In an ideal world, B2B sales would be a breeze. Your ideal customers find you and approach you for business immediately - all without implementing complex lead-generation tactics. But reality paints another picture.

B2B Lead generation is an uphill battle. You end up doing a bunch of different things, from cold calling to writing blogs, hoping that something finally clicks. If this sounds familiar, you must create an iron-clad B2B lead generation strategy with the right blend of outbound and inbound methods to get qualified leads into the pipeline. 

Luckily, you have come to the right place. We've compiled the ultimate list of actionable tactics to save SDRs and marketers from confusion and generate a steady stream of leads.

23 Lead Generation Strategies You Must Check Out

Cold Email Campaigns

Every SDR worth their salt knows the value of cold emailing. Unfortunately, the average cold email response rate today is just 8.5%. It doesn't mean that cold emailing is dead; it simply means you must alter your approach. Here are a few helpful tips:

• Find leads using LinkedIn Sales Navigator or other sales prospecting tools to find qualified buyers with high buying intent.
  

• Keep the email concise and under 100 words. If the email is too text-heavy, add some images or gifs.
  

• Personalize the email beyond the prospect's name. If you truly want to catch their attention, you must do your homework. Plena can help you extract valuable intent data and personalize the email in minutes!
  

• Add a case study to seal the deal. When your prospects can see the value you offer your clients, they'll be inclined to give your product a shot. 
  

• Avoid spam filters like the plague. Ensure your email subject line doesn't contain spammy words like "FREE," "Earn cash," etc. 
  

Here's an example of a cold email you can send to your prospect by resonating with their pain point:

Cold Calling

Cold calling usually gets a bad rep because when you hear "cold call," your mind instantly thinks of an annoying telemarketer forcing you to buy something. 

However, 69% of buyers have accepted phone calls from new providers in the last 12 months, so you must tweak your cold call script.

Research and Target

‍Before making cold calls, thoroughly research your target prospects. Understand their industry, pain points, and how your product can solve their problems. Plena's AI robots can help you tailor your pitch to address their needs by crawling the web and finding insightful information from public sources. ‍

Craft a Compelling Elevator Pitch

‍Your opening statement should be concise and engaging. Communicate the value of your product in a way that captures the prospect's interest within the first few seconds. Highlight the key benefits and outcomes they can expect from using your solution.‍‍

‍Personalize and Segment

‍Don't treat all leads the same way. Segment your list based on relevant criteria like company size, industry, and pain points. This lets you personalize your message and offer, increasing the chances of resonating with the prospect's unique needs.‍

Handle Objections with Empathy

‍Expect objections and be prepared to address them. Listen actively to the prospect's concerns, acknowledge their perspective, and respond with empathy. Instead of arguing, offer solutions that show how your product can overcome their objections and provide value.

LinkedIn Outreach

B2B Lead generation via LinkedIn is a familiar idea. For years, salespeople have used the same old playbook for LinkedIn outreach, thinking they had the formula down pat— long messages with random jargon promising significant results.  

Our actionable tips for perfecting the LinkedIn outreach messaging:

1. Be Concise
2. Resonate with the recipient
3. Be Direct
4. Create a Sense of Urgency
5. Include a Call to Action

While LinkedIn's sales navigator is a boon for SDRs, you must cross-verify your data with multiple sources and target the prospects with a higher buying intent. 

💡You can also check out our article on How to Write Effective LinkedIn Outreach Messages.

LinkedIn Ads

Advertising on LinkedIn is a powerful way for B2B marketers to generate sales leads. 

However, given that the platform has diverse audiences and unpredictable algorithms, there is no exact strategy that always increases your brand awareness through social advertising. Luckily, there are some tips for using LinkedIn Ads to increase sales leads.

‍

Target Precisely

Narrow down your audience using job titles, industry, location, etc., to reach the right people.

Craft Compelling Copy

‍Create attention-grabbing ad copy and visuals that address your audience's needs.

