B2B leads: what they are, how to generate them and tips to improve your processes
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2025 8:30 am
There is one element that plays a fundamental role in both marketing strategies and sales processes: the lead . This term is used to refer to a potential client. Thus, the more business contacts you have, the more sales you can close.
So it's not hard to understand the importance of lead generation some of the key features of band for a business. In fact, this was proven in a study by the Content Marketing Institute .
The survey revealed that generating leads is the most important goal for 85% of B2B marketers interviewed.
It turns out that selling to businesses is not as simple as selling to end consumers. On the contrary, closing deals with businesses is complex and time-consuming. But it is possible to optimize that process even before the sales team takes action.
It all depends on good work in B2B lead generation , as well as the qualification of those contacts. Do you want to improve this process? Then, keep reading!
Below you will find the following topics:
What are B2B leads?
How to generate B2B leads?
How to improve B2B lead generation?
What are B2B leads?
B2B (business to business) leads are potential customers from companies in your database . This includes contact information, such as email and phone, of the people who make the purchasing decision within those organizations.
We can even draw a parallel with what happens in the B2C (business to consumer) market. Companies strive to get visitors to enter their contact details so that they can feed them with information and messages that lead them to get closer to the brand.
Often, that nurturing is done through email marketing . When those people are ready to buy, sales work comes into play, with the goal of driving the lead to make the purchase.
When it comes to B2B leads, your company only needs one thing: a base of potential customers who can make the purchasing decision . The thing is, if the potential customer is a business, things are not as simple as they usually are with the B2C audience.
For starters, business-oriented solutions are often very specific. Therefore, your product or service may not be suitable for too many companies, which limits the number of potential customers.
As soon as you find companies that may be interested in your solution, other difficulties or points to clarify begin to arise.
For example, who is going to make that purchasing decision? Will this person be subject to approval by a committee? When would be the best time to use the sales close?
As you can see, selling to the B2B public involves different aspects and can be quite complex , especially if the process is deficient from the beginning.
If you provide your sales team with potential clients or leads that have a good conversion potential, the work will have a greater chance of success, promoting a good sales + marketing ROI .
In fact, if you want to know more about the techniques you can implement to reduce the gap between Marketing and Sales teams, we invite you to download this complete ebook on the subject:
How to generate B2B leads?
Since B2B lead generation is so important, how do you go about it? There isn’t just one way, so you need to evaluate what works best for your company.
But we can already say that Inbound Marketing can most likely help you build a solid potential customer base.
Let's look at three ways to generate B2B leads:
Active prospecting
One way to generate B2B leads is to actively prospect them . Some companies even make a huge mistake at this stage: they buy email lists. But that strategy is bad for several reasons.
For starters, it's illegal, as your company cannot obtain and store a person's data without their consent. In fact, that was a crime even before the advent of digital privacy laws that have been enforced in Latin American countries.
As if that wasn't enough, who guarantees that the contacts on that list will be interested in your solution? In addition to making the sales team's job harder, you might still get reported for spamming. It would hurt your company's reputation , right?
To prospect, you must first consider who your organization wants to sell to . What would be the profile of the ideal company?
This means defining, for example, its size, average turnover and the area of activity. You can even analyse the clients your company already has to draw up a profile of those that are profitable.
You should also consider why that ideal customer might be interested in the solution you offer. Can your company offer any differentiation compared to your competitors?
In cases where salespeople go to potential customers, it is good to have some supporting material, such as folders and catalogs.
If the process is going to be carried out in an online environment, a well-crafted presentation can help a lot in email contacts.
Use the internet to research companies . Social media is a great place to do this type of research, especially LinkedIn.
Trade association websites can also offer useful information. Organize that data into a spreadsheet and use it to contact those companies.
During the conversation, you should remember that benefits are more important than features.
Instead of focusing on reporting the technical specifications of the solution, the sales team should highlight how the product or service can solve the problems that the company has.
Events
If your company is going to participate in a trade show, invite customers who are already in your base and who are located in the event region.
Use email marketing to send this invitation and track who clicked on the CTA (call to action) in the message. This way, you can send additional information and even invite the potential client to schedule a conversation with a consultant.
