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11 B2B lead generation strategies & tactics for 2024

January 14, 2021

Pedro Guimaraes

Over the past year, our research unit at Amplemarket has exhaustively analyzed B2B lead generation strategies from hundreds of our clients.

One interesting fact in B2B lead generation is that less is more. All the top 10% performers focus on strategies with a lower number of leads, but higher purchase intent.

Finding ultra-qualified leads isn’t an easy process for any business. In this article, we will give you 11 B2B lead generation strategies to find leads that convert in 2024.

For starters, this article also covers some basics of B2B lead generation. If you’re comfortable enough with the topic, feel free to jump ahead to 1 of the 11 tactics below 👇

  1. Generate leads from people interacting with LinkedIn content  
  2. Generate leads from new managers on growing teams  
  3. Generate leads from conference attendees  
  4. Generate leads from conference non-attendees  
  5. Generate leads from companies that use relevant tools and are featured on famous company lists  
  6. Generate leads from your participation in relevant Slack, LinkedIn and Facebook groups  
  7. Generate leads when companies are approving new budgets  
  8. Generate leads from your competitor product reviews  
  9. Generate leads from companies that recently fundraised  
  10. Generate leads from openly available resources useful to your niche  
  11. Generate leads within your ICP with common interests or hobbies

What is B2B lead generation?

In sales, business-to-business (B2B) lead generation refers to the first step of an outbound sales process. It consists of sourcing contact information about potential new customers.

B2B lead generation is an important step for both sales & marketing teams. However, in this blog post, we will focus more on relevant tactics and strategies for B2B sales teams selling online (i.e. via email, social media, etc).

Why are B2B lead generation tactics so important?

It’s simple. You don’t want to waste your team’s resources (money and time) selling ice to Eskimos. Even if you’re able to convince a few of them, they will soon realize that your product/service is useless to them.

Having a great lead generation process means getting the right people to use your product/service whilst streamlining your overall sales processes. This leads to higher conversion rates in your sales & marketing funnels and happier customers to provide good reviews and referrals.

Exploring the most effective B2B lead generation tactics

A great B2B lead generation process is able to generate a considerable amount of leads at the top of the funnel. Of course, numbers will differ a lot between companies and industries, but the idea is that you’re able to source enough leads and still make sure you are targeting the niche of customers that truly benefit from your product / service.

Your ultimate goal is to find the leads with the most potential to become your next customers, by looking for purchase intent signals online.

How? Let’s get practical with a few examples of B2B lead generation tactics.

11 B2B lead generation tactics and strategies you should try in 2024:

1. Generate leads from people interacting with LinkedIn content

Every day, many professionals open their thoughts for discussion on LinkedIn. Every time this happens, lots of interactions are generated.

People that are liking or commenting on those thoughts are publicly showing alignment with a topic that is relevant to them. This opens the possibility to find an entire audience out there that might be ready to start a conversation with you. How amazing is that?

We’ve recently written an article about this lead generation strategy, you can follow the complete step-by-step guide of this approach or watch our 15min webinar here.

PS: If you’re already thinking about how you’ll have the time to gather data from all the profiles on these posts, here’s the solution. Extracting leads from LinkedIn content is a seamless experience with Amplemarket’s LinkedIn extension:

[b2b lead generation]

2. Generate leads from new managers on growing teams

Sales Navigator is a powerful tool for lead generation because LinkedIn has access to a lot of data that it’s virtually impossible to replicate.

This tactic uses Sales Navigator to find the decision-makers that:

  • Have available money to spend right now
  • Want to shake things up with new processes and tools

Of course, LinkedIn doesn’t give you the data like this, but there are 2 really good proxies you can use.

  1. Filter accounts by headcount growth and department headcount growth

On account filters, you should target companies that are growing in general, but also in specific departments relevant to your product. This will signal higher purchase intent because growing teams are certainly looking to adopt new processes and tools to accommodate their tool.

  1. Filter leads by decision-makers that changed jobs in the last 90 days

Once you have your accounts list, you shouldn’t randomly target decision-makers within those companies. On lead filters, narrow to decision-makers that recently changed jobs.

Why? These people just entered a new role, on a growing team. This means, they are looking to shake things up internally and have available money to spend right now.

In this article about how to find purchase intent on Sales Navigator, we explain this approach step-by-step.

[b2b lead generation]

3. Generate leads from conference attendees

Industry-relevant events are a great way to connect with potential customers in your niche. With more conferences going remote, this is a great opportunity to reach out to these people.

