Commercial prospecting in B2B can be a complex operation that you can rationalize according to your means and objectives. Also, lead generation is a fundamental step in the sales process of a company, in digital marketing .

Several methods can be used by your marketers to effectively generate qualified leads if you sell in B2B. The fact is that you only need to adopt the right techniques to ensure the development of your sales.

How to define lead generation?

In B2B, a lead is a company (which can be represented through a person) that shows a particular interest in the services you offer. In other words, a lead is a potential sales lead for your business.

Lead generation, on the other hand, includes all the methods and tactics used by companies to capture and arouse the interest of qualified contacts and potential customers to develop sales.

The principle of a sale is based on three main pillars in order of priority, engaging in a discussion, building a relationship and conversion. Lead generation comes into play from the first step. Ideally, a lot of information about a lead should be obtained in order to define whether or not it will be a good business lead to develop.

Define your buyer persona

You must define your typical customer profile, it is the basis of your commercial prospecting device. The more you know what the characteristics of your target audience will be, the more you will increase your chances of converting. You have to have as much information as possible in order to establish your persona more precisely.

To do this, look for essential information to better understand the needs of your targets. You can list the following questions to achieve this:

• Who is your customer? (his personality)
• Where does he live?
• What are his main interests? (what he likes)
• How is his lifestyle?
• How much does he earn? etc.

Determine the locations to reach your targets

Knowing the right customer profile won't help you if you don't know where to reach them. Thus, you need to develop a marketing plan and an inbound marketing strategy to better determine the digital lead acquisition channels that will be effective for your business. These channels can be social networks ( LinkedIn , Facebook, Instagram, etc.), emails… Go where your targets are to optimally activate the right levers.

Build a chat funnel to facilitate the buying journey

A fairly important step to do upstream is to optimize your landing pages to generate qualified leads. Visitors do not land on your site by chance, they are there for a specific purpose.

The purpose of this approach is to be able to collect the personal details of your prospects by transforming visitors to your site into contacts. The easiest way to do this is to offer your visitors promotional and high value-added content to arouse their interest. By this, you will invite Internet users to leave their details through a registration form integrated into your newsletter or a discount voucher.

According to studies, more than 70% of Internet users start with a Google search when they want to find something . The SEO of your site will then be essential for your visibility to be optimal.

Opt for a targeted e-mailing

E-mailing is a marketing technique that is still relevant and is one of the most practical and used means in commercial prospecting. To find customers , e-mailing remains among the most responsive channels and requires little investment compared to the resulting profitability.

In B2B, an email sending campaign allows segmentation of your contact lists. You can produce personalized content that meets the expectations of each type of lead. The implementation of the campaign is done in less time and its traceability can be done in real time. The latter is accompanied by the most concrete statistics.

You can also automate your email marketing by opting for a CRM tool. Buying an e-mail database from a service provider is also a good option available to you. Indeed, this kind of provider can provide you with a B2B database of around 5 million contacts. This will further enlarge the number of targets to be converted.

Social selling: a flamboyant strategy

Social networks are the most used platforms by Internet users, in addition to e-mail. The ability to create conversations with prospects is greater. In order to interact with your audience, you are then obliged to be present on all types of social networks available such as creating a Facebook page, a Twitter or Pinterest account, a profile on LinkedIn, etc. The goal will be to redirect your prospects to your buying journey to turn them into qualified leads.

Implement multi-channel prospecting

Of course, social networks and mailing are the two main digital channels to exploit, but this does not mean that we should only use these two means. At the same time, you need to use various acquisition channels. Increase your touchpoints by using different means of communication.

Determine the most qualified from a lead scoring

Lead scoring is a marketing method that consists of putting scores on your contacts. Indeed, among the contacts you have acquired, there are those who are hot prospects and others who are cold. It is then necessary to distinguish them in order to increase your chances of converting them into customers and closing sales. There are many criteria to consider to make an effective lead scoring, such as information about the prospect as well as his behaviors and commitment to the brand.

Lead generation is an essential marketing approach. A good marketing database and the exploitation of digital channels will be essential points to take into account to acquire qualified leads.