Lead Generation for B2B: What Works Now in 2023

Leads are the lifeblood of your business. If you run out of them, the whole function of your business will shut down.

So, how do you make sure your sales team has a constant flow of high-quality leads to sell to?

In years past, throwing a few ads online and getting a ton of traffic and leads to your business was easy. Now, the B2B market is more competitive than ever, and buyers are more sensitive to being spammed by marketing.

Let’s talk about the lead generation scene for B2B in 2023 and seven tactics you can use to generate new, qualified leads.

How Lead Generation for B2B is Shifting

The modern buyer is more informed than ever. Their purchase process is built around research and solo discovery, and they’re less likely to be interested in talking with your sales team until much later in the journey.

In fact, more than 70% of B2B buyers prefer remote interactions or digital self-service when purchasing, and 27% are willing to spend more than $500K on an online purchase.

Today’s buyers know their pain points but also what solutions are available. So, lead generation is shifting to focus on meeting buyers where they are in the purchase process by providing them with resources to make purchasing decisions without the help of a sales team.

When your sales team enters the conversation, they are there to act as growth marketing consultants who help guide prospects the rest of the way through to a closed deal.

7 Lead Generation Tactics Your B2B Sales & Marketing Teams Should Try

So, how can your lead generation give buyers the resources they need to make purchase decisions while guiding them toward a closed deal? You’re about to see seven high-performing lead-generation strategies—some of which are part of our 300,000+ lead-generation playbook.

Today’s most successful B2B sales and marketing teams are using these to get higher-quality leads, and so can you.

1. Create Educational Content

This may seem like an obvious strategy. After all, everyone and their grandmother is creating content.

The key word here is educational.

Remember, your best leads are the ones who are already aware they have a problem. So, educate them from that point—starting from the pain point and leading to the solution.

For example, if you sell finance tracking software, you might create educational content on the best finance trackers for small businesses or content on tracking finances that features your product.

This is known as middle-of-the-funnel content, educating your new leads on their options for purchases they already know they need to make.

2. Build Gated Resources

Of course, ungated blog content will only get you so far. While using gated content has a controversial history, there’s no denying that gated resources are an excellent way to get email addresses of high-quality leads.

But here’s the catch: you need to create resources worth setting up behind a gate.

What does this mean? That the sloppily-written eBook from five years ago isn’t going to cut it with today’s buyers.

Instead, try creating:

• Unique industry research and surveys
• Downloadable guides with valuable content
• Templates, worksheets, and other actionable resources
• Online courses

What you decide to build will depend on the resources available to your team—but whatever it is, make sure it’s truly valuable to your leads.

3. Set up Sales Email Sequences

Once you’ve collected some emails, another straightforward way to generate new leads is to enter them into sales and marketing email sequences.

Again, the point here is to create something of value for your prospects. These shouldn’t just be emails designed to sell—they should be designed to develop brand affinity, educate prospects, and lead them to see why your solution is the best option for them.

You could try segmenting these leads and sending them email sequences based on their interests—for example, you might segment prospects into lists based on their roles at the company, or the department they’re in. Then, you can send them personalized email sequences that appeal to that particular profile.

4. Publish an On-Demand Product Demo

The classic B2B sales process includes a nice long sales presentation. And while boring your prospects into purchasing your solution is one way to sell, it may not be the best way.

As consumers, we’re used to getting free samples and easy returns, meaning we see a product in action before deciding whether to buy or not. So, why should B2B be any different?

Building an on-demand product demo that lives on your website is a great way to simulate this B2C buying experience for your B2B prospects—and generate new leads. Want to see what it looks like in action? Check out the on-demand demo we created at Close.

Let your potential customers see how your solution works in action, without needing to schedule a call with your team.

5. Create a Free Tool

Free tools and side projects that work alongside your main product are another innovative lead generation strategy that B2B companies today are leaning into. Just look at Ahrefs Free SEO Tools, Mailchimp’s free marketing tools, or Freshwork’s free helpdesk software.

These are all meant to build new leads for their respective companies by offering a product that works alongside their paid plans, but allows customers to try it out for free. Create your own free tool to build trust in your prospects and steadily nurture them over time.

6. Enable Your Team to Become Thought Leaders

As thought leaders stated in an HBR article: “To get more leads, the B2B salesforce needs to meet their potential customers where they are: online, primarily on LinkedIn and Twitter. As part of this effort, your salesforce must become recognized thought leaders in their fields and contribute to digital conversations in new and provocative ways.”

Of course, you can’t expect your sales team to become thought leaders in your industry just out of their own willpower. Give them the resources they need to do this—including help from other teams.

For example, marketing teams can support sales by providing content and ideas. Customer-facing teams can give sales insider information about how customers are using their product, and the pain points they’re facing. Providing these resources on a regular basis can enable your sales team to become thought leaders on social media, and connect organically with ideal customers.

7. Be More Strategic With Social Conversations

Encouraging your sales team to be more active on social media has an additional benefit—they can join the right conversations as they’re happening online, a particularly valuable skill in the era of digital transformation.

To start, give your sales team access to social listening tools. They can use these to monitor online conversations about specific customer pain points, competing products, or even your own products. When the right conversations come along, your sales team can jump in, provide valuable information, and organically nurture potential customers toward a sale.

Of course, you don’t want your sales team to jump in on just any conversation. Give them guidelines on what to look for to make sure they’re interacting with leads that have the highest potential to convert later on.

Create Your Lead Generation Strategy for 2023

Being strategic with your lead generation methods will help you build a stronger, high-quality pipeline for 2023.

Of course, after you start collecting these leads, you need to keep them moving forward to a sale.

Combine the power of SavvyCal with Close to schedule new meetings with high-quality leads and assign the conversations to your sales team in your favorite CRM.

Check out the integration and see how SavvyCal + Close can supercharge your lead gen strategy.