B2B Lead Generation: The Complete Guide

1. B2B Lead Generation,

2. A lead is a prospect who has been identified as a potential buyer for your products or services. Leads express their interest by sharing their contact information, such as an email or a phone number. • Prospects can show interest in a range of ways. Some common ways include: • By downloading a free guide. • Following your social media account. • Completing a contact form. • Others What is a lead?

3. What is lead generation? Lead generation is the act of identifying the prospects and initiating their interests so that they can be nurtured and turned into customers. Below are the key elements of B2B Lead Generation: . Identifying prospects that are likely to benefit from your products or services . Attracting the prospects through different marketing campaigns . Screening prospects based on their level of interest in your offers and how . much they match your ideal buyer profile

4. Types of Leads The way businesses categorize leads vary greatly from company to company. Here are different criteria on the basis of which B2B leads can be divided. On the basis of purchase intent Cold sales lead: It refers toa business that is a good fit for your product or service but hasn’t engaged with your brand yet. Warm sales lead: It refers to a business that has interacted with your company directly by taking certain actions, such as filling-out contact forms. Hot sales lead: It refers to a business that has shown a strong intent to purchase.

5. On the basis of different levels of sales and marketing funnel Top of the funnel: These are the passive leads that come from indirect CTAs on your website. For example, when visitors sign-up for the email newsletter. Middle of the funnel: These are the leads that show more buying intent. These are website conversions. For example, they may have requested a video demo. Bottom of the funnel: These are the leads that directly request a phone call, consultation or office visit, etc.

6. On the basis of the actions the leads take after the initial conversion Information Qualified Lead (IQL): The leads that providetheir contact information in return for some type of useful information, such as an eBook, whitepaper. These leads have just started to research a solution. Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): If an IQL becomes interested in the solutions that you have to offer, they are known as Marketing Qualified Leads. Such leads usually download the information about your company’s product or service.  Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): If the MQL moves to the decision stage, they become Sales Qualified Lead. An SQL is a potential customer that shows an interest in buying your company’s product/service. 

7. Why should you classify the leads into different categories? Only 4% of website visitors are the ones that actually make a purchase. [Source] By classifying leads into different categories, you can make sure that your company is following up with the warmest leads and spending less time with the less interested leads. Here are some other benefits of classifying leads into different categories: It enables businesses to customize the lead nurturing process. It makes the coordination between sales and marketing teams smoother. It improves conversion rates.

8. How to Qualify a Lead? While qualifying a lead, we determine whether or not a prospect fits our target customer profile and has the potential to become a long-term customer. It involves the following steps: Step 1: Prospect and Gather Data about the potential customers There are various tools that can be used to perform prospecting activities. Online databases such as Data.com and LinkedIn are some examples. During the prospecting process, information is gathered about the potential buyers, which can include: · Name Job title Email address Company Phone number Other useful information After the information has been gathered, the next step is to qualify the leads.

9. Step 2: Ask Qualifying Questions Qualifying questions help B2B companies determine if a given company is the right fit for their product or service. Below are the examples of some qualifying questions: Are you the key decision-maker (KDM)? What problem are you currently facing? Do you need the products and services that we offer? Do you have a specific budget in mind?

10. Ask Survey Questions Survey questions are used to gather specific information about the prospects. Some examples of survey questions are: How many employees do you have? Since when you have been using the services of the current provider? When is your contract up with your current provider?

11. Lead Scoring Leads can be qualified quantitatively using the lead scoring method. In this method, leads are assigned a score to determine their willingness to buy and levels of interest.  For example, you may score a business higher if they regularly engage with you on social media. The higher a lead’s score, the more qualified the lead.  Lead scoring is considered highly effective and a top revenue contributor by 68% of marketers. [Source]

12. Lead Generation Process Below are the steps involved in the lead generation process The marketing channels, such as your website, social media pages, or blogs, lead visitors to your website. That visitor then takes action by clicking on your call-to-action (CTA). That CTA takes your visitor to a landing page, where you capture lead information in exchange for an offer. The offer could be anything of value that’s being “offered” on the landing page, like an eBook, a template, etc. Once the visitor has given you their information in exchange for the offer, you have a new lead.

