The complete guide to boosting your B2B lead generation

By Jennifer Montérémal

Published: October 24, 2024

Every company wants to stimulate growth and reach new customers. And in an increasingly digitalized and competitive market, one technique is gaining ground: lead generation.

The aim? Optimize your prospect discovery and conversion process, to get your sales off the ground 🚀.

Do you run a business-to-business operation?

This article outlines the contours of B2B lead generation. It explains why it's a strategic priority and reveals the best practices and tools for attracting, qualifying and transforming web users into committed customers.

Get ready for outstanding sales results!

See all software Lead Generation

Definition of B2B lead generation

B2B lead generation refers to the process of creating and characterizing qualified prospects in the context of business-to-business commerce.

In this context, a lead is an individual or company :

demonstrating an interest in a brand's products or services ;
and who provides contact information with the aim of initiating communication.

The aim of B2B lead generation is therefore to identify a business opportunity and then develop it throughout the sales process.

This operation involves various tactics and techniques, often based on digital marketing:

target identification,
creating attractive content as part of an inbound marketing strategy,
collecting contact details via a contact form,
prospect qualification,
lead nurturing, etc.

What type of company is B2B lead generation for?

The answer here is very simple: all of them!

Whether you're a self-employed entrepreneur, a very small business, an SME, an ETI or a major corporation, B2B lead generation is still the best way to find new customers.

All you need to do is :

your offer is of genuine interest to other professionals, and adds real value to their business;
the target companies are sufficiently connected, regularly surfing the web, consulting social networks, etc. ;
you remain patient, as you're dealing with rather long sales cycles.

How to generate B2B leads with inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is one of the best ways to generate qualified B2B leads.

Unlike advertising or outbound marketing, inbound marketing enables you to attract customers who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer, and then pass on their contact to your sales team to close the sale.

Find out more about how to do it 👉

Produce content to attract visitors

Producing content to drive traffic to your website - that's what content marketing is all about:

BtoB decision-makers enter keywords in search engines to find a solution to their problems ;
your blog addresses their concerns through articles;
you continue to optimize your content for SEO;
your website attracts qualified visitors. You then convert them into leads (data collection) thanks to :
- varied, high value-added content, such as White Papers ;
- careful conversion tools (CTAs, landing pages, etc.).

The aim of inbound marketing is therefore to transform the audience of your site (or your social networks) into prospects, and then into customers.

👉 Discover the methodology from A to Z with our complete dossier on inbound marketing strategy.

Winning customers with emailing and marketing automation

Once you've got your visitors' contacts, you need to qualify them and maintain the relationship.

Marketing automation plays an essential role here, optimizing all your marketing operations.

In particular, it enables you to set up automated lead nurturing campaigns, where personalized, targeted e-mails are sent to prospects at different stages of the sales process. Relevant content, special offers, reminders... keep them interested to guide them towards purchase!

👉 Note: the low cost of emailing makes it one of the most profitable marketing levers!

Improve your visibility on social networks

Social networks not only help you raise your profile, they also connect you with new prospects. We call this practice social selling.

LinkedIn, to name but one, but also Twitter or Facebook... they remain privileged communication channels for attracting, engaging and converting your audience organically.

For example, you can share on your pages:

blog articles,
case studies,
infographics,
videos,

designed to answer your potential customers' questions. All in a highly relevant way, thanks to integrated segmentation and targeting functionalities.

What's more, social networks encourage interaction between your community and your company, with the aim of developing a solid relationship of trust.

👉 In outbound marketing, social networks also support your prospecting efforts.

Other techniques for generating qualified leads

Using different prospecting methods

Even if it doesn't always fit in with modern digital marketing techniques, prospecting is nonetheless a proactive and effective approach to B2B lead generation.

And each prospecting method has its own unique advantages for reaching and engaging your potential customers. For example:

Telephone prospecting enables direct contact with your contacts. You quickly present your offer, understand their needs, overcome their objections... and therefore speed up the sales process.
Face-to-face prospecting gives you the opportunity to present complex products or services in a demonstrative way, create a human connection and observe prospects' reactions in real time.
Prospecting on LinkedIn, on the other hand, makes it much easier to find, identify and connect with your potential customers, thanks to the messaging system. As previously mentioned, the social network includes targeting functions, by sector of activity, position, professional interests, etc., among others.

👉 By combining different prospecting methods, you can extend your reach and, above all, multiply your business opportunities!

