15 B2B Lead Generation Strategies to Generate More Leads

Let’s clear something up: your lead generation problem doesn’t need more resources or strategies — it’s about implementing the right ones correctly. In 2022, an anonymous B2B company invested $9,300 in LinkedIn advertising campaigns to generate more leads. The result? Zero leads and zero conversions. 

Now, that’s what happens when your B2B lead generation strategy goes wrong. Wasted resources, fruitless efforts, and missed revenue quota. But when done right? You reap some serious benefits. 

For instance, Michel Lieben, CEO of ColdIQ, generated up to 80 quality leads per month for Lyl Marketing because they executed the right strategy and leveraged advanced B2B prospecting tools to improve their cold outreach efforts. The truth is, Michel isn’t the only sales expert who has had luck with successful lead generation. Let’s break it down. 

What is B2B Lead Generation?

B2B lead generation is the process of identifying potential customers who match your ideal customer profile (ICP) and attracting them to buy your products or services. It’s not some tricks or hacks. It’s a systematic approach to finding potential customers who need what you offer and positioning your business as the obvious solution to their problems. 

What are the benefits of B2B Lead Generation?

1. Enhance Customer Understanding

A successful B2B lead generation strategy provides valuable insights into prospects’ needs, pain points, preferences, and buying behavior. By understanding their challenges, you will better position your business as the obvious solution and improve your offerings. 

Think of it this way: A friend of yours who runs a cybersecurity firm spent months chasing after companies that downloaded their data encryption guide. Their sales team was burning out without hitting their sales target, leaving their conversion rates low. 

When they analyzed their closed deals, they discovered something surprising – the companies that bought their solution wanted specific security awareness training on issues like phishing and other cybersecurity threats. This allows them to better understand their customers and tailor their offerings appropriately.

2. Shorten Sales Cycle

B2B lead generation allows you to shorten the sales cycle. SDRs can tell which prospects are ready to buy and pass them to account executives (AEs) to seal the deal. 

Still, regarding the cybersecurity example, your sales team can restrategize their lead generation efforts and focus on prospects who request a custom training demo instead of those who download generic content. This shortens their sales cycle by 40% and tailors their efforts to qualified leads. 

3. Improved ROI

A targeted lead generation strategy is better than a broad sales effort that doesn’t focus on a specific audience. Targeted content for the right audience creates brand awareness for your business and attracts warm leads, which can grow your sales revenue. 

The cybersecurity firm, for instance, doesn't have to waste resources on leads who are never going to buy and focus on qualified leads, tripling their closed deals and improving their ROI.

15 B2B Lead Generation Strategies

B2B lead generation can be a reality or a pipeline filled with unqualified opportunities. The difference is execution. Here are 15 B2B lead generation strategies to try out. 

1. Cold Outreach Isn’t Dead—But Your Strategy Might Be

Let’s face it — you’re not doing cold outreach right. Otherwise, you would be getting results. Cold outreach goes beyond sending 1,000 emails per day or personalizing the first sentence of the email. While quantity and personalization matter, you also have to seize the timing and make your message relevant to your target audience.  

Felipe Aranguiz, Director at Instantly.ai, mentioned that, “The biggest mistake people make and will keep making is that they are targeting the wrong people with the relevant offer. If you have that part covered, the rest is easy. 

Even if you’re using less sophisticated software and a bad email infrastructure, you have a higher chance of converting than someone with sophisticated software. Although software helps, the core here is relevance. So if you target the right people at the right time with the right offer, it’s rare not to see results. If you’re not offering the right offer to the right people, they will not care.”

So, how do you make your message relevant to your prospects? First, identify your audience’s pain points. Ask yourself these questions.

• What’s the main problem my prospect is facing?
• What are the signs of these problems?
• What is its root cause?
• How do most people solve these problems?
• Have those solutions worked for them? If not, why?

Once you have answered these questions, identify solutions that address their specific needs. This could include offering practical advice or providing valuable resources. This helps to ensure your offers align with your audience’s needs. 