During the event, make open tablets or computers available on specific landing pages . The goal is to encourage interested people to request more information and receive the necessary attention at a later time.
This strategy can be especially useful if your company is unable to bring a large number of salespeople or consultants to the event.
Also, keep in mind that many of the people attending the event will not be ready to close a deal.
So, consider offering a free ebook or course when you ask for their contact information . In addition to a freebie like that, pleasing the lead also helps guide them through the sales funnel .
Once the event is over, create a nurturing flow to start managing all those contacts through the purchasing process .
Of course, this must take into account the complexities of the B2B audience, which may require calls on some occasions.
Inbound Marketing
As we already mentioned, Inbound Marketing is an excellent way to increase your lead base.
A study by Demand Metrics showed that this methodology can generate three times more leads than with Outbound Marketing, and at the same time it costs 62% less . Amazing!
Additionally, of the marketers who use content to generate leads, 53% said they were successful with the strategy. Check this out in the image below.
That's why inbound marketing cannot be left out of a B2B lead generation strategy. Ultimately, content can attract people who make purchasing decisions within companies.
In a Digital Marketing strategy , ebooks are materials to generate leads , since the visitor needs to enter their contact information to access the content. But there are other ways to obtain this information.
One of these is the newsletter subscription . It is important that some blog articles invite the visitor to join your community.
This invitation can also be made through a CTA in the sidebar, in the blog header or through a pop-up.
Another strategy is to use a WordPress plugin to display a message when the visitor moves the cursor to the address bar to leave. In that box, you can offer an ebook or a newsletter subscription .
Those are some ways to use your blog to generate leads. But how can you qualify those B2B leads so that your sales team has a better chance of success? We'll talk about that below.
How to improve B2B lead generation?
Let's see what key tips need to be followed so that the leads generated have a good conversion potential:
Define a Buyer Persona
You may already have in mind the profile of the company to which your business wishes to sell. But it is essential to take into account the characteristics of the person who will decide to buy .
You've mapped out the size, location, and turnover of your ideal client, but what about the person who decides? What degree do they have? How old are you? Where do they live? What channels do they use to communicate and obtain information? What difficulties do they face at work?
Gather that information and organize it, something you can do in the Fantastic Persona Generator .
Keep your editorial calendar organized
At this stage, consider what your persona's pain is and offer content that shows how to solve those problems. Often, there is a pain, but no one within the company realizes it.
Therefore, you need to show what the problem is and make it clear how it is affecting the company's activities . At some point, the decision maker will understand that there is a solution and will consider it.
This means checking the keywords that the person usually uses in search engines . It is also necessary to define an editorial calendar and plan the content in a way that can guide the person in the purchase journey, which, in the B2B market, is longer and more laborious.
Include rich materials in your planning that require contact information. This is often the case with ebooks.
The person gives their name and email — and perhaps their job title and some company information — to access the material. Each time that happens, you get a hint.
Manage lead nurturing
Before approaching the sales team, it is necessary to nurture the lead so that they become aware of the pains they face and, mainly, the solutions that your company offers .
One way to do that is the nurturing flow, which is a series of emails that aim to guide the person through the sales funnel.
Given the complexity of B2B purchasing, after the sales team contacts the lead, it is important to follow up via email and phone to prevent the potential customer from going cold.
Use technology
A CRM integrated with your marketing channels can help you segment leads . This is essential to identify who is ready to be approached by the sales team .
What about those who aren't ready to buy? This doesn't mean they should be discarded. Plan campaigns to continue nurturing those leads until they reach the point where they are ready to make a purchase.
Apply the NTBA method
Previously, the BANT method was used to qualify prospects. Over time, it was adapted to be more effective, resulting in the reversal of the criteria involved. NTBA refers to:
N (needs) : Understand the customer's needs and check if your solution can really meet that need;
T (time frame) : assesses whether the solution implementation time is appropriate for the lead;
B (budget) – Checks whether the prospect’s budget is sufficient to fund the solution;
A (authority) : See if the person you are contacting is the one making the decisions in the company or if it will be necessary to speak to someone else.