Optimize Landing Pages‍

Design dedicated landing pages with clear CTAs and offer valuable content in exchange for contact details.

Track and Adjust‍

‍Monitor metrics, experiment with variations, and refine your campaigns for better results.

Webinars

Hosting webinars has become one of the hottest trends for B2B brands today. Whether it's to unveil a new feature or discuss industry news, it's an excellent forum to get your name out there. Remember that the webinar's goal isn't simply to hype up your product because it can drive potential buyers away.

Have an education-first approach by conducting polls and hosting a Q&A session toward the end where the audience can interact with the panel members. Follow up with the attendees after the event and ask for their feedback on how you can improve. Here are a few ways you can reach out to them:‍

Engaging Follow-Up Content

After the webinar, send out follow-up emails that include valuable content related to the webinar topic. This could be a summarized version of the webinar, additional insights, or related resources such as whitepapers, case studies, or e-books. Providing valuable content keeps the webinar topic fresh in your target audience's mind and establishes your authority in the industry. 

Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) in these emails, guiding them to download or access the content on a landing page. This landing page can require them to fill out a short form to access the content, effectively converting them into leads.

Personalized Outreach

Segment your webinar attendees based on their interests, job roles, or other relevant factors. Send personalized follow-up emails that address their specific pain points or challenges discussed during the webinar.

Personalized outreach shows that you genuinely care about their concerns, increasing the likelihood of them engaging with your content and becoming prospective customers. You can use AI robots to automate personalization at scale, thereby saving you the time spent on intense research.

Trade Shows and Events

Attending in-person events is a great way to meet potential buyers and network with other professionals in your industry. Stay active in online communities and keep an eye out for upcoming events in your area. Once you get there, make sure you:

• Design an eye-catching booth that clearly communicates your value proposition
• Train your team to engage attendees with a compelling pitch.
• Offer interactive experiences like demos or workshops.
• Collect contact information and preferences for follow-up.
• Engage with attendees on social media before, during, and after the event.

Influencer Marketing

B2B marketers can use this strategy to drive website traffic, build a solid social media following, boost sales for their latest launched products, increase exposure, build authority, and connect with new users. 

Consumers believe influencers' endorsements as they have a broader audience on social media and are easily recognized by their target audience. Collaborating with influencers lets you tap into their audience base, attracting further leads.

Though micro-influencers have a smaller audience, many businesses choose to collaborate with them for several reasons:

Customers Relate Better to Micro-influencers‍

Consumers often consider micro-influencers their peers with similar pain points. Hence, their recommendations feel more authentic and honest to the audience. 

Reaches Niche Markets

‍Micro-influencers' audiences typically follow them for a particular content category. Hence, collaborating with micro-influencers enables you to effectively reach your niche's target market. 

Better Engagement Rate

‍According to data, micro-influencers have better engagement rates than their higher counterparts. Partnering with them yields better ROI compared to more prominent influencers.

Cost-effectiveness‍

Collaborating with micro-influencers costs less, considering their smaller audience. If the influencer loves your service or product, you may also bag a free endorsement.

Here's an example of an Instagram influencer and mental health advocate promoting Slack to her users by sharing how she uses it in her day-to-day life, thereby increasing brand awareness in a new market beyond B2B companies:

Referral Program

According to a study, 84% of B2B consumers' purchases begin with referral programs. You can quickly close qualified leads and generate sales with a carefully planned referral marketing strategy. 

Referral marketing programs include referral incentives, such as discount coupons, gift cards, etc. 

Referrals are extremely powerful for your business in more ways than just lead generation. This modern marketing program works well because who doesn't like good discounts? It is what you offer to your consumers for referring their family and friends to your website.

Here are a few B2B lead generation strategies for using the referral program:

• Ensure that the reward you offer pays off the real value to your consumer.
• Fix the number of referrals to your consumers to inspire them to earn referral incentives.
• Ask your customers to write reviews, as they can also drive leads.
• Experiment with the referral program till you find the one that best suits your consumers and business. 
• Keep making changes in the referral requirements or offer different rewards.

