10 Proven Strategies to Generate Business Leads in 2024

After 26 years in the SAP world, I've seen firsthand the constant need to generate business leads. It's the lifeblood of any company. Yet, it is a very common challenge, whether you're a massive enterprise or a small startup.

I've had direct or indirect experience, leading around a Billion (yes, with a "B") dollars in software and services. Figuring out how to attract the right people is difficult. It often feels like finding a needle in a haystack, but the process becomes far less confusing, with clarity on your value -- this applies regardless if it's generating leads to start the process, or at the finish line about to close the deal.

Strategies to Generate High-Quality Business Leads

Many businesses get stuck on driving traffic and interest. Some studies point out that over 60% of marketers consider this to be the top issue.

That same study has continued to say, even in different years that it is their number one issue. Focusing on some key areas gives solid returns over time.

Understanding Your Buyer Persona

Content helps transform site visitors into buyers, but your messaging has to have relevance to a core pain. What issue do these potential customers face that has driven them to investigate solutions?

Personas get developed leveraging real data, often from customers or even people that fit who you would LIKE as clients. Finding these pain points helps craft targeted lead magnet style messaging and outreach.

Content is King

Content takes center stage, whether you're producing long-form blog posts or engaging in more succinct posts.

Once you attract those potential sales prospects to give you information and move closer to closing the deal, you can then provide targeted content. Then, you provide targeted follow-up content that takes them even further down the sales funnel, but with laser targeted relevant, pain points that have only surfaced AFTER you understood them first.

Attracting the Right Audience with Targeted Content

A large part of figuring out what to write starts with first identifying your key problem to address and writing it. One tactic is using your buyer personas.

Creating content marketing specifically with those personas means finding out critical, unmet needs and issues that haven't yet been answered fully. Buyers who begin this lead generation process want referrals and trust factors - a staggering 84% of B2B buyers kick it off with one.

Content Marketing for Lead Generation

When creating a marketing plan for sales, many might have thought about the concept of inbound vs. outbound lead strategies. Both approaches work in harmony.

Inbound marketing requires a way to use value in order to build interest and get contact information, leading a cold prospect into a warm call and building a lasting relationship. Outbound gets right to that discussion point much faster.

Inbound Lead Generation: A Focus on Value

With inbound marketing, useful