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<\/p>\nUnderstanding how to generate B2B leads is fundamental to sales success. It\u2019s also<\/i> fundamental to that sales and marketing alignment we are always going on about, helping to maximize those results and successes.<\/p>\n
Sounds pretty good, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
If you want to know how to generate B2B leads (or simply refresh your memory), read on.👇<\/p>\n
B2B lead generation is the process of attracting new potential customers or leads, through content marketing, ad campaigns, partnerships, direct outreach and more.<\/p>\n
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The goal of generating leads is to collect their contact information so your sales team can qualify and enter them into the sales funnel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve built a good list of qualified leads, sales reps can begin the process of lead nurturing<\/a>. The ultimate aim? The lead will eventually be ready to sign a contract and become a paying customer.<\/p>\n There are two main methods for generating B2B leads: inbound and outbound.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at some of the most effective lead generation activities in each. We\u2019ll start with inbound B2B leads, and how that can look.<\/p>\n Inbound activities aim to attract relevant leads and drive them to your website (or landing page), where they have the opportunity to fill out a lead form or key information. This is predominantly done through marketing efforts, so read on to find out why being pals with marketing will get your sales team places, and exactly what they get up to to get you there. 🚀<\/p>\n The goal here is to attract, inform, and engage your desired audience so they\u2019ll willingly offer their contact information, which can then be added to your CRM.<\/p>\n Here are four examples of effective inbound marketing<\/a> techniques that will help you generate those B2B leads.<\/p>\n B2B content marketing<\/a> commonly includes blog posts, eBooks, and whitepapers. Each piece of content should be carefully thought out, and speak directly to the right target audience and B2B buyer persona<\/a>.<\/p>\n The most impactful types of content focus on topics that strike a nerve with your target reader \u2013 you know, talking about their pain points, challenges, and threats.<\/p>\n The key is to address these topics from an informed, consultative perspective.<\/p>\n You not only want to demonstrate that you understand your target audiences\u2019 concerns or frustrations, but you should also make it clear that your company possesses the knowledge, data, and tools required to overcome them.<\/p>\n ☝️ That right there is the key to providing real value and becoming a trusted resource for potential customers.<\/p>\n But how do you know which topics to focus on?<\/p>\n A leading sales tool like Similarweb Sales Intelligence<\/a> offers an Insights Generator<\/a>, which automatically produces customized insights for any prospect or customer in a matter of seconds. Insights can focus on a variety of factors, such as the competitive landscape, emerging disruptive trends, or innovative new processes that resolve everyday pain points.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve developed informative and value-adding content, the next step is thinking about how you\u2019ll push it out to your desired audience. Here are some ideas for content distribution:<\/p>\n Whatever your content, you\u2019ll want a clear CTA (call-to-action) within it to drive readers to a lead form. Some typical content marketing CTAs for generating B2B leads include:<\/p>\n Sometimes, you may choose to \u2018gate\u2019 a piece of content marketing \u2013 like an eBook or whitepaper \u2013 which requires a reader to fill out a lead form in order to access it. Gated content is great because it instills the feeling in the lead that they\u2019re getting exclusive access to particularly valuable knowledge, while you gain the benefit of collecting their contact information.<\/p>\n SEO, or search engine optimization<\/a>, is an organic marketing practice that aims to drive organic traffic to your website<\/a>, blog, or landing pages via common search engine queries.<\/p>\n For example, if you search on Google for, \u201chow to make cr\u00e8me br\u00fbl\u00e9e\u201d (good luck with that), all of the top results you\u2019ll see will start with similar terminology: How to make Cr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e, Vanilla Cr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e, Easy Cr\u00e8me Br\u00fbl\u00e9e.<\/p>\n The magic of SEO is you get people to voluntarily go to your website or blog, simply by answering their questions.<\/p>\n Applying SEO to content marketing is a great way to generate leads to your B2B business. Moreover, you can assume that those leads have a relevant use case for your product or service, since they\u2019re searching for information that you provide.