B2B lead generation presents challenges that can be overcome with good planning.
So it's not hard to understand the importance of lead generation some of the key features of band for a business. In fact, this was proven in a study by the Content Marketing Institute .
The survey revealed that generating leads is the most important goal for 85% of B2B marketers interviewed.
It turns out that selling to businesses is not as simple as selling to end consumers. On the contrary, closing deals with businesses is complex and time-consuming. But it is possible to optimize that process even before the sales team takes action.
It all depends on good work in B2B lead generation , as well as the qualification of those contacts. Do you want to improve this process? Then, keep reading!
Below you will find the following topics:
What are B2B leads?
How to generate B2B leads?
How to improve B2B lead generation?
What are B2B leads?
B2B (business to business) leads are potential customers from companies in your database . This includes contact information, such as email and phone, of the people who make the purchasing decision within those organizations.
We can even draw a parallel with what happens in the B2C (business to consumer) market. Companies strive to get visitors to enter their contact details so that they can feed them with information and messages that lead them to get closer to the brand.
Often, that nurturing is done through email marketing . When those people are ready to buy, sales work comes into play, with the goal of driving the lead to make the purchase.
When it comes to B2B leads, your company only needs one thing: a base of potential customers who can make the purchasing decision . The thing is, if the potential customer is a business, things are not as simple as they usually are with the B2C audience.
For starters, business-oriented solutions are often very specific. Therefore, your product or service may not be suitable for too many companies, which limits the number of potential customers.
As soon as you find companies that may be interested in your solution, other difficulties or points to clarify begin to arise.
For example, who is going to make that purchasing decision? Will this person be subject to approval by a committee? When would be the best time to use the sales close?
As you can see, selling to the B2B public involves different aspects and can be quite complex , especially if the process is deficient from the beginning.
If you provide your sales team with potential clients or leads that have a good conversion potential, the work will have a greater chance of success, promoting a good sales + marketing ROI .
In fact, if you want to know more about the techniques you can implement to reduce the gap between Marketing and Sales teams, we invite you to download this complete ebook on the subject:
How to generate B2B leads?
Since B2B lead generation is so important, how do you go about it? There isn’t just one way, so you need to evaluate what works best for your company.
But we can already say that Inbound Marketing can most likely help you build a solid potential customer base.
Let's look at three ways to generate B2B leads:
Active prospecting
One way to generate B2B leads is to actively prospect them . Some companies even make a huge mistake at this stage: they buy email lists. But that strategy is bad for several reasons.
For starters, it's illegal, as your company cannot obtain and store a person's data without their consent. In fact, that was a crime even before the advent of digital privacy laws that have been enforced in Latin American countries.
As if that wasn't enough, who guarantees that the contacts on that list will be interested in your solution? In addition to making the sales team's job harder, you might still get reported for spamming. It would hurt your company's reputation , right?
To prospect, you must first consider who your organization wants to sell to . What would be the profile of the ideal company?
This means defining, for example, its size, average turnover and the area of activity. You can even analyse the clients your company already has to draw up a profile of those that are profitable.
You should also consider why that ideal customer might be interested in the solution you offer. Can your company offer any differentiation compared to your competitors?
In cases where salespeople go to potential customers, it is good to have some supporting material, such as folders and catalogs.
If the process is going to be carried out in an online environment, a well-crafted presentation can help a lot in email contacts.
Use the internet to research companies . Social media is a great place to do this type of research, especially LinkedIn.
Trade association websites can also offer useful information. Organize that data into a spreadsheet and use it to contact those companies.
During the conversation, you should remember that benefits are more important than features.
Instead of focusing on reporting the technical specifications of the solution, the sales team should highlight how the product or service can solve the problems that the company has.
Events
If your company is going to participate in a trade show, invite customers who are already in your base and who are located in the event region.
Use email marketing to send this invitation and track who clicked on the CTA (call to action) in the message. This way, you can send additional information and even invite the potential client to schedule a conversation with a consultant.