2. Personalized Video Prospecting at Scale

Not surprisingly, Tal Baker-Phillips, Sales Leader at Lemlist, who is a fan of personalized videos, advocates for the use of these videos to generate leads, engage prospects, and increase conversion rates. 

The result: He books 10+ meetings per week with personalized videos.

But how does he do it? Tal’s successful template follows a simple 6-step structure:

1. Greet your audience to show you’re talking to them.
2. Hit on their common problems to show you understand them.
3. Clarify common misconceptions to further understand their challenges and build credibility. 
4. Introduce your solutions clearly to show you offer value. 
5. Leverage real data to prove the effectiveness of your solution. 
6. End with an engaging CTA, usually an interest-based CTA, to gauge interest and prompt a response. 

3. Multi-Channel Prospecting: Email + LinkedIn + Cold Calling

Think of this as not putting all your eggs in one basket. Why rely on one channel when you can combine two or three? As a business owner, you should be everywhere — email, LinkedIn, and phone calls. 

You want to reach your audience where they are rather than concentrating all your efforts on a single channel. The good news is that with concise subject lines and relevant messages, you can reach more prospects and maximize reply rate by 17-30%.

Michel Lieben, CEO and Founder of ColdIQ, revealed a multichannel campaign setup he uses to generate 4 to 7 leads daily. According to him, the multichannel setup is a mix of email and LinkedIn. You can set up this cadence with Lemlist: 

• Day One: Profile Visit, send first email, and connection request.
• Day Three: Send the second email.
• Days Three to Eight: Wait for prospects to accept the invite.
• Day Eight: Send the third email if they don’t accept the invite, or a LinkedIn message if they accept.
• Day 10: Send another LinkedIn message 
• Day 12: Round it up with the final email.

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4. Reverse Intent Targeting

Also known as reverse-IP targeting, this lead generation strategy allows businesses to identify their web visitors, especially companies, based on their IP address. This process relies on web visitor identification software, which leverages cookies and other individual-level tracking elements to unveil your website visitors and obtain their contact details. 

For instance, ColdIQ uses person-level website identification software like RB2B to deanonymize website visitors and contact them. This allows us not to miss out on potential sales opportunities.

5. Launch an Industry Micro-Newsletter

Everyone tells you the newsletter is oversaturated. That your prospect’s inbox is already overflowing with tons of emails. While this is partially wrong, you have to understand that you can still make your mark with an industry micro-newsletter. 

No, you can’t use generic newsletters, as your message would disappear into thin air and get buried among hundreds of emails in your prospect’s inbox. Instead, you need to launch a hyper-personalized newsletter that cuts through the noise and clearly speaks to your audience. That way, you can own the conversation in your specific niche and scale list building, which eventually becomes an excellent source for leads. 

Need an example? Consider The Hustle, a media company, which grew its email list to 1.5 million subscribers before being acquired by HubSpot in 2021. The owner leveraged micro-newsletters as a way to speak directly to the audience and become an authority in that space. 

When asked about why he transitioned his web-based business to a standalone email one in an interview, Sam Parr, co-founder of The Hustle, said, “From the beginning, I knew that email was more powerful than probably social, push notifications, app downloads, all of that combined. 

If you go and do some research on e-commerce companies, you’ll find that they say that email is one of the most predictable ways they earn revenue. An email subscriber is worth more than any other kind of subscriber. I knew that, just because that’s data that exists. And with Hustlecon, I made close to $200,000 with a list of 10,000 people.”

6. Use ROI or Cost-Savings Calculators as Lead Magnets

B2B buyers don’t consume your content because they’re fascinated by your thought leadership insights. Aside from wanting to solve a problem, they also need to justify their expenses. Think about it. Humans, by design, want to get maximum return for every dollar invested. It’s human psychology. We plan and strategize, and we’re really good at it. 