13. Vital elements of a successful B2B lead generation Strategy Below are the vital components of a B2B lead generation strategy that you need to prepare beforehand: Customer touchpoints: Touchpoints refer to the places where customers interact with your brand throughout their journey. By identifying the right touchpoints, you can offer the right information on the right platform. Touchpoints can be online as well as offline. Examples of Online Customer Touchpoints: Website Chat Newsletter Blog Examples of Offline Customer Touchpoints: Networking events Trade Shows Conferences

14. Customer Journey Map This is the visual representation of how your customers interact with your brand at various touchpoints. This will help you ascertain the kind of information you will offer to your prospects at different stages of their buyer journey. Below are some essential elements of a customer journey map: Diagrammatic representation of customers’ journey Interactions that will place between the customer and the brand Areas where customers are likely to experience difficulties Important areas that make or break the relationship

15. Ideal Customer Profile and buyer personas This defines the companies that would fit best for your products and services.  By defining the ideal customer profile and buyer personas, you would be able to target the right companies for quality lead generation. Here are the basic steps involved in building the ideal customer profile: Gather client data Describe your clients using data Identify the best clients Write down the ideal customer profile Find your ideal customers and start targeted lead generation

16. Lead Generation Funnel This is the visual illustration of how prospects come to know about your business and get converted into a lead. By using a lead generation funnel, you will be able to guide your unknown visitors through a journey toward conversion.

17. Effective channels for B2B Lead Generation For B2B lead generation, online, offline as well as a combination of both are used. Below are some common channels for B2B lead generation.  Email Marketing Content Marketing Live Events PPC SEO Print Media Social Media

18. The best B2B Lead Generation Strategies Although there are many lead generation strategies used by B2B companies, here are some strategies that yield good results: Create irresistible lead magnets Lead Magnets are the helpful resources that you can offer to a prospect in exchange for their contact information. Some examples of lead magnets are: Webinars How-to guides Case studies Research reports Publish SEO friendly blog posts Add a dynamic CTA Retargeting website visitors Targeting competitor’s keywords on Google Ads Leveraging LinkedIn to target high-value prospects Hosting Webinars

19. Publish SEO friendly blog posts Google is the trusted friend of B2B buyers when looking for solutions to their problems. Therefore, in order to be discovered by potential customers, it is important to publish SEO-friendly blog posts. Here are the 7 key elements of an SEO-friendly blog post: Pick the right target keywords Use the keywords in the right places in your post Create unique, engaging and value-driven post Focus on writing longer blog posts – 700 words minimum Optimize the images for SEO as well Use internal links within the post

20. Add a dynamic CTA at the end of your blog posts. Once you have published SEO-friendly blog posts, add a dynamic call-to-action at the end of the post. Dynamic CTAs are smart, personalized CTAs that are tailored according to the visitors. They can be used in several ways to generate leads, such as: For promoting offers based on buyer’s lifecycle For tailoring the offers to different buyer personas For retargeting Here’s an example of dynamic CTA offering free shipping to first time visitors.

21. Retargeting website visitors A majority of the website visitors leave the site without sharing their email on their first visit; retargeting those lost visitors on social media and using Google adwords allows you to establish communication with them and offer them something relevant. Did you know? 43% of retargeted website visitors are likely to convert

22. Leveraging LinkedIn to target high-value prospects LinkedIn is a platform where you can interact with high-value prospects directly and reach out to the decision-makers of the target companies directly. To convert such customers, you have to offer something unique and valuable in which high-level professionals would be interested. Hubspot found LinkedIn to be the best social media platform for lead generation.

23. Hosting Webinars Hosting Webinars can showcase your expertise in the field. Through webinars, you can also show your prospects how you can solve their problem. 73% of B2B marketers deem webinars as an effective way to acquire high-quality leads. (Source) Here are some effective ways to increase leads using webinars: Incentivize the webinar attendees with enticing offers at the end of your webinar. Market your webinar to the right audience. Deliver value through webinar. Create informational webinar landing page Focus on post webinar follow-up to improve sales

24. Metrics to track to measure the success of your lead generation strategies Here are some lead-generation metrics you should be tracking to manage and improve your B2B lead generation. CTR or click-through rate: It is the number of clicks you receive on your ads. CPL (cost per lead): This measures the amount each lead costs your marketing team.  Conversion Rate: By using this metric, you can track the percentage of visitors to your website or landing page that convert Leads per channel – This means how many leads are generated per channel. Month-to-date success - Knowing where each channel stands against their monthly target every week. ROI – Calculating Return On Investment helps you ensure you don’t invest budget in areas that fail to deliver a result. 

25. Lead Generation Takeaways Lead Generation builds proper sales pipeline and increases revenue. Identify high-value leads and focus on them. Offer something of value to the prospects to convert them into customers. Experiment with different lead generation channels and strategies Track the important lead generation metrics.