Using a lead generation tool like Amplemarket, you can easily filter for companies that are attending industry-relevant events. Check here how this could work for you.

[b2b lead generation]

You see? With a quick search, you can easily find hundreds or thousands of good leads to reach out to.

Alternatively, you can also purchase the tickets for each conference and have access to the attendees' page.

Still not convinced?

Some other great companies have tested this strategy with success. You can see what a real outreach example from PandaDoc looks like here.

4. Generate leads from conference non-attendees

Many times, the decision-makers within your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) are not the ones attending the conferences. This strategy enables you to re-target companies that attended industry-relevant events with the "wrong" people.

Great! How?

You've got the companies from strategy #3. You just need to re-target your approach to decision-makers that better fit your ICP but didn't attend the conference and that's it!

In the end, you'll either have leads with more seniority or leads that belong to a different team.

Note: You can also add the companies that didn't convert in strategy #3.

5. Generate leads from companies that use relevant tools and are featured on famous company lists

Every day, you can find new lists online that feature / bundle companies in several topics. Depending on your industry, you might be interested in companies like: New Unicorn Companies in 2024 or Fortune 1000.

There are several ways you can find the relevant contacts for these companies. For instance, you may use advanced google searches or you may know some online resources.

Any tactic you choose, you can use these lists to leverage relevancy in a dedicated message.

💡 Hint: You can add an extra point to relevancy and personalization if you know which technologies these companies use and you integrate with.

Note: Find this information on websites like Crunchbase, reviews pages like G2, Capterra, and Featured Customers, or on the tool's website under the customer testimonials section

Example:

 "I found you on the 2024 Unicorns list" - this alone might not be enough

Adding more value:

 "Congrats, I just saw your company made into the Unicorns list in 2020. I’m reaching out because I see that you use {{tool}} which we integrate... " - this type of message will make you stand out from the crowd.

On Amplemarket, we do this for you:

[b2b lead generation]

6. Generate leads from your participation in relevant Slack, LinkedIn, and Facebook groups

Slack, LinkedIn and Facebook groups are a great and unexplored way of generating leads. While people ask questions about how to solve their issues, you can find unexplored opportunities by helping them out with your solution.

Whether your industry prefers Slack, LinkedIn or Facebook groups to hang out and debate relevant topics doesn’t really matter for the purpose of your lead generation efforts.

Example: For companies in the marketing technology industry, this Slack group has a channel where people share their issues with experts in the field. If your product solves the issue, you can easily jump into the conversation and potentially win a new customer.

[b2b lead generation]

This strategy may not be the top source of leads in terms of volume, but with the right process, you can easily approach prospects that are just looking to solve the issue you solve for.

Manually checking for each message on the channel isn’t very efficient. With zapier.com, create customized notifications on your slack whenever someone mentions a relevant topic to you.

7. Generate leads when companies are approving new budgets

For most B2B SaaS companies the last 2 months of the year is a period when a lot of companies approve budgets, renew contracts, or evaluate new vendors for the upcoming new year. From a timing perspective, this is one of the best moments to jump into a conversation and eventually win some customers.

At this time of the year, you can easily search for companies using your competitor tools and create a dedicated message on Amplemarket.

Just as an example, a message like this will trigger their curiosity to learn more about your tool:

 "I noticed you’re using {{competitor_tool}}, I reached out because for a lot of companies the end of the year is usually a period when they evaluate renewals with vendors. Is that the case for {{competitor_tool}}? If so, I would love to connect, we at XYZ..."

8. Generate leads from your competitor product reviews

Websites like G2, Capterra, and FeaturedCustomers are a great knowledge source about your competitors. Not only you can use the reviews to learn more about issues that people usually feel, but you can also identify potential new customers from unhappy reviews.

Here’s an example:

[b2b lead generation]

From this review, you get 2 things:

  1. The user values a support team that is quick to answer his issues  
  2. The user feels the pricing structure is complex to understand and expensive

If you sell a product that competes with Intercom and have a better offering for the 2 key points Gareth mentioned, then this is a relevant lead to you.

Open LinkedIn and search for Gareth M with title “Co-founder OR CEO”. Scroll through the profiles and select the one that matches the picture. In 80% of the cases, you’ll find the profile.

This looks manual and cumbersome, but it’s worth exploring if you’re competing with large companies that have plenty of reviews online. You’ll be reaching out to leads that are already aware of your market and if you solve their issues, you’ve just nailed it 💯

Note: Keep in mind the reviews date. In this case, the review is from January 2021 so it’s probably not worth reaching out to!

