Lead Generation Process

Whether you’re looking to revamp your B2B lead generation efforts or are new to lead generation strategies, understanding the process is essential to launching a successful campaign. Here are the steps in the lead generation process and why they’re crucial for generating quality leads for your business.

Find Potential Customers

Finding potential customers is the first step in the lead generation process, and the step most people think of when they hear this “lead generation”’ To find potential customers, you’ll need to implement an outbound lead generation campaign or an inbound lead generation campaign—ideally, both. As mentioned, leveraging outbound and inbound strategies together can maximize your results.

A common example of outbound lead generation is a cold call or email campaign. Typically handled by a dedicated sales team, these campaigns collect contact information for potential customers and reach out to them via phone or email. For example, if your business sells software, your team may want to reach out to the head of technology. Or, if you run a manufacturing or retail brand, you may want to contact the head of purchasing.

Rather than focusing on targeted outreach, inbound lead generation strategies bring potential customers to your business. Think of strategies like search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. These strategies attract customers through engaging, valuable content or advertisements. SEO and PPC campaigns are typically managed by marketing or content teams.

Let’s take a look at a real-world example: Slack is a very popular collaboration software that allows users within a business to connect quickly and communicate. Slack uses content marketing to connect with potential customers and has a particularly strong presence on social media. They create genuine engagement and grow their customer base by posting relevant content on popular social media platforms.

Convert Potential Customers into Leads

Once you make contact with a potential customer, whether through your outbound or inbound campaign, the next step is to convert potential customers into leads. Just because you reach out and make contact with a potential customer, that doesn’t mean they’re going to turn into a valuable lead. We’ll talk about qualifying leads in the next step, but beginning the conversation with the potential customer is important to build engagement and understand their needs. At that point, you can effectively market your product as a solution to their problems.

This involves understanding your potential customer’s business. So, start building a relationship before diving into a conversation about your product. Typically your sales team will reach out to potential customers to convert them into quality leads.

To continue our example, Slack creates meaningful content on popular social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. In addition to valuable content, they strategically link material and registration pages to additional information about their service, making it easy for customers to learn more about the platform and how it can be useful for their business. This lead capture strategy allows Slack’s team to move to the next step, which is lead qualification.

Qualify Each Lead

Once contact has been made, it’s up to the sales team to qualify each lead. As we mentioned, not every potential customer you have will end up being a qualified lead. A lead is typically qualified by fully understanding their needs and how your product or service can fulfill that needs. The process also involves analyzing their general engagement and readiness to purchase.

Your leads must be the right fit for your product. Too often, companies rush through the lead process to make a sale, leading to higher customer turnover and potentially bad word-of-mouth marketing. Taking the time to qualify the lead by asking the right questions and fully demonstrating your product or service is key to successful lead conversion.

For example, their sales team assesses the information for initial qualifying once Slack captures lead information from links in their social media content. This may lead to additional conversations for further qualifying, or they may have enough information to qualify the lead and move on to the next step: attempting to convert them into customers.

Turn Leads into Customers

Once a lead is qualified, it’s time to make the sale. This is where your sales team truly shines. Contacting and qualifying potential customers is one thing; closing the sale is another. B2B sales work differently than B2C sales. Instead of having a brick-and-mortar location for your products or services, B2B sales typically involve a more formal contact method, such as a sales meeting. This can be a great opportunity to personalize your sales pitch.

Your sales team should be prepared to answer any customer’s questions and bring the proper sales documentation and any applicable contracts the customer needs to sign. Expect some resistance in the steps leading up to this point; it’s normal for your qualified leads to have objections at each step until the sales contract is signed.

Always a great example of successful B2B sales processes, Slack’s sales team reaches out to continually develop a relationship with their potential customers. Like many software companies, Slack uses account managers to create a personalized experience for each client.

Continually Provide Value to Turn Customers Into Brand Ambassadors

Just because the sale has been made, it doesn’t mean the lead generation process is over. Your customers deserve high-value relationships, ongoing value-adds, and a high-quality customer experience. Continue to provide value to your existing customers, whether they just purchased from you or have been customers for a long time. While it’s not a direct lead generation strategy or part of the initial sales funnel (which we will discuss momentarily), nurturing your customers can turn them into brand ambassadors.

Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool for future lead generation. Potential customers rely on existing customer testimony when making decisions, so providing a great experience for your existing customers is a simple, effective way to generate future growth for your business. Whether you have dedicated account managers or inbound customer service teams, it’s vital to prioritize the customer experience.