However, primary emotions such as fear and doubt also limit humans from making certain investments. They ask questions like “Is it a worthy investment?” or “What if it fails?” Hence, there is a need for businesses to help their prospects overcome this fear. How do you do it?

First, instead of telling your customers how your product or service is a good investment, show them how it matters. You need to show them that the benefits of investing in your business clearly outweigh the risk involved. A good way to achieve this is through an ROI or cost-saving calculator. 

A website ROI allows businesses to visualize their solution in their business context. It justifies their potential investment, articulating the potential gains in revenue that a prospect can make from their investment. For instance, a prospect who can make $40,000 monthly is more likely to approve a $10k monthly budget for a lead generation service than a prospect who has no clue on how much they would earn from that investment. The calculated result helps reduce the fear of failure or doubts and justifies the price of your service to the results gained. 

Related: The Ultimate Guide to AI Sales Lead Generation

7. Automate First Touch, Humanize the Follow-Up

It’s no longer a secret that 82% of salespeople now use AI to generate basic content. Unsurprisingly, they can leverage it to craft and scale initial outreach messages to nurture relationships with your audience. However, you can’t leave AI to perform all the jobs; there is a need to use it moderately. 

After all, 68% of these professionals agree that generative AI lacks human contextual knowledge, prompting the need for human oversight to avoid creating robotic or impersonal messages. This is particularly necessary for follow-up messages, which require SDRs to humanize them for maximum engagement. 

To do this, prepare thoughtful questions that show you clearly understand your business so that you can obtain responses from your prospects. Also, make sure that your messages offer value based on the specific situation. Remember, the goal is to get a response from your prospects.

8. Build Partnerships with Non-Competing B2B Brands

Forget what you heard about keeping your cards close to your chest in business. Operating in isolation is costing you valuable leads. Think about it. Why do you have to fight for the same customers through the same channels just like everyone else? When you can find sales-qualified leads and acquire new customers through another way, a strategic partnership with non-competing brands. 

Research revealed that companies with formal partnership programs generate 28% more revenue than those without one. So, rather than leaving money on the table, partnering with non-competing brands can create new pathways for your ideal customers. One major way to do this is to partner with a company that offers complementary products or services to yours

For example, a messaging and communication platform can partner with a project management tool as they serve similar users — people who need to communicate while working on projects. These collaborations provide mutual benefits by expanding reach and sharing leads without competing directly, creating a win-win situation for both parties. 

9. Offer “Free Teardown” or “Mini Audit” Lead Magnets

That 15-page comprehensive PDF guide you’re offering for an email address isn’t the lead magnet you think it is. It’s probably just lying in a folder somewhere on your prospect’s device, gathering digital dust. What your prospects want, instead, is to solve their specific problem. This is where free teardowns or mini-audits come into play. 

A free teardown or mini-audit is an expert’s analysis of an aspect of a prospect’s business to provide personalized feedback or recommendations at zero cost. For instance, a web design agency can analyze a prospect’s homepage to identify areas causing poor user experience or conversion barriers.

When they analyze the homepage and offer valuable advice, they’re not just another vendor — they’re a trusted expert. However, if the free part bothers you, ask yourself. Would you rather have 100 disengaged leads from generic e-books or 20 high-quality leads who have witnessed your expertise firsthand? 

If not, you may want to consider this strategy. Ensure you have a deep understanding of your prospect’s business before the sales conversation begins. Then, prove your value upfront to generate leads for your business.

10. Create an Educational Lead Magnet That Doesn’t Suck

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Do you know that putting “Ultimate Guide” or “Comprehensive Checklist” in the title of that e-book doesn’t make it valuable? You’re only drowning your prospects in mediocre content that does nothing but state the obvious fact they can find in a 30-second Google search. 

On the contrary, here is the counterintuitive truth: invest in high-quality and valuable content. The more genuinely useful your content is, the more likely prospects are to pay for your solution. 