During the event, make open tablets or computers available on specific landing pages . The goal is to encourage interested people to request more information and receive the necessary attention at a later time.
This strategy can be especially useful if your company is unable to bring a large number of salespeople or consultants to the event.
Also, keep in mind that many of the people attending the event will not be ready to close a deal.
So, consider offering a free ebook or course when you ask for their contact information . In addition to a freebie like that, pleasing the lead also helps guide them through the sales funnel .
Once the event is over, create a nurturing flow to start managing all those contacts through the purchasing process .
Of course, this must take into account the complexities of the B2B audience, which may require calls on some occasions.
Inbound Marketing
As we already mentioned, Inbound Marketing is an excellent way to increase your lead base.
A study by Demand Metrics showed that this methodology can generate three times more leads than with Outbound Marketing, and at the same time it costs 62% less . Amazing!
Additionally, of the marketers who use content to generate leads, 53% said they were successful with the strategy. Check this out in the image below.
That's why inbound marketing cannot be left out of a B2B lead generation strategy. Ultimately, content can attract people who make purchasing decisions within companies.
In a Digital Marketing strategy , ebooks are materials to generate leads , since the visitor needs to enter their contact information to access the content. But there are other ways to obtain this information.
One of these is the newsletter subscription . It is important that some blog articles invite the visitor to join your community.
This invitation can also be made through a CTA in the sidebar, in the blog header or through a pop-up.
Another strategy is to use a WordPress plugin to display a message when the visitor moves the cursor to the address bar to leave. In that box, you can offer an ebook or a newsletter subscription .
Those are some ways to use your blog to generate leads. But how can you qualify those B2B leads so that your sales team has a better chance of success? We'll talk about that below.
How to improve B2B lead generation?
Let's see what key tips need to be followed so that the leads generated have a good conversion potential:
Define a Buyer Persona
You may already have in mind the profile of the company to which your business wishes to sell. But it is essential to take into account the characteristics of the person who will decide to buy .
You've mapped out the size, location, and turnover of your ideal client, but what about the person who decides? What degree do they have? How old are you? Where do they live? What channels do they use to communicate and obtain information? What difficulties do they face at work?
Gather that information and organize it, something you can do in the Fantastic Persona Generator .
Keep your editorial calendar organized
At this stage, consider what your persona's pain is and offer content that shows how to solve those problems. Often, there is a pain, but no one within the company realizes it.
Therefore, you need to show what the problem is and make it clear how it is affecting the company's activities . At some point, the decision maker will understand that there is a solution and will consider it.
This means checking the keywords that the person usually uses in search engines . It is also necessary to define an editorial calendar and plan the content in a way that can guide the person in the purchase journey, which, in the B2B market, is longer and more laborious.
Include rich materials in your planning that require contact information. This is often the case with ebooks.
The person gives their name and email — and perhaps their job title and some company information — to access the material. Each time that happens, you get a hint.
Manage lead nurturing
Before approaching the sales team, it is necessary to nurture the lead so that they become aware of the pains they face and, mainly, the solutions that your company offers .
One way to do that is the nurturing flow, which is a series of emails that aim to guide the person through the sales funnel.
Given the complexity of B2B purchasing, after the sales team contacts the lead, it is important to follow up via email and phone to prevent the potential customer from going cold.
Use technology
A CRM integrated with your marketing channels can help you segment leads . This is essential to identify who is ready to be approached by the sales team .
What about those who aren't ready to buy? This doesn't mean they should be discarded. Plan campaigns to continue nurturing those leads until they reach the point where they are ready to make a purchase.
Apply the NTBA method
Previously, the BANT method was used to qualify prospects. Over time, it was adapted to be more effective, resulting in the reversal of the criteria involved. NTBA refers to:
N (needs) : Understand the customer's needs and check if your solution can really meet that need;
T (time frame) : assesses whether the solution implementation time is appropriate for the lead;
B (budget) – Checks whether the prospect’s budget is sufficient to fund the solution;
A (authority) : See if the person you are contacting is the one making the decisions in the company or if it will be necessary to speak to someone else.
B2B lead generation presents challenges that can be overcome with good planning.