Partnerships

When you partner with a business that complements yours, you can co-market your services, promote each other's products, or offer joint packages to consumers. 

Here are a few critical benefits of partnerships for lead generation: ‍

Reach New Audiences

Partnerships can help you reach out to new audiences and tap into new networks that might be difficult to access on your own. You will reach a larger pool of potential customers, increasing the leads generated.

Cost Savings

Partnerships can help you save costs on lead generation efforts. By sharing knowledge, resources, and expertise, you can reduce the costs related to lead generation and improve your ROI.

Increased Credibility and Trust

‍When two or more reputed businesses partner or collaborate, they are committed to offering excellent services and products. This can raise your brand awareness, making it easy to generate leads and convert them into paying customers.

Access to New Resources

‍Partnerships can provide access to new marketing channels, technologies, and expertise. You can leverage these new resources to generate more efficient lead-generation strategies.

SMS Marketing

Businesses leverage text messaging to promote deals, incentives, and customer support, providing an effective avenue to reach a larger audience with a personalized message. It also allows brands to track opens and clicks, which is valuable for gauging consumers' interest levels and tracking ROI.

Here are a few ways you can use SMS marketing to find leads:

• Reach out to consumers who have signed in to receive messages.
• Offer limited-time deals and promotions and encourage consumers to take action by creating a sense of urgency.
• Conduct polls or surveys via text to get customer feedback to grow your SMS marketing list.
• Keep your brand top of mind by sending regular messages regarding new updates, developments, or other topics of interest.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

59% of consumers search online for businesses every month using Google, making SEO a highly effective tool to generate high-quality targeted leads that have a chance of closing a deal. 

An effective B2B SEO strategy places a business in front of people looking to buy the products it sells or engage with its services. Here are a few actionable ways to use SEO for better lead generation:

• Understand your user intent.
• Optimize for mobile users.
• Write highly appealing meta descriptions.
• Keep track of organic traffic and turn them into leads.
• Set up filters based on onsite behavior.
• Pay attention to the quality of traffic to your site.
• Aim long tail keywords while doing web searches.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is an essential and effective piece of a successful B2B lead generation strategy. It generates more leads than a traditional marketing strategy and provides several overall benefits to your business.

However, the success of content marketing relies entirely on the "quality of content." If it's high-quality content, it will engage your consumers and capture interested leads.

Here are a few best practices for B2B content lead generation:

• Identifying your audience is crucial to figuring out your target audience. This makes creating content that revolves around your customers' expectations easier. 
• Categorizing the right content in webinars, social media posts, and blogs will help you generate leads. 
• Distributing your content across various channels, forums, and groups where your customers generally hang out is equally important.
• Map your content strategy by including what kind of content, how frequently you publish, and how often you share your content on social platforms. 

Lead Magnets

As a business, any data or action you want from your consumers has value, be it their phone numbers or email addresses. This kind of data is quite personal and cannot be given away freely; hence, you have to offer something in exchange to earn that information.

That's where lead magnets come in. If you can offer something compelling in exchange for the info from your prospects, you will have a far greater chance of receiving it. This way, the consumers get what they want, and you get to add and retain a consumer.

So, a value-packed lead magnet must fulfill the following criteria for the targeted customer base: 

• It should have all the information the customers need and contain enough value to make them provide their contact information.
• It should contain graphics, images, and headlines that don't feel like textbooks.
• It must show that you have expertise, skills, and knowledge in your products or services.
• It should be easily accessible without any marketing gimmicks.
• It must address a real problem; otherwise, the B2B customer won't bother purchasing your service or product. 

Lead Generation Tools

Sales teams are often tasked with many responsibilities, leaving them little time to focus on building viable sales strategies. Investing in a B2B lead generation tool can massively cut down this load. Here's how Plena is a savior for stressed-out sales teams:

• Access leads from 12+ sources, along with LinkedIn
• Gather intent data and focus on high-intent buyers only 
• Personalized outreach with data collected by AI Robots
• Saves time and resources spent on research 
  

Book a demo with us to learn how we can empower your B2B lead generation game.

