The complete guide to boosting your B2B lead generation

By Jennifer Montérémal

Published: 24 October 2024

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

The aim? To optimise your prospect discovery and conversion process, so that your sales take off 🚀.

Do you operate a business to business activity?

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 converting internet users into committed customers.

Get ready for remarkable sales results!

See all software Lead Generation

Definition of B2B lead generation

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

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

showing an interest in a brand's products or services ;
and who provides contact information with a view to initiating communication.

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

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

identifying the target audience
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 is very simple: everyone!

Whether you're a self-employed entrepreneur, a very small business, an SME, an ETI or a large group, 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 surf the Internet, consult social networks, etc. ;
you remain patient, because you're dealing here with rather long sales cycles.

How can inbound marketing generate B2B leads?

Inbound marketing is one of the best methods for generating 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 the company's sales team to close the sale.

Find out more about how to go about it 👉

Produce content to attract visitors

The principle of content marketing is to produce content to generate traffic to your website:

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

The aim of inbound marketing is therefore to transform the audience of your website (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 made contact with your visitors, you need to qualify them and maintain the relationship.

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

In particular, it enables you to set up automated lead nurturing campaigns, where personalised, targeted emails are sent to prospects at different stages in the sales process. Relevant content, special offers, reminders... keep them interested so you can guide them towards a purchase!

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

Improve your visibility on social networks

Social networks are used not only to raise your profile, but also to connect you with new prospects. This practice is known as social selling.

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

For example, you can share on your pages :

blog articles
case studies
infographics
videos

all aimed at answering the questions your potential customers have. All in a highly relevant way, thanks to the built-in segmentation and targeting functions.

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

👉 In outbound marketing, social networks also help you in your prospecting.

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 allows direct contact with your contacts. You can quickly present your offer, understand their needs and overcome their objections, thereby speeding up the sales process.
Face-to-face prospecting offers the opportunity to present complex products or services in a demonstrative way, to create a human connection and to 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 mentioned above, 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 large budget to position yourself on highly competitive keywords.

To promote your business to B2B prospects via a campaign, remember that it's all a question of targeting!

👉 Two types of advertising are relevant for qualifying a B2B prospect:

contextualised advertising occurs according to the nature of the web page content;
behavioural advertising appears depending on the user's behaviour, if they visit the site several times, carry out specific searches on Google, etc.

Buying qualified leads

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

But if you're looking to buy qualified leads, there are dedicated solutions such as Corporama.

This type of platform offers a number of advantages for contacting B2B prospects:

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

The advantages and disadvantages of B2B lead generation

The advantages

There are many advantages to B2B lead generation:

👍 Precise targeting and better quality of leads: you concentrate your efforts on qualified prospects who are genuinely likely to be interested in your company. This increases your chances of converting.
Cost-effectiveness: B2B lead generation generates a very good ROI for your marketing actions.
👍 Monitoring and measurement: the results you achieve are easy to measure. So you can optimise your strategies effectively and make decisions based on concrete data.
👍 Expanding your customer base: by expanding your company's customer base, you multiply your opportunities for growth and success.

The disadvantages

However, there are a few drawbacks to the method:

👎 Time and effort required: a good B2B lead generation strategy will require significant time and effort in order to achieve your goals. Inbound marketing, in particular, requires a lot of patience. But the results are long-lasting!
👎 High levels of competition: in certain sectors, lead gen sometimes faces strong competition, which makes it more difficult to capture the attention of Internet users.
👎 Data sensitivity: since the process requires the collection and storage of private data, it involves paying particular attention to compliance and regulatory issues.
👎 Expertise: to succeed, you need to understand and fully 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?

During your lead generation process, there are a number of software tools that can assist you and make you more efficient, throughout the buying process.

Here are just a few examples:

🛠️ CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

ByPath is a CRM and Sales Intelligence solution specialising in BtoB activities. It greatly accelerates lead generation, giving you 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 incorporates 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 staff to create a specific sales funnel, contact a lead at the right time, etc.

🛠️ Marketing automation platforms

Webmecanik, for example, optimises your conversion rate by applying inbound marketing techniques (creation of landing pages/web pages, lead nurturing, etc.). Thanks to the connection with your CRM, you can effectively track your prospects in order to manage your business opportunities. Finally, Webmecanik includes lead scoring functions, so that your sales staff know where to focus their efforts.

We should also mention Blacksales, which harnesses all the power of BtoB emailing by combining it with the precision of artificial intelligence and automating your prospecting as far as possible: analysing databases, detecting interesting prospects according to your criteria, sending contextualised and personalised emails at the best time, etc.

🛠️ Software specialising in lead generation

Sparklane is a B2B lead generation solution that provides contacts who can be quickly engaged. In particular, it uses predictive lead scoring, the great strength of which lies in the contextualisation of business signals. All you have to do is prospect for high-quality leads using a personalised approach.

Lead the Way is a website tracker. It observes and tracks browsing cookies and the IP address of visitors to your pages. This tool is a real lever for BtoB digital prospecting: identifying potential prospects, advertising retargeting, sending targeted emails, etc.

🛠️ Social network management tools

With Agorapulse, your teams become more productive: they can programme publications, personalise posts by tagging contacts or other professionals... in short, they spend more time engaging in conversation.

ProspectIn 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 a sequence of actions similar to those you use for your emailings, resulting in very attractive open and conversion rates.