14 B2B Sales Lead Generation Tactics to Try in 2022

The sales industry is in a constant state of change. The markets are constantly adapting to new trends, competitors and technologies. In just 2 years, there will be 14 different types of lead generation tactics than were available in 2019 alone that you could try for success. That’s an increase from 3 today!

The “small business leads free” is a blog that talks about 14 B2B sales lead generation tactics to try in 2022.

The way prospective clients join your business-to-business (B2B) sales funnel is via lead generation. Build a successful B2B sales lead generation plan with these 14 strategies to ensure a steady supply of business customers interested in the goods or services your firm offers. Learning how to effectively add more leads to your sales funnel allows you to complete transactions more often and expand your business.

Here are 14 different methods for generating B2B sales leads, along with the major processes for each:

1. Make use of B2B lead databases that already exist.

Purchasing B2B sales leads is one of the simplest methods to generate them. Lusha, UpLead, and Findemails.com, for example, allow you to create lead lists and import them straight into your customer relationship management (CRM) software based on contact information, job title, industry, firm size, and more. Because you’re merely purchasing data, the leads will be unqualified, but they’ll still be a terrific match and ready to be cultivated.

The following is a step-by-step guide to buying B2B sales leads:

• Determine which leads to buy based on characteristics such as industry, region, contact information, firm size or number of workers, job title, and other data you want to utilize to include or exclude leads. All of these elements should match your client profiles and target markets.
• Find a service that can supply the leads and sort of contact information you want while staying inside your budget. Our guide to the top sites to acquire business leads is a great place to start.
• Filter the sorts of contacts you want into a lead list using the provider’s selection system.
• Download your new B2B lead list as a comma separated value (CSV) file to import into your CRM, or transfer the data straight to your CRM software if the provider’s site allows it. You may also download the file as a spreadsheet and utilize it manually.
• Distribute the fresh leads to your sales team and start qualifying and nurturing them.

Contacts may be found using UpLead’s criteria-based search (Source: UpLead)

2. Use your website to generate inbound B2B leads.

Using your website to attract inbound leads generates marketing (MQL) and even sales (SQL) or product qualified leads (PQLs). It entails leveraging search engine optimization (SEO) methods, social media and Google Ads, social media, email, or content marketing to generate visitors from members of your target audiences to landing pages on your website.

The idea is to get a site visitor to react to a call to action once they arrive. This may be a site visitor filling out an online form, dialing your business’s phone number, interacting with a live bot for information, registering an account, or doing any other desired action.

Platforms like Unbounce allow you to rapidly construct excellent landing pages and online forms using predefined templates that have been professionally created. The platform also includes tools for writing web page text, increasing online traffic to your landing pages, and gathering data on conversion rates.

Template for an Unbounce landing page (Source: Unbounce)

The following is a step-by-step guide on utilize your website to generate B2B sales leads:

• Create landing pages on your website that people would go to if they wanted to learn more about a certain product or service. Landing pages should preferably be focused on a particular subject, such as a certain product or service, or key information, such as a software provider’s price page.
• Use SEO keywords, email marketing, social media marketing and advertising, company directories, press releases, Google Ads, and audience-centered content marketing to drive traffic to your website landing page(s).
• Add a call to action to each landing page to encourage visitors to take the next step, such as completing an online form, establishing an account, clicking to call or phoning an agent, or initiating a chatbot session.
• To follow up on leads provided via call-to-action channels, collect their information. This may be done manually or by having your customer relationship management (CRM) system auto-import prospect contact information.

Pro tip: Online reviews are a reliable source of information for leads to assess before visiting your website for further details. Create a mechanism for collecting customer evaluations and displaying them on your website and Google My Business profile to encourage leads to visit your site.

3. Use introduction emails to raise lead awareness.

Sending initial emails to unqualified prospects (known as cold emailing) to raise awareness of your organization and see if they are interested in learning more is a more personal technique to generate leads. Email contacts may be bought, discovered online (including B2B social networks like LinkedIn), or obtained via networking, such as business cards gathered at an event, email contacts, and even LinkedIn contacts.