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/b> Ensure your SEO strategy<\/a> is targeting the right keywords with Similarweb’s Keyword Research Tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n Email marketing is another great way to generate leads in B2B sales<\/a>, and there are so many types of email campaigns you can create too.<\/p>\n Different emails serve different purposes; they all contribute to the overall goals of introducing leads to your company, nurturing them so they\u2019re \u201cwell-baked\u201d, and nudging them to engage.<\/p>\n For example, you can have an email newsletter that compiles your top blog content, eBooks, and whitepapers. You could also create emails dedicated to exciting company announcements, product updates and features, user onboarding, and of course, lead nurturing.<\/p>\n In all of these different types of emails, you\u2019ll want to account for the following three factors.<\/p>\n Hosting webinars is a great inbound marketing tactic that can help you generate numerous B2B sales leads, all at the same time.<\/p>\n Webinars are informative online events in which an expert delivers a presentation, or a panel discusses specific topics that would be relevant to your target audience<\/a>.<\/p>\n They\u2019re usually 40 minutes to an hour long and include some kind of visual, as well as a Q&A session at the end.<\/p>\n To register, every attendee must fill out a registration form, including all of the contact details your sales team needs.<\/p>\n But<\/i> to get people to register, you need to prove the webinar will offer them valuable information. To determine the topic or subject matter of your webinars, you\u2019ll want to understand what your ideal prospects actually care about. Ask yourself questions like:<\/p>\n Similarweb Sales Intelligence makes deriving this intel effortless. You can easily uncover a variety of useful information, trends, and insights on the competitive landscape<\/a> that would be invaluable to your prospects \u2013 and may even make them eager to begin the sales process.<\/p>\n So, now let\u2019s take a look at some types of outbound marketin<\/b>g<\/strong> and sales<\/strong> efforts to generate B2B leads.<\/p>\n Outbound marketing is when you actively push your company message out to prospects you\u2019ve deemed would make a good customer, regardless of whether or not they previously indicated an interest in your product. This is why you\u2019ll find that both marketing and sales manage outbound operations.<\/p>\n When you want to generate leads in B2B sales, outbound activities are a must. Here are seven strategies that are sure to give you a leg up.<\/p>\n Before you can reach out to prospects, you want to work out who to reach out to. Unlike inbound marketing (where your efforts will attract both relevant and irrelevant leads), outbound efforts involve selecting specific prospects to contact, based on a specific set of criteria.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a good place to recommend 👉 our guide to creating an ideal customer profile<\/a>, including an ICP template. 👈<\/p>\n As well as sophisticated sales prospecting tools<\/a>, such as Similarweb Lead Generator, where you apply your ICP to your search using our selection of filters – saving you a whole bunch of time and energy.<\/p>\n With digital insights for more than 100 million websites, the Lead Generator enables sales teams to identify ideal prospects who are ready to buy. It also has a robust Contacts tool, which provides direct contact information for key decision-makers in each prospect company.<\/p>\n When using Sales Intelligence to generate B2B leads, you also have the ability to segment leads \u2013 such as by industry, secretary, customer persona, and sales triggers \u2013 to create personalized and compelling outreach materials.<\/p>\n The cold email is both an art form and a science. When determining how to generate leads to your B2B business, they are essential. They\u2019re often the first step in establishing a correspondence with a prospect \u2013 that is, if they decide to answer your email.<\/p>\n Which is, indeed, the biggest challenge related to cold emails: proving your value to the prospect. After all, why should they take the time out of their busy work day to read an email from yet another stranger who\u2019s trying to sell them something?<\/p>\n Here are a few strategies for writing an effective cold sales email<\/a>:<\/p>\n Okay, so there are a number of things that make paid advertising tough to pull off. Increasingly stringent data privacy laws, the elimination of third-party cookies<\/a>, and rising advertising costs on major tech platforms are just a few reasons. But hear us out.<\/p>\n Paid advertising remains an integral part of the B2B lead generation strategy<\/a> for many companies. And, when it\u2019s done right, it can drive valuable new business to your company.