To capture B2B leads, you must first identify the clients who would most benefit from your services or products, and then get them to purchase them. This form of lead generation is crucial because it gives you the ability to determine what percentage of the market is receptive to the services you provide while aiding in content creation and ensuring your contact data is always accurate.
The term “B2B” is short for business to business, which involves two or more companies marketing complementary products or services to each other. A B2B lead is a business or company that you can potentially market your products or services to, and they come in two forms, which are sales qualified based leads and marketing qualified based leads.
Sales qualified based leads, also known as SQLs, are leads that have made progress down the pipeline and now are ready for full engagement with the sales team. To become an SQL, a lead must demonstrate an intent to purchase your service or product, which may be expressed by telephone, through email, or social media messages, or requested via a demo or additional information regarding your company or service.
Marketing-based qualified leads, which are also known as MQLs, are a type of lead who have been designated as most likely to make a purchase in the future. This designation is determined by the level of engagement that they’ve had with your sales agents or marketing team.
Examples of MQL behavior include regularly viewing pages on the company website, filling out and submitting forms, downloading content produced by your firm, or signing up so they can attend a company webinar or event.
The generation of B2B leads is a process that should be left up to the marketing and sales team. They can function alone or in groups. It has been found that this process is most effective when the marketing and sales teams work closely together. For instance, the sales team might focus on SDR, or sales development representation, where they will source the leads, arrange meetings, and interact with them.
Another group can focus on BDM, or business development management, where they will focus on presenting demos, finalizing deals, and then generating the actual revenue. Collaboration between the sales and marketing team produces multiple benefits, namely the creation of a B2B lead-based generation pipeline while also empowering every employee to prioritize one responsibility, which allows them to become experts. A roadmap will also be developed which foments career progression and advancement.
Marketing teams must focus on the whole revenue cycle for the generation of B2B leads while nurturing potential clients and then transitioning them from merely having brand awareness to becoming company advocates. Meanwhile, other members of the marketing department can prioritize the generation of rapid revenue and growth without investing excessive expenditures, which is best accomplished through collaboration with startups that are still in the early stages and are open to experimentation.
