What is B2B lead generation and how do you get started?

by Bryan Lewis 4 years ago 3 min read

Did you ever wonder how businesses attract buyers and how they maintain rapport with regular customers? Perhaps these companies use B2B lead generation techniques.

Fundamentally B2B (Business to Business) lead generation is the process of sourcing and identifying potential buyers that may be interested in your products and services.

In order to make sales, a business must find companies that can benefit from their products and services. Lead generation is a procedure of targeting decision-makers within these companies so you can offer your services to them.

But what is the foundation of B2B lead generation and how can you implement these techniques to expand your business? Let’s take a look at the different components of B2B marketing and how these processes can optimize your promotion strategies.

What is a lead?

In the sales industry, a lead is known as a quality prospect that shows an interest in what products and services you’re offering. It’s important that you target decision-makers within a company that you’ve identified as a lead. Your prospect should have one of the following roles in a business:

CEO
Director
Manager
Sales executive

Sourcing decision-makers apply if you’re selling your products and services to corporate companies. For private individuals, they will qualify as a lead if they’re simply looking for what you’re selling.

But it’s essential that your leads are able to make decisions based on what products and services they need in order for their business to expand. Ensure you’re able to deliver quality deals with these leads so you’ll be the first person they go to if they need more of what your industry offers.

So how exactly do you find and reach out to these leads? There are two ways you can source quality prospects: either through inbound or outbound lead generation.

What is inbound and outbound lead generation?

Using various lead generation platforms you’re able to connect with your target audience easily. Some businesses use eight lead generation channels to connect with their prospects, whereas other companies only use three online platforms to reach their target market.

As mentioned before you can source leads using two methods called inbound and outbound lead generation.

Inbound lead generation method

The process of inbound lead generation is all about making your brand visible to your target market. It involves creating online content that leads your prospects to your websites or landing pages using various B2B marketing techniques.

The foundation of inbound lead generation is offering something valuable to your prospects in exchange for their information such as email addresses and phone numbers. Inbound uses the following techniques to make their brand easier to find on the internet:

The use of SEO in blogs
Developing a website
Using social media platforms
Creating online content

The inbound B2B marketing strategy is the most effective today as it’s where most of your qualified prospects will come from.

Outbound lead generation techniques

The outbound lead generation technique is the process of manually reaching out to leads using your preferred channel. This technique allows you to aim for specific leads so you’re guaranteed to find quality prospects.

Outbound lead generation platforms include telemarketing, emails and event marketing.

Planning your lead generation strategy

With all marketing techniques, you need to have a proper strategy in place so your B2B lead generation will work for your company. Follow these B2B lead generation strategies to find quality prospects:

Know your target audience: Always have clear ideas of who your prospects are and how they conduct business.
Setting goals: Determine the quality of your prospects and how many you can generate in a month.
Getting a sale: Ensure you select prospects that are guaranteed to buy your products and services.
Transform your prospects into customers: You’ll need to think of your long term goals nurture your prospects so they can transition into regular paying customers.

The benefits of outsourced B2B lead generation

Even though B2B lead generation marketing is the best way to bring in new business it can also be time-consuming. Fortunately, you don’t have to manage your marketing department on your own. Simply outsource B2B lead generation services to optimize your marketing strategy.

Getting a company to help you with your lead generation will save you a lot of time so you can focus on other parts of your business. The benefits of outsourcing lead generation services include the following:

Targeting and converting quality prospects faster
Decrease overhead costs
Additional marketing tools will be available to you
Highly skilled individuals will be working on your marketing consistently

Final Thoughts

Source an executive lead generation salesperson to handle all your B2B marketing so you’ll be guaranteed a quality outcome. They will generate more leads that are of the highest quality so there will be more prospects to customer conversion.

Once you convert all your qualified prospects into customers you’ll have a higher turnover and you’ll be able to generate additional revenue.

B2B lead generation will expand your business quickly so you can make a bigger profit in a shorter span of time. It’s definitely a marketing strategy every new entrepreneur should execute in order for his or her business to grow exponentially. Will you take up the challenge?