9. Generate leads from companies that recently fundraised

Companies that recently fundraised are a good proxy for potential new customers because:

  1. They have readily available money to spend  
  2. They probably need new tools to accommodate the company growth  
  3. They will hire new people, which means they are looking to implement new tools and processes

Depending on your industry you’ll find every new quarter lots of new companies that recently fundraised and are within your ICP. Within Amplemarket, you can easily search for companies based on: 1) funding amount, 2) funding round type, and 3) funding date.

[b2b lead generation]

10. Integrate B2B marketing lead generation tactics

Everyone loves free stuff, especially if it's useful! Creating valuable resources like GoodSalesEmails.com and Lists.Amplemarket.com is one of our most favorite B2B lead generation tactics.

Users appreciate it when you create value and offer it for free. These types of resources not only build brand awareness but also help you build trust between your brand and potential new customers.

Make sure you have your website optimized to capture users to sign-up for more marketing content with a business email address. More inbound marketing lead generation means more fuel for your pipeline!

[b2b lead generation]

11. Generate leads within your ICP with common interests or hobbies

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with too many cold emails in our inbox.

This tactic gives a new breath to your sales outbound efforts. When doing B2B lead generation, you can also leverage uncommon information to make the cold outreach easier.

After selecting your usual ICP filters, you may still have an audience that is too broad. In this situation, you can narrow down your target audience with keyword filters.

To do this, you can manually check the about sections of all the LinkedIn profiles and select the ones you want, OR use Amplemarket’s searcher functionalities to easily search for this.

For example, you can create target audiences that love cooking or a sport like basketball. Then create a dedicated message where you connect the common interest with the product you sell.

[b2b lead generation]

This looks ingenious, that’s why I have a real example for you:

[b2b lead generation]


Measuring the success of B2B lead generation tactics

Let's dive into how you can assess the success of your B2B lead generation strategies.

  1. Define clear metrics: Establish what success looks like for your lead generation efforts. This could be the volume of leads generated, conversion rates, cost per lead, or the quality of leads in terms of their alignment with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
  2. Analyze conversion rates: One of the most critical metrics is the conversion rate from lead to customer. High conversion rates often indicate that your lead generation tactics are not only bringing in quantity but quality as well.
  3. Evaluate lead quality: Assess the quality of leads by how well they fit into your ICP. Are they decision-makers or influencers? Do they have the budget and authority to make purchases? High-quality leads are more likely to convert into sales.
  4. Track ROI: Calculate the return on investment (ROI) for each tactic. Compare the cost of the tactic (including time, tools, and resources) against the revenue generated from leads it produced.
  5. Monitor lead source efficiency: Identify which lead sources are yielding the best results. Which strategies and filters are providing you with the best leads and highest conversion rates? Understanding this helps in optimizing future strategies.
  6. Feedback and referrals: Happy customers are often a result of effective lead generation tactics. Measure customer satisfaction and the number of referrals generated, as these can be indicators of the success of your lead generation approach.
  7. Sales team feedback: Regularly consult with your sales team. Their insights on lead quality and engagement can provide valuable feedback on the effectiveness of different lead generation tactics.
  8. Benchmark against industry standards: Compare your metrics with industry averages. Are your B2B lead generation tactics more or less effective than your competitors'? This benchmarking can provide valuable insights into your strategy's relative success.
  9. Use analytics tools: Leverage tools and software to track and analyze lead generation performance for a holistic view of your strategies' effectiveness.
  10. Continuous improvement: The most effective B2B lead generation tactics are those that evolve. Use your findings to refine and enhance your strategies continually. Remember, what works today might not be as effective tomorrow!

Wrapping Up...

In this blog post, we’ve preached 2 particular things about B2B lead generation:

  1. B2B Lead Generation is an important (and oftentimes, overlooked) step of any outbound sales process  
  2. Some of the most important B2B lead generation tactics you should try in 2024 focus on a lower number of leads, but higher purchase intent.

Our research unit at Amplemarket uses millions of daily data points from all our users to constantly test new B2B lead generation tactics and strategies. Nonetheless, we advise you to always A/B test all assumptions and adapt them for your use case.

If you got excited enough, sign-up here to join us in the pole position for the future of B2B SaaS sales. We’re happy to onboard you on the amazing journey we have in front of us! 🚀

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