Once you have a contact’s email address, the key to success is to write an email that grabs their attention and prompts them to take action. The following is a step-by-step guide to generating leads via introduction emails:

• Gather email contact information from internet sources, directories, business cards, or buy a list of email leads to create a contact list. This is a form of CRM data that you can readily import if you use sales lead management software.
• Create an email template that includes fields that the CRM will utilize to incorporate customized information for each prospect, such as their name at the top. See our email template samples to get you started.
• Send emails using the automated features in your CRM or email marketing software, and measure email open rates, click rates, and reaction rates. Using a CRM like HubSpot, which includes email tracking features, is a simple method to achieve this. With HubSpot CRM and comparable systems’ email features, you’ll be able to monitor not just how many people open and interact with your email, but also which ones do so, so you can follow up with the most interested leads personally.
• Follow up on non-responsive emails until you can figure out whether they’re qualified or uninterested.

Email monitoring using HubSpot (Source: HubSpot)

Use a call-to-action (CTA) button in your email signature to direct the recipient to the goal you want them to achieve. Adding a link that reads “Click Here to Schedule an Appointment” or “See How We Help Businesses Just Like Yours by Clicking Here” is an example of a CTA in a signature.

4. Conduct cold-calling campaigns.

Cold calling campaigns, like introduction emails, are a customized approach to acquire qualified leads by contacting people on the phone. When opposed to cold emailing, the advantage of cold calling is that you receive a response very immediately, if the prospect answers your call.

The following is a step-by-step guide to producing B2B sales leads through cold calling:

1. Obtain prospective leads’ contact information via internet sources, directories, business cards, or by buying it. Import the cold calling prospect list into your CRM so that comments may be made to prospect profiles and future interactions, such as lead nurturing efforts, can be tracked.
2. Make a cold calling script that you may refer to throughout the discussion. Check out our post on cold calling scripts to get you started.
3. When you reach a lead’s voicemail, be prepared to go past gatekeepers and leave useful messages.
4. Keep track of the conversation’s outcomes and make any necessary changes to your notes or CRM data.
5. Calls that have gone unanswered and voicemail messages that have gone unanswered should be followed up on.

A power dialer, often known as an auto-dialer, is a great way to keep track of cold calling campaigns. Power dialers enable you to schedule all of your calls and have them dialed for you in sequence, saving you time and allowing you to get more prospects on the phone faster. This feature is included in certain cloud-based phone apps, such as Freshdesk.

Power dialer for Freshdesk (Source: Freshdesk)

5. Attract B2B Sales Leads with Content Marketing

Material marketing is the process of creating media content to promote your company, such as blog entries, e-books, industry reports, films, or podcasts. The goal of employing content is to educate prospective consumers on certain themes related to your services in order to persuade them to learn more, or to give useful information that kicks off the sales process and allows for long-term nurturing.

The following is a step-by-step guide on utilize content marketing to create leads:

• Make a list of the topics you’d want to talk about or educate an audience on.
• Determine the content channels (video, podcast, website, blog, etc.) you’ll employ to deliver your message to your target audience.
• Create content in-house or with the help of freelancers such as videographers, graphic designers, podcast producers, and content writers.
• Place the material on your website or social media platforms, along with a call to action. “Contact us at [phone number or email] to learn more about how [subject you went through] may assist your company,” for example.
• Start generating views for your material by using SEO, Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn Ads, organic social networking, or delivering the content through email. In an ideal world, you’ll employ a variety of channels to generate leads via content.

If you’re having trouble coming up with content ideas, HubSpot is a terrific place to start, especially for blog pieces. They provide a free tool to assist you come up with blog subject ideas based on the phrases you could use in your marketing plan.

