By Jep Castelein, Lead Sloth, via Genius.com

To grow revenue, you need more leads. Since this is often urgent, it’s easy to use quick-fix lead generation methods which are not always the most effective. If we take a step back and look at the big picture, what’s the best way to approach lead generation?

In this post I’ll cover 5 tips to improve the effectiveness of B2B Lead Generation. Please let me know whether you agree, and what your tips are!

1. Know Your Ideal Prospect

When people ask me for advice on lead generation, I always first ask: “who are you trying to reach?” You can answer that question in a number of ways:

1. Which country or region are they in?
2. Do they work for specific companies, within specific industries, or a certain size?
3. What are their job titles?
4. What are their job responsibilities? (this is usually more insightful than job title, but harder to find)

If you’re not sure, look at your existing customers, and identify the key decision makers and influencers. People like them are likely to be your ideal prospects.

2. Be Where Your Prospects Are

If you start a lead generation program, ask yourself where the ideal prospect learns about new developments in their space. Some industries – like technology – are primarily online. Others – like construction – are more focused on advertising, tradeshows and word-of-mouth. But it’s not just industry-specific: it can also depend on seniority, geography or personal preferences.

Once you know where your ideal prospects hear about new industry solutions, you can choose lead generation tactics that are most likely to reach them. Do prospects use the web to learn about new solutions? If yes, focus on inbound marketing. Are they into magazines or tradeshows? Or are they passive, waiting until they are approached by a solution provider? If yes, use outbound techniques.

In most cases, there is no single best way to find new leads. You’ll need a mix of tactics to generate the number of leads you need. And most likely, you will need to do some tests to optimize your marketing mix (see Tip 5).

3. Add Value, Avoid Quick Sells

You can’t assume that prospects are ready to buy when you approach them (in fact most are not). Pressured for quick results, some marketing teams send out aggressive campaigns to new leads, like “10% off before the end of the month.” But, this hardly ever works. If prospects don’t know you yet and you haven’t shown the value of your solution, why would they respond to a discount, demo, phone call or other high-commitment offer?

Start with a soft-sell, offering something that will help them in their jobs. Here are some examples. If you’re selling insulation materials to contractors, offer a guide with information on “how to build energy-friendly at the same cost.” If you’re selling loyalty programs to the Fortune 500, offer a list of “The top 10 loyalty programs of all time.”

With such offers you will increase response rates dramatically, and attract the right type of prospects. Just make sure you set up a lead nurturing program, so your company stays top of mind until the prospect has an active need for solutions like yours.

4. Make Sure You Get the Right Leads

B2B Lead Generation is just as much about quality as it is about quantity. Of course, you want lots of leads. But if none of the leads are turning into customers, you’ve attracted the wrong audience. If you have defined your Ideal Prospect (step 1), you can set up a lead scoring profile, to measure whether you’re attracting the right type of prospect.

Additionally, I recommend partnering with inside sales. They are contacting the leads, so they have a very good idea whether the leads are any good. Ask them for honest feedback, and use that to refine your lead generation programs.

5. Test & Measure

It is sometimes hard to know beforehand which lead generation tactics will work. I recommend keeping a detailed record of the cost of campaigns, the number of raw leads, and the number of qualified leads. Ideally, you should also keep track of how many sales opportunities you get for each campaign. In my post on Demand Generation Metrics I talk in more detail about measurement.

In some cases you can test different versions of a lead generation campaign: if you use pay-per-click, you can try multiple ad versions. For email blasts you can test multiple subject lines, and so on. Just make sure you have enough volume to get statistically significant results.

And finally, assign enough budget. Unfortunately you sometimes just have to spend the money, even though you’re not sure about the results. Personally, I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on list rental, until it turned out that the cost per qualified lead was 5 times higher than any other campaign. Don’t be afraid to try something, as long as you adjust quickly when it doesn’t work.

What’s Your Take?

I hope these tips were useful for you. I’m curious to hear your opinion, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment below!