There are two types of B2B leads.
Marketing Qualified Leads
Marketing qualified leads are often known as MQLs. They are leads that have been targeted as having a high potential of becoming a paying customer.
These leads become identified as qualified by your marketing teams’ engagement with them.
You may wonder how a marketing team can decide that a lead is qualified. Well, the potential lead’s behaviour tells the marketers whether they seem interested in your product or service.
Some examples of behaviours that can qualify a lead are:
- Revisiting your web page more than once.
- Completing forms on your webpage.
- Downloading some content from your webpage.
- Subscribing or signing up for more information.
Sales Qualified Leads
Sales qualified leads are better known as SQLs. They have progressed from MQLs to further on the sales funnel, and they are ready now to engage with your sales team.
SQLs do not just show an interest, but they also now show an intent to purchase your company’s product or service.
So, what behaviours might a SQL exhibit?
- Express intent during a telephone call with your sales team
- Indicate intent in an email
- Show interest in purchasing a Linkedin message
- Ask for more information about your offering
- Request a sample or demo
What is the difference between marketing and sales in lead generation?
As there is some crossover in the work of sales and marketing when it comes to lead generation, it may help to provide you with some explanation of their roles.
For the most success in lead generation, sales and marketing teams should work closely together.
Lead Generation - Sales Team
A sales team performs two distinct tasks when it comes to lead generation.
A Sales Development Representative (SDR) will find and score leads, engage with them and make appointments.
A Business Development Manager (BDR) will be responsible for doing demos, closing deals and increasing your revenue.
The aim is to generate a pipeline of leads with the SDRs creating the opportunities and the BDMs following up and closing the deals. The BDM role is more senior and will be given to someone who has met their targets and shown an ability to perform.
Lead Generation – Marketing
There are two types of marketing involved in lead generation.
Demand Generation: This is the marketing that focuses on the whole B2B lead generation revenue cycle. They nurture leads to take them from noticing your brand to becoming a customer and eventually a supporter.
Growth Hacking – This marketing focuses on generating rapid revenue growth. They usually work alongside new businesses and take a more experimental approach.
All marketing involves analysing data, reviewing their decisions and building B2B lead generation.
Lead Generation Strategies
Lead generation is carried out through some common sales and marketing activities.
Sales lead Generation Strategies
B2B lead generation in sales is called B2B outbound.
It involves several strategies.
Cold Calling
SDRs can telephone leads to explain the advantages of your product or service to qualify them for further engagement. Automation makes the process more scalable.
Outbound Email
SDRs reach out to leads via email to hopefully connect and get a positive response.
Social Media
The most lucrative social media platform for connecting with businesses is LinkedIn. It enables your brand to engage and build relationships with key decision-makers in your target audience.
Marketing Lead Generation Strategies
B2B generation in marketing is mostly demand generation.
Content Marketing
Digital marketing involves using the content on your website to attract leads and convert them via relevant, valuable content. Content can be blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts, ebooks, or guides.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
ABM is the process of identifying the key decision makers in your target companies. Personalised campaigns can then be targeted at them.
Growth Hacking
Growth hackers use unorthodox techniques to create demand and grow a business quickly. They will use strategies such as incentives and contests to attract leads rapidly.
How can technology help with lead generation?
Technology is the answer in B2B lead generation if you want to scale up.
Many activities and tasks take a lot of time, so automation can make these tasks faster and more efficient.
Cold calling and emails can easily be automated. Marketing aspects, including blogging and social media, can be supported with content management systems.
Your Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) capture an enormous amount of data that should not be wasted. Analysis of demographics, trends and habits can improve future lead generation and drive more sales.
The amount of technology available for sales and marketing has grown enormously over recent years. Many tools are available to optimise lead generation, and lead generation companies often use technology to support their clients to scale up lead generation and target leads more successfully.
You can see that lead generation is a complex process. Outsourcing lead generation is an effective way of delivering far better results and getting a better ROI.
If you are a business wanting to improve your lead generation, why not contact us at Curral London? We offer a B2B lead generation service comprising our LinkedIn Prospecting service and Appointment Setting.
We combine various approaches to secure highly qualified leads that meet your target demographic. Get in touch to find out how we can help you.
We put your brand at the heart of our service to deliver qualified leads that match your target profile.