HubSpot’s blog generator may help you come up with new blog topics (Source: WordStream)

Pro tip: Always incorporate a call to action linked with the information, such as a link to an online web form or an automated appointment booking platform like Calendly, to assist leads browse and learn more, whether the material is directly on your website or being shared on social media.

Create Social Media Campaigns No. 6

Posting content, running advertising, or looking for certain categories of leads on social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are all examples of operating social media campaigns to produce B2B sales leads. One option for a campaign is to produce a post and then pay to boost it on the platform so that more people see it and interact with it via likes, clicks, or comments.

Another method is to create leads using platform features such as Facebook Ads. Facebook Advertisements allows you to create unique business ads that target Facebook users based on a variety of variables, such as location, activity, and job title.

Facebook Ads are simple to make, and depending on the ad’s aim, they may contain a visual such as an image or a short video, a post, and a call-to-action button. Additionally, you may run your advertisements on Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook’s extended network, as well as on Facebook itself.

Example of a B2B Facebook Ad (Source: KoMarketing)

Pro tip: You can plan your content postings in advance using social media management software like Zoho Social, so you don’t have to worry about posting on the day of. Zoho Social also provides a calendar-style view of your forthcoming postings so you can see what’s coming next.

Zoho has a function that allows you to schedule your social media posts (Source: Zoho)

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a lead creation and nurturing solution available to LinkedIn users. You may search for leads using Sales Navigator based on job function, seniority level, industry, business size, and geography. You may contact B2B sales prospects directly using InMail, connect with them on the platform, or interact with their LinkedIn postings by like or commenting on them after you’ve found them.

Page for monitoring messages on LinkedIn Navigator (Source: GZ Consulting)

The following is a step-by-step guide to conducting a social media ad campaign:

• Determine the sort of social media campaign you want to run, then choose a social media platform that can handle that campaign and has audience demographics that match your target markets.
• Create a campaign that is based on the network. If you’re running a Facebook ad, utilize Facebook’s ad builder tool to create it. Develop the customised message you wish to send to each recipient if you’re using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Create and publish stuff on your page for content postings (image, video, podcast, and so on).
• Begin focusing your advertising on your leads. Prior to publishing your ad, you may use Facebook Ads to restrict ad placement to extremely particular audiences. You’ll need to utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s lead filtering search tool to figure out who to send InMail messages to. You may boost individual posts on Facebook or LinkedIn to increase their reach and views for the audience you wish to reach.
• Following the launch of your campaign, use platform analytics to track its success and reach out to any prospects obtained via social media.

Pro tip: Integrate your CRM with your social media accounts so that any leads you generate via social media are instantly uploaded to your CRM database. You may enhance this feature by setting up an automated procedure in your CRM so that when a new lead is entered, an email is delivered to them automatically.

7. Host Prospecting Education Events

When your brand’s services need expertise or technical knowledge, or when your audience has similar educational interests, hosting instructional events, such as a webinar, is particularly ideal. A marketing firm, for example, may host a webinar on social media advertising to attract customers interested in outsourcing social media posting and advertisements.

You can deliver useful information and entice participants to want to learn more by presenting a free event in person or online that other company owners can benefit from. Modern webinar technologies like as Zoom, GoToWebinar, and Zoho Meeting make it simple to arrange an event, gather contact information from people who register for lead nurturing, and host an event that generates B2B sales qualified leads instantaneously.

Here’s how to arrange a lead generating instructional event:

• Create a curriculum around a subject that will attract your target audience. The material is frequently set out and exhibited during the presentation through video or PowerPoint slideshow deck, whether it’s an in-person event or an online webinar.
• Schedule your meeting to take place either through video conferencing software or at a physical location.
• Use internet advertisements, social media campaigns, direct mail, and email marketing to reach out to your target demographic. Make signing up and attending as simple as possible for your audience.
• Hold the educational event and be sure to leave time for a question and answer (Q&A) session at the end, or incrementally if the information is broken up into major concepts.
• Following up on sales and product qualifying leads as soon as possible after the event, and entering any additional contact information into your CRM for lead monitoring and nurturing.