Social Media Content

Social media is an excellent way to advertise your brand to prospects. It's a two-way communication channel to build a solid relationship with your audience. It involves listening and interacting with the audience to understand their requirements and pain points. 

The data collected by these interactions is valuable for targeting and tracking highly qualified leads. The final goal of a B2B lead generation strategy is to build and develop a pipeline of the most relevant prospects and convert them into customers.

Get more leads by using the following best-performing content:

B2B Referral Contests

Running social media contests is a great way to promote your service or product to increase brand awareness and generate leads for your business. Consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations, and B2B referrals have a higher conversion rate, which helps you generate new business efficiently.

B2B Live Videos

The popularity of videos is by far more excellent than any other form of content. B2B marketers find that live videos positively impact their ROI, given that 80% of consumers prefer watching videos to reading blog posts.

B2B Discount Posts 

Promoting flash sales and discount posts is common among e-commerce brands. Short-term ads on products can generate an average 35% increase in transaction rates. Hence, promoting an attractive social media sale with a link to the product page is beneficial.

Case Studies

Case studies are a valuable B2B social media marketing asset, enabling businesses to show how their customers have benefitted from their help. 

Content Syndication

Content syndication is a cost-effective and powerful lead-generation strategy that helps you redistribute top-performing content on multiple channels and platforms to extend its reach and visibility. 

The strategy can successfully reach a larger audience and generate more leads, but it's vital to syndicate content sensibly to maintain your brand's reputation.

Here are a few tips for using this strategy for lead generation:

Syndicate High-quality Content

Ensure that any content you syndicate is well-written, personalized, accurate, and informative. Publishing low-quality content on other sites will damage your brand's reputation. 

Choose Where You Syndicate

Conduct thorough research on which site best matches your business before syndicating your content. Some specific sites will be much better for your brand than others. 

Promote Your Original Content

When you syndicate your content, include a link to your website's original version. Doing so will help drive traffic to your site, enable optimization, and enable audiences to read the full article if they wish to.

Guest Blogging

You must grow brand awareness and build authority online to succeed at lead generation. Guest blogging can boost your reach in the target market, helping you secure the required backlinks to your site. If you plan well, all those readers can become fresh leads for your sales team. You can fill the top of your funnel with new leads by targeting other writers and blogs in your niche for guest blogging.

Here are a few benefits of guest blogging for lead generation:

Authority

When other brands trust you to post on their site, they believe you have something worthwhile to say. Guest blogging is a great way to build authority by showing expertise in your field. 

Link building

Link building forms a significant part of how search engines value your site—the more authoritative sites link to it, the more power your site benefits from them.\

Audience Building

You can have a double advantage as different users can make up social audiences and blog subscribers. You can target both kinds of audiences and convert a part of them into leads. 

Subscriptions

Guest blogging showcases your writing to the other blog's subscribers. When you share your post with your followers, you attract them to the other site, increasing the chances of subscriptions for both parties.

New Leads

More subscriptions mean a wider audience and fresh leads to pass to your sales team. With the data in the email signup forms, your teams can segment the TOFU readers into lead categories.

Video Marketing

Video content has become easily accessible to more people, thanks to the internet boom. Videos have a far better engagement rate than texts and images, making them a viable lead-generation tool to expand your brand reach. 84% of marketers say that video content helps them generate leads.

The videos are shared via social and digital channels, allowing businesses to share data through a modern communication medium. Your B2B video marketing strategy should improve sales leads by instilling trust in the consumers. 

Here are a few tips for using video marketing to increase B2B sales leads: 

• Prepare a specific budget for every video
• Understand your audience
• Convey a clear message to your audience through your videos 
• Optimize your videos as per different channels and platforms
• Educate the audience
  

Search Engine Advertising (PPC)

A good lead generation strategy involves a blend of organic and paid marketing. Paid ads on search engines offer a strategic and measurable approach to lead generation, allowing you to target the right audience, analyze results, and refine your campaigns for optimal performance.