Use Adwords or paid search

Online advertising campaigns such as Google Adwords, Bing Ads or LinkedIn Ads are also part of a B2B acquisition strategy.

The advantage is that you can quickly put in place leverage to generate leads.

The disadvantage is that you often have to spend a high budget to position yourself on highly competitive keywords.

To promote your business to BtoB prospects through a campaign, remember that it's all a question of targeting!

👉 Two types of advertising are relevant for qualifying a BtoB prospect:

contextualized advertising occurs according to the nature of the web page content;
behavioral advertising appears according to the user's behavior, if they visit the site several times, perform specific Google searches, etc.

Buying qualified leads

This approach needs to be handled with care: the RGPD in fact imposes certain rules and the CNIL insists on the principle of prior information and the right of opposition.

But if you're leaning towards buying qualified leads, there are dedicated solutions such as Corporama.

This type of platform offers several advantages for contacting BtoB prospects:

compliance with RGPD legal obligations,
access to hyper-targeted files,
a constantly updated contact database,
integration of leads into your CRM.

The pros and cons of B2B lead generation

The advantages

There are many advantages to B2B lead generation:

👍 Precise targeting and improved lead quality: you focus your efforts on qualified prospects who are genuinely likely to be interested in your company. This increases your chances of conversion.
👍 Profitability: B2B lead generation generates a very good ROI for your marketing actions.
👍 Tracking and measurement: the results you achieve are easy to measure. You can optimize your strategies and make decisions based on concrete data.
👍 Expanding the customer base: by expanding the company's customer base, you multiply your opportunities for growth and success.

The disadvantages

However, there are a few disadvantages to the method:

👎 Time and effort required: a good B2B lead generation strategy will require significant time and effort in order to achieve your objectives. Inbound marketing, in particular, requires a great deal of patience. But the results are long-lasting!
👎 High competition: in certain sectors, lead gen sometimes faces strong competition, making it more difficult to capture web users' attention.
👎 Data sensitivity: since the process requires the collection and storage of private data, it involves careful attention to compliance and regulatory issues.
👎 Expertise: to succeed, you need to fully understand and appropriate the techniques, tools and practices. But don't panic, there are plenty of online resources as well as specific training courses.

What tools do you need to generate qualified leads?

When it comes to lead generation, there are a number of software tools that can help you become more efficient and effective throughout the buying process.

Here are just a few examples:

🛠️ CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

ByPath is a CRM and Sales Intelligence solution specialized for BtoB activities. It greatly accelerates lead generation, as you have access to 200 million qualified contacts in over 12 million companies. The platform then supports you in your prospecting: who are the key contacts? When is the best time to contact them? And how do you go about it? ByPath takes care of everything, at every stage of your sales cycle.

We should also mention Zoho CRM, the software that integrates artificial intelligence to become a veritable assistant to your sales force. AI identifies and generates qualified leads from any acquisition channel and guides your sales force to create a specific sales funnel, contact a lead at the right time, etc.

🛠️ Marketing automation platforms

Webmecanik, for example, optimizes your conversion rate by applying inbound marketing techniques (creation of landing pages/web pages, lead nurturing, etc.). Thanks to its connection with your CRM, you can effectively track your prospects and manage your business opportunities. Last but not least, Webmecanik integrates lead scoring functionalities, so that your sales teams know where to focus their efforts.

Another example is Blacksales, which harnesses the full power of BtoB emailing, combining it with the precision of artificial intelligence to automate your prospecting to the maximum: analyzing databases, detecting interesting prospects according to your criteria, sending contextualized and personalized emails at the best time, etc.

🛠️ Specialized lead generation software

Sparklane is a B2B lead generation solution that provides contacts likely to be rapidly engaged. In particular, it exploits predictive lead scoring, whose great strength lies in the contextualization of business signals. All you need to do is prospect for high-quality leads using a personalized approach.

In parallel, Lead the Way is a website tracker. It observes and tracks browsing cookies as well as the IP address of visitors to your pages. This tool provides real leverage for BtoB digital prospecting: identification of potential prospects, advertising retargeting, targeted e-mailing, etc.

🛠️ Social network management tools

With Agorapulse, your teams gain in productivity: they program publications, personalize posts by tagging contacts or other professionals... in short, they spend more time engaging in conversation.

ProspectIn, meanwhile, is a secure extension for your LinkedIn account, designed to automate your prospecting on the social network. Thanks to its scenario functionality, you can create action sequences similar to those used for your emailings, promoting very interesting open and conversion rates.