Address your prospect’s pain points. Interview your sales and customer success team about the questions clients consistently ask when performing their operations. Choose a format based on how people will use the information. For instance, you can try a video tutorial for visual concepts, templates for processes people implement repeatedly, or calculators for performance or financial metrics. 

Your content should become so valuable that your prospects would find it useful even when they’re aware of other alternatives. Finally, ensure your valuable educational content naturally leads your prospects to take the next step. Include a CTA to enable them to perform their desired action. 

Related: 8 Best AI Lead Generation Tools

11. Turn Client Wins into Case-Based Campaigns

Case studies aren’t just decorations for your website. They are valuable assets to convince your prospects. So, stop packaging them as forgettable stories that your prospect would skim and dump. Instead, transform your existing client wins into dynamic, memorable, and targeted campaigns that capture your prospect’s attention at every funnel stage. Let your case studies have these essential campaigns: 

• Proactive insights to change your prospect’s perspectives.
• An unexpected obstacle that nearly derailed success.
• Specific process milestones that created a breakthrough.
• A personal testimony from the prospect to address primary emotions such as fear or doubts
• Measurable before and after metrics

Remember that your client wins are your most authentic assets. Transform them into targeted campaigns that address your prospects’ needs to drive sales-qualified leads for your business. 

12. Launch a Private Slack or Community for Your Niche

Here is another dirty little secret of B2B lead generation: build private communities where your exact buyers can hang out. After all, blasting valuable content into the void isn’t enough. Have a niche community that delivers leads. If done right, you will have decision-makers who are already familiar with your brand and are more likely to convert. 

If you intend to build this community, here is a blueprint you can follow:

• Define your community’s specific problem concisely. For instance, “A Slack channel for B2B sales professionals” won’t cut it. Instead, try “The only space where B2B sales leaders at $100k MRR troubleshoot lead generation challenges in real-time.” The narrower the focus, the stronger your community. 
• Avoid focusing on a populated community. Instead, restrict membership to “invite-only,” and limit it to decision-makers who match your ICP.
• Showcase your expertise in the community. For instance, you can consider hosting a monthly expert session where members talk about their current challenges. 
• Avoid pitching directly to members. Instead, let your products or services be the obvious next step, not forced solutions. 

13. Tap Into Influencers in Your Industry—Even Micro Ones

You pour into the same channels — paid ads, organic search, and cold outreach — while completely overlooking the trust that comes from B2B influencer marketing. If this is your usual game, you need to level up. 

The number tells the story: Recent research shows that 87% of B2B buyers trust influencer content more than branded content, and influencer-led content generates 11x higher ROI than traditional advertising. As a result, you may want to start partnering with top industry voices to drive qualified leads into your pipeline. 

This doesn’t mean you should chase after the big names with massive followings; even the micro influencers with deep expertise in specific niches can do the job, as they drive 60% more engagement than the macro ones. They are more affordable and often willing to collaborate to help you reach your decision-makers faster. 

14. Build Smart Lead Lists with Data Enrichment Tools

A bigger lead list doesn’t equal quality results. Which would you prefer? A 10,000 lead list with no valuable business intel or a 1,000 lead list with basic contact information and relevant business intelligence? 

The answer is obvious – any salesperson would opt for the latter. Outreach sequences without enriched data will fall short because they’re based on assumptions, not data-driven insights. This leads to an exhausted team, wasted budget, and missed revenue target. 

However, enriching your lead list with quality information like contact information, firmographic details, and technographic data prevents you from shooting in the dark and turning your lead list into valuable assets. Leading data enrichment tools such as Clay, Common Room, and Unify can help to maximize data coverage and reach your prospects efficiently. 

15. Publish Benchmark Data From Your Campaigns

Hiding your campaign data — performance metrics, industry benchmarks, and trend analyses — doesn’t provide you with any competitive advantage. Instead, you’re passing up on golden opportunities. 