8. Participate at trade shows

Trade fairs are gatherings where companies exhibit new technology, goods, or services, generally in the form of a booth. Attendees at trade exhibitions learn about the services that firms provide and sign up to learn more or exchange business cards. Attendees who offer contact information at your booth or via networking might create B2B sales leads.

The following is a step-by-step guide to generating leads from a trade show:

• Based on your industry and target demographic, choose a trade fair to attend. You might also be a member of a trade organisation that organizes such gatherings.
• To persuade guests to come up to your booth and learn about your company, purchase branded promotional goods as gifts. Pens, T-shirts, sweets, USB drives, and flashlights are common goods that corporations provide. It’s a good idea to bring unique goods that other booths won’t have, particularly if they connect to your business, such as branded tape measures from a commercial builder, interior designer, or architectural company.
• Create business cards, marketing brochures, and any equipment or items you wish to show off, and bring them with you.
• Many booths include video displays and even demonstrations and prototypes that may be interacted with. People are more likely to come to your booth, stay longer, and be more interested in your products if you can build and add these sorts of things.
• A large incentive, such as a post-event drawing for a big prize giving (think iPad, watch, or Yeti Cooler), is often a critical component in acquiring as many connections as possible during a trade show.
• Collect business cards or contact information manually using a sign-up form or electronically with your mobile device to follow up with prospects later.

Use a business card scanner that syncs with your CRM for in-person events like trade exhibitions or networking events. For example, Pipedrive interacts with the app Business Card Reader, allowing you to scan a business card from your mobile device and have the information instantly uploaded to your CRM database as a lead.

Camera with a business card reader (Source: Pipedrive)

9. Attend business-to-business networking events

Networking events, like trade exhibitions, are a great way to meet new people, develop connections, and create leads. Chamber of Commerce get-togethers, LeadShare group meetings, and trade organization social gatherings are all common networking opportunities. Prepare a short elevator speech to use as an introduction, as well as a sales presentation for individuals who want more information, and exchange business cards with everyone you meet.

Here’s how you may create B2B leads by attending networking events:

• Choose networking opportunities that are appropriate for your area, industry, and target demographic.
• Prepare a 30- to 60-second elevator pitch to present to the group when you introduce yourself.
• Create a sales pitch to present to folks who want to learn more.
• When you go to networking events, get some business cards and carry them with you.
• Mix and mingle with guests while delivering your presentation and collecting business cards or contact information.
• With an email or a phone call, follow up with the leads you’ve met.

Sending Email Marketing Campaigns is number ten.

Email marketing campaigns are bulk emails delivered to leads whose contact information you collected at a trade fair, networking event, webinar, or directory. You might also have acquired an email list from a lead buying database. These people are usually unqualified leads (UQLs), and your objective is to turn them into marketing qualified leads (MQLs) or even sales qualified leads (SQLs) (SQLs).

Here’s how you use email marketing campaigns to produce B2B sales leads:

• Gather contact information, including the contact’s email address, from internet sources, directories, business cards, or sign-up sheets, or purchase a contact list. If you’re using a CRM, import the data; if not, transfer it to an email marketing platform like Mailchimp or Constant Contact.
• Create email templates that are tailored to your goals and target audience. Make sure each email template has a call to action.
• Emails should be written and sent. This may be done for individual email campaigns or a series of emails that are sent out on a regular basis or when a receiver clicks on a link or opens an email.
• Keep track of your campaign’s open rates, click rates, and replies.
• Collect contact information from anybody who wants to learn more, and then follow up with a phone call or a tailored email.

To automate email marketing, use tools like HubSpot CRM. With HubSpot’s email design tools, you can send bulk email campaigns to all of your contacts or to specific recipients depending on your criteria. You may also use automation to send a series of emails on a pre-determined timetable or in response to behavioral triggers such as opens and clicks.