Here's how you can use PPC to generate high-quality B2B sales leads:

Keyword Targeting

Choose keywords relevant to your B2B products/services. When users search for these terms, your ads appear, driving interested prospects to your landing pages.

Ad Extensions

Utilize ad extensions to provide additional information, such as site links, callouts, and contact information. This enhances your ad's visibility and encourages users to engage.

Landing Pages

Create dedicated landing pages tailored to each ad's message. Include a clear CTA and a form to capture lead information in exchange for valuable content.

Remarketing

Target users who have already visited your site but haven't converted. Remind them of your offerings through targeted ads to re-engage and encourage them to become leads.

Negative Keywords

Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic. This ensures your ads are shown to users actively seeking B2B solutions, improving lead quality.

Competitive Ads

You can hijack some of your competitor's traffic by running clever ads on their branded keyword.

Landing Pages

Your website landing page is a 24x7 sales rep. To generate B2B sales leads, you must create high-converting landing pages for your website designed especially for your audience. Landing pages allow you to capture data to nurture the leads into paying customers, significantly boosting sales lead generation.

Here are a few things to ensure your landing pages are effective:

• Use killer headlines and subheadings
• Including images 
• Opt for a minimal design
• Use powerful copywriting
• Explaining what you're offering and the problem you'll be addressing
• Have a clear call-to-action (CTA)
• Use a live chat functionality on your page to overcome concerns
  

Customer Reviews and Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials use storytelling to grab attention and build loyalty. They also help consumers use natural language, practice their referral pitches, and offer opportunities for improvement. They are easily shareable, leading to higher click-through rates, further enhancing online presence and search rankings.

Customer reviews and testimonials can grow your business in the following ways:

• Improves business credibility
• Connects with prospects at an emotional level
• Uses the power of storytelling to grab attention
• Build customer loyalty
• Connects easily through natural language
• Provides opportunities to improve and grow
  

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective methods to engage the target audience, generate leads, and nurture them into paying customers. Consumers are comfortable with this marketing channel and like interacting through Emails. 

Below are a few ways to use Email marketing for B2B lead generation:

1. Identify your target audience, whom you can contact through email to inform and engage them about your service or product.
2. Segment the email lists based on the buyer personas. 
3. Personalize email communication, which lifts the chances that the users will subscribe to any of them.
4. Repeat with follow-up emails after you send the initial one, with a frequency of at least 2-3 times weekly.

Web Analytics

Understanding your website's performance is an essential element of your marketing strategy. When using web analytics for lead generation, it is critical to take the time to understand your consumers' web experience and adapt your strategy to improve. You can use that to grow sales and optimize sales performance. 

Good B2B web analytics lets you make informed and data-driven decisions about your digital activity, such as website behavior, individual performance, customer engagement, etc.

Here are a few benefits of guest blogging for lead generation:

Identify Your Top Performing Content

Web analytics tools offer a detailed insight into which content attracts the most attention. This can help in creating the type of content that appeals to visitors, thereby boosting engagement and growing your customer base.

Monitor Leading Referrers

‍Website analytics can help you monitor which sources funnel the most traffic to your business website. You can evaluate this data and devise strategies to procure additional referrals from these sources.

Boost Website SEO

‍When you understand the interests and demographics of your audiences, you can craft content that targets them specifically, enhancing your visibility on search engines. 

Leverage Your Top Outbound Links

‍You can identify the most clicked links on your website that lead to other sites, analyze this data, and approach these websites with partnership proposals. 

Wrapping Up

As you can see, there's no dearth of B2B lead generation ideas out there. Whether you go the inbound or outbound route, you can attract qualified leads with the right tools and strategies in no time! 

If you want to perfect your outbound sales process, book a demo with Plena and unlock the power of AI robots for your sales team.