Consider this — prominent examples such as HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report or Salesforce’s State of Sales aren’t just thought leadership; they’re also lead generation machines designed to capture the company as an industry authority and capture contact information from thousands of qualified prospects. In other words, your data is also a product, and your prospects are searching for it but can’t find it anywhere else.

When packaged properly and promoted, these data generate higher-quality leads than any other content type. You don’t need HubSpot’s marketing budget to get started. All you need to do is start treating your data as a marketing asset. To do this, look for data that would be valuable to your prospects. Think performance metrics across campaigns, industry-specific conversion rates, timeline averages for projects, or resource allocation patterns. 

Once you’ve identified these data assets, gather and collect your data across all clients. Next, transform your findings into trend reports that show year-over-year changes. Then, these reports will be published by creating a landing page with a lead capture form. You can also host webinars to further boost your outreach efforts. 

How Do You Measure the Success of Your Lead Gen Strategy?

Implementing a strategy without tracking its performance leaves you in the dark. You don’t know what’s working, what’s failing, or when to make corrections. That’s why you have this section. Here, we have highlighted five metrics you can leverage to measure the success of your lead generation strategy. 

1. Lead Quality

Lead quality refers to the likelihood that a potential buyer will convert into a paying customer. It measures how the lead matches your ICP and how likely they are to perform the desired action. You can measure your lead quality by checking whether the leads are a good fit and moving them to sales. Track your MQL to SQL conversion rates. 

2. Cost Per Lead

The cost per lead is the amount of money your business spent in acquiring a single lead. They help to determine how much it would cost to get a prospect interested in your products or services. The formula for calculating this is:

CPL = Total Campaign Cost / Number of Leads

Example: If your business spent $2,000 on a campaign and acquired 50 leads, the CPL would be $40 ($2,000 / 50 = $40).

3. Conversions

Conversion refers to how a lead performs the desired action that moves them to become a paying customer. These actions range from downloading a resource, filling out a form, or booking demos. 

You can track this using the lead-to-customer rate, a percentage of qualified leads that ultimately convert into paying customers. You can calculate the metric like this: 

Number of customers acquired by leads × 100

Total number of qualified leads

Example: If you have 200 qualified leads and convert 20 of them, your lead-to-customer conversion rate is 10%.

4. Pipeline Value

Pipeline value is the total potential revenue of open sales opportunities in a company’s sales pipeline. It provides a snapshot of potential future income, as it represents the estimated deal size of each opportunity. Sales and marketing teams can use this metric for sales forecasting or resource allocation. 

5. Time to Close

Time to close refers to the duration it takes for a potential client to move through the sales process, from the initial contact to final purchase or agreement. You can measure this by tracking the time it takes to move from being a lead to a paying customer.

How ColdIQ Can Enhance Your B2B Lead Generation Efforts

When done badly, your B2B lead generation efforts are lost money and wasted opportunity that can cripple your business’s growth. But when done correctly, you’re not only filling your sales pipeline, you’re creating a system that delivers compounding results over time. 

If you’re not good at this aspect, ColdIQ got you. Our company offers well-tailored B2B lead generation services to engage the right prospects at the right time, shorten the sales cycle, and hit your revenue goals. Book a demo with us now!

FAQs – Common Questions About B2B Lead Generation

1. Who needs a B2B sales strategy?

Sales professionals, marketing teams, business development experts, and revenue operations teams need a B2B sales strategy to improve their business’s growth. 

2. How does B2B lead generation work?

B2B lead generation works by identifying your potential customers and matching them with your ICP, qualifying them based on their readiness to buy, and nurturing them with valuable content to convert them into paying customers. 

3. What are the most important B2B sales metrics?

The most important B2B sales metrics are lead quality, cost per lead, pipeline value, time to close, and conversion rates. Sales teams can use these metrics to gauge the effectiveness of their lead generation strategies. 

4. What are the benefits of B2B lead generation?

B2B lead generation offers various benefits such as enhanced customer understanding, shortened sales cycle, and improved return on investment. 

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