<\/p>\n The key to effective paid advertising is a multi-platform strategy. That means you\u2019ll want to divide your ad budget across paid search channels (like Google and Bing), social media channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok), and others, such as billboards and ads in industry trade publications.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to determine the right channels for your target audience by asking yourself questions like:<\/p>\n By taking the time to answer a few basic questions, you\u2019ll be in a far better position to create compelling ads that drive clicks and, ultimately, generate B2B leads.<\/p>\n Retargeting is a great way to engage prospects and generate leads in B2B sales. It involves displaying ads to individuals who previously interacted with your website, such as browsing your solutions pages, reading blog posts, or clicking on other ads.<\/p>\n It works under the assumption that someone who has explored your website or content in the past would be receptive to seeing it again. Perhaps they\u2019re in the market for a solution like yours, or they\u2019re already comparing options.<\/p>\n By presenting these viewers with relevant ads, you can help nudge them to take the next step and fill out a lead form, so someone from your sales team can contact them.<\/p>\n The key to maximizing retargeting success is relevance<\/b>. Don\u2019t just spam prospects with generic ads – this will get you nowhere. Instead, segment them according to which pages they interacted with, and create specific ads that will develop their interest further.<\/p>\n If you want to know how to generate B2B leads, you must know this outbound sales tactic<\/a>. Attending, speaking, or hosting a booth at an industry event are all great opportunities to meet relevant prospects face-to-face and make an engaging introduction.<\/p>\n Most in-person events require attendees to wear badges that include a barcode or a QR code. When you scan this code \u2013 usually when attendees enter a presentation or exhibition booth \u2013 you automatically receive their contact information.<\/p>\n This is a great way to quickly fill out lead lists on your CRM with folks who work in the industry and have an interest in learning about your offering.<\/p>\n Social media can be a great place to build rapport with high-value prospects (and yes, generate B2B leads).<\/p>\n You can interact with prospects on social media in a bunch of ways. For example, LinkedIn is where company decision-makers like to hang out, where you see groups your prospects are part of, where you can join groups to get involved with discussions, pose questions and polls, share interesting articles, and respond to others\u2019 posts to promote engagement. That kinda stuff.<\/p>\n When you have a good relationship with a customer and they\u2019ve experienced positive results from your product or service, they\u2019re more likely to refer your company to their network.<\/p>\n An introduction from a current customer is a super effective way to generate B2B leads, because you gain the benefits of social proof while taking advantage of their relevant connections.<\/p>\n And, if you\u2019re lucky, your customer will help you make your case (and sale), by talking about their first-hand experience and successes.<\/p>\n When you need to improve a core sales metric \u2013 like<\/i> generating B2B leads \u2013 it can feel overwhelming. The stakes are high, the pressure is on, and we all know attracting leads\u2019 attention can be difficult.<\/p>\n Lucky for you, there are lots of tried and true methods out there, so you don\u2019t have to start from scratch. Try out the proven lead generation tools<\/a> and tactics we covered above, and see what\u2019s right for you..<\/p>\n And, when you enhance your sales strategy<\/a> with robust sales intelligence, you\u2019ll maximize results while minimizing energy and resource outposts. What\u2019s not to love?<\/p>\n How do you generate B2B leads?<\/h2>\n
Inbound sales and marketing:<\/b><\/h2>\n
1) Content marketing<\/h3>\n
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2) SEO<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n3) Email marketing<\/h3>\n
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4) Webinars<\/h3>\n
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Outbound sales and marketing<\/h2>\n
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Create a list of ideal prospects<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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<\/p>\n2) Send cold emails<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n3) Paid advertising<\/h3>\n
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4) Retargeting<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n5) Industry events<\/h3>\n
6) Social media interactions<\/h3>\n
7) Current customer referrals<\/h3>\n
The hard work has been done for you<\/h2>\n