Lead generation is important in B2B marketing. In fact, it is the most important goal for 91% of B2B marketers. However, it is not very easy because 79% of generated leads are not converted into sales. 

About 63% of B2B marketers believe that generating traffic and leads is their biggest challenge. Marketers are able to convert only 5-10% of leads into sales.

Let’s study the common challenges that the B2B marketers face in lead generation and the execution of plans to overcome these. The challenges include:

• Creating an effective marketing strategy
• Determining buyer leads
• Creating an effective buyer persona
• Finding accurate leads
• Retaining generated leads
• Tracking return on investment
• Finding the right lead generation tool

Creating an effective marketing strategy

Before generating your leads you need to create an effective marketing strategy. 39% of B2B marketers do not find their marketing strategies to be effective. 

Most marketing strategies fail due to a lack of research as marketers do not understand their target audience. You need to know about your audience to generate accurate leads.

They do not observe their competition. Furthermore, they execute their marketing strategies without testing them. These factors lead to failure.

You can complete your marketing strategy by:

• Understanding your target market
• Conducting research
• Observing strategies of other B2B sellers
• Planning strategy
• Testing it
• Executing it if it is successful

Determining buyer needs

What does your buyer want? What is the need of the market? Many B2B marketers find it difficult to answer these questions. Marketers need to research the preferences of B2B buyers. Observe their behavior and determine how they’re fulfilling their needs.

For example, B2B buyers of a specific niche can find their products on a B2B marketplace such as Joor or Etsy. On the other hand, buyers who deal in multiple categories source products from Tundra, Alibaba, SeeBiz, Global Sources, and others.

If you want to identify the needs of your buyers for lead generation, the best way is to:

• Ask your current buyers about their requirements
• Study case studies and testimonials of buyers
• Understand what is lacking in the business approach and marketing campaigns of other B2B businesses
• Imagine your perception of buyers
• Create your fictitious buyer persona based on your real buyer
• Use your buyer persona in lead generation to attract potential leads

Tracking Return on Investment (ROI)

According to 31% of B2B marketers, tracking return on investment in lead generation is a major challenge for them. Calculating ROI on lead generation is a very complex process.

Formula

You have to follow a formula to calculate your ROI on lead generation:

• Subtract your marketing expense from your revenue
• Divide the subtracted result into your marketing expense
• Multiply the divided result with 100 to calculate the percentage that is your ROI

Example

For example, if you spend $200,000 in marketing. You generate a revenue of $450,000. You subtract your budget of $200,000 from your revenue of $450,000. You get a result of $250,000. You divide it into $200,000. You get a result of 1.25. Multiply it with 100 to determine the percentage. The result is 125%. This is your ROI.

You break it up to the following:

• Marketing Revenue: $450,000 – Marketing Expense: $200,000 = $250,000
• 250,000 / 200,000 = 1.25
• 1.25 * 100 = 125%

Creating an effective buyer persona

B2B marketers often create inaccurate buyer personas which do not provide desirable results. After conducting complete research, you can determine who your buyer is and what they want to buy. Marketers often make a few mistakes based on their assumptions and ignore the important factors in creating buyer personas. These important factors include:

• Talking to buyers directly instead of using sales representatives as intermediaries
• Creating one or less relevant buyer personas instead of creating too many invalid personas
• Creating the buyer persona based on the actual buyer
• Adding the buyer’s: Age, Race, Gender, Preferences, Decisions, Motivations, Goals

Getting the right lead generation tool

Lead generation tools help you to collect contact information from your potential buyers. With so many online lead generation tools available, it is difficult for B2B marketers to determine the right one.

There are a few types of lead generation tools including:

• Inbound tools
• Outbound tools
• On-page lead generation tools
• CRO tools

Inbound tools

Inbound lead generation tools help to attract potential leads and drive them towards your website. Engaging content leads to a sale. Your tools should include:

• Analytics
• Chatbots
• Content delivery
• Landing page building
• Lead tracking
• Technology to keep visitors engaged and converting them into customers

Outbound tools

Outbound lead generation tools help to find leads and contact them by approaching them via emails, cold calls or social media platforms. Good outbound tools to generate leads should:

• Search potential leads
• Export and manage contacts
• Track sales
• Send automated emails to leads

On-page lead generation tools

The on-page lead generation tools help to track leads who visit your website and convert them. With these tools you can:

• Increase your sales
• Reduce the ratio of shopping cart abandonment
• Show promotional offers
• Track the progress of lead generation process

CRO tools

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tracks the analytics and behavior of your website visitors and improves conversion rate. The features of best CRO tools for lead generation are:

• Measure key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Monitor conversion rates

Understand factors that:

• Drive leads to your page
• Make them abandon the page and prevent from converting into sales
• Convert them into buying

View page metrics such as:

• Clicks
• Duration on the page
• Views

Finding accurate leads

Finding high quality leads is the priority for 79% of marketers. However, 40% of generated leads are invalid. It is tough work to determine the authenticity of the leads. 

You need to take the following steps to verify your leads and find their validation:

• Collect information on the company details such as:
• Create a list of companies which do not want to contact you
• Use email verification tools to find and verify if you are contacting deliverable active email addresses
• Use best phone number validation tools to verify the contact number of the company

Retaining generated leads

Once you have generated and verified your leads, you have to make sure that you convert them. Even if a customer purchases from you, you need to make sure that you retain them. You need to maintain a strong business relationship with your buyers.

Nurture your leads by separating them via segmentation. Then deliver good content. Nurtured leads buy 47% more than non-nurtured leads.

Your content should spread awareness among your buyers. Write in a way to highlight their needs and then solve their problems. You can:

• Ask your buyers about their opinions in questionnaires
• Give them offers on how to save money
• Tell them an estimated ROI for buying from you

Marketing campaigns can also be a good way to do so. You can advertise via videos, emails and social media platforms.

You can convince your leads to buy from you by conducting webinars and informative content about your business.

Keep contacting them because email is the most effective medium for lead nurturing. 78% of successful lead nurturing campaigns have been successful via emails. Send them personalized emails with automated emailing tools. Use templates that greet buyers with their given names. Such measures improve response rate as well as your brand’s reputation with your buyers.

Conclusion

Lead generation is a complex process. But if you follow the aforementioned steps you can generate more leads. You can use all-in-one lead generation tools such as OptinMonster and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.