Designer for HubSpot’s email marketing (Source: HubSpot)

11. Create Lead Referral Networks for B2B Companies

Referral networks are partnerships, incentive programs, and connections that help your company generate leads by referring it (or you) to others. Referral networks are often formed between firms that provide complimentary goods or services. For example, since one service complements the other, cybersecurity experts often develop referral agreements with information technology management organizations.

You may also employ incentive programs, in which individuals who recommend business to you get pay or benefits. Existing clients can make excellent referral partners since they are familiar with your company. They don’t always need incentives to suggest your company to others (but it never hurts to express gratitude in some form).

Create strong referral networks by following these steps:

• Choose referral partners who are a good match for your company. This might include complementary or replacement companies, organizations with clout such as CPAs, commercial lenders, and insurance agencies, as well as your present suppliers and customers. For local firms, this might include nearby businesses with comparable target customers and community business peers, such as other members of your local Chamber of Commerce.
• Create a referral program with incentives such as account credit for future purchases (for existing customers), affiliate awards, cash payments, or gift cards, either as reciprocal referral partners or with incentives such as account credit for future purchases (for existing customers).
• Through email, phone conversations, or social media campaigns, discuss collaborations and/or promote referral schemes. If your referral program is open to the public, such as an affiliate or customer rewards program, you may provide information on how to join or participate on your website.
• Follow up on prospects created via the referral program with actions like as introductions, nurturing, and closing deals.
• Keep track of referrals from each source and send out rewards as soon as possible.

12. Contribute as a Guest Author

Submitting articles to a professional magazine, another company’s blog, or guest presenting at a conference, webinar, or podcast are all examples of being a guest contributor. It helps you to present your brand to audiences that mirror your target markets and ideal buyer types, resulting in leads that can be nurtured and perhaps converted into sales discussions.

Here’s how being a guest writer may help you create B2B sales leads:

• Investigate and find prospective guest contributor possibilities, such as blog entries on other websites, articles for a magazine or trade journal, podcasts or trade exhibitions, seminars or webinars looking for guest speakers.
• Create a unique pitch for each opportunity you wish to pursue, and then apply.
• Write an essay or design a presentation for your guest contribution material. Again, this should be tailored to the opportunity and target audience.
• Request a list of registrants and attendees’ contact information for seminars and webinars. You may be able to get a contact list of persons who receive the magazine if you wrote for it. If this isn’t a possibility, include a brief URL or QR (quick response) code in your article or presentation that directs guests to an online sign-up form.
• Use introductions, lead nurturing programs, and business closing strategies to follow up with leads produced.

13. Use Special Offers to Attract Business-to-Business Sales Leads

Special offers provide prospects a risk-free or low-cost chance to sample your product or service. Using unique offers like free trials and discounts to produce sales leads, including marketing and sales qualified leads, has been proved to work. Email marketing, cold calling, SEO content and landing pages on your website, social media, and advertising are all good options for promoting special deals.

Here’s how you get B2B sales leads with unique offers:

• Make a list of the offers you’d want to advertise. A free trial, new customer discount, free gift with purchase, or a free consultation are all possibilities. Limited-time offers (LTOs) are often used to generate a feeling of urgency.
• Define your special offer’s target audience among the buyer categories most likely to benefit and convert into high-quality leads.
• Use strategies like mass emailing, cold phoning, advertising, landing pages on your website, search-optimized content, and social media campaigns to promote the special deal. Use a variety of ways to reach out to your target demographic.
• Lead nurturing and business closing efforts should be used to follow up with leads that exhibit interest in or sign up (for example, for a free trial).
• Keep track of the success of special offer campaigns and use them to influence future lead generation activities.

14. Engage the services of a telemarketing firm

You may engage a telemarketing agency to make calls on your behalf if you want to employ cold calling campaigns to create B2B leads but don’t want to do it yourself. They will conduct all of your cold calling using their contact database or a list of contacts you give to set up appointments for your sales team or qualify the lead in some manner.

DialAmerica, Quality Contact Solutions, Strategic Calls, and Superhuman Prospecting are a few trustworthy telemarketing businesses to consider. It’s crucial to maintain your brand’s reputation; you don’t want cold calls conducted on your behalf to be mistaken for spam. These services are either flat-fee, fee-per-call, or performance-based, such as charging for each appointment made up successfully.

Here’s how a telemarketing service may help you create leads:

• Find out more about the telemarketing service you wish to employ and join up for it.
• Discuss your objectives and target market with the telemarketing company.
• Give them a script to follow as well as a list of contacts (or select a target audience from their database).
• Use a platform like Calendly, which syncs with your calendar as well as a number of major CRMs including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, and Pipedrive. The telemarketing agents provide prospective leads a link through email or text that allows them to select the time that is most convenient for them. The appointment is instantly synced to your calendar and the contact information is added to your CRM as it is made.
• Follow up on the telemarketing provider’s planned meetings, as well as any marketing or sales qualified leads identified as possible purchasers.

The Four Types of Business-to-Business Leads

A B2B lead is a person with purchasing power or decision-making authority in an organization who expresses interest in the goods or services of another firm. Some people go so far as to say that any firm that is a good match for a company’s goods or services, regardless of brand knowledge or interest in the company’s offers, fits the description.

Various sorts of leads enter the sales funnel throughout the lead generating process, based on their connection with the company. It’s critical to understand the differences between them so you can tailor your lead follow-up and management techniques appropriately. Unqualified prospects, for example, may need initial calls or emails, while marketing qualified leads may go right into nurturing efforts.

The following are the four primary categories of B2B sales leads:

• Unqualified lead (UQL): An unqualified lead is a contact who may be a suitable match for your company’s goods and services but has not yet indicated interest.
• Marketing qualified lead (MQL): A marketing qualified lead is any contact who has demonstrated some degree of interest in a marketing campaign but is not yet ready to buy. For example, if a contact fills out a form for a special offer, joins up for a free trial, or clicks on a marketing email link, they have shown interest and might be called a MQL.
• A sales qualified lead (SQL) is any contact who has shown interest, has been verified in some manner by your sales team, and is nearly ready to buy and/or would want to speak with a sales person. If a B2B lead seeks a quotation or price estimate, for example, they are demonstrating intent to purchase and are so sales qualified.
• A product qualified lead (PQL) is a contact who has tried a product for free or for no charge and subsequently shown interest in becoming a paying client. A lead utilizing a free trial, for example, has become product qualified if they question a sales agent about a particular feature or for cost estimates, or views the site’s pricing page.

Why It’s Important to Use Multiple Strategies

A sales management role necessitates the development of an efficient B2B lead generation plan using different and diversified channels and methodologies. These techniques enable your sales force to find and nurture prospects, enabling agreements to be completed and your company to expand.

You may produce unqualified, marketing qualified, sales qualified, and product qualified leads using a variety of strategies, depending on your company and how its sales organization is set up. Variety among strategies is crucial because it generates a more constant flow and decreases the negative impact felt if one approach stops working or only operates seasonally or cyclically.

Conclusion

The tactics utilized to generate B2B sales leads differ based on your industry, skill set, and degree of comfort with each strategy. Use an outgoing strategy, like as networking, email marketing, or cold calling, or an inbound strategy, such as advertising, content marketing, and establishing a referral system. These tried-and-true sales techniques can fill your pipeline with B2B sales leads and help you complete agreements.

The “buy b2c leads” is a tactic that can be used to generate sales leads. The “14 B2B Sales Lead Generation Tactics to Try in 2022” article discusses 14 different tactics that can help you generate more sales leads.

Related Tags

• business leads database
• new business leads
• leads for my business
• salesfully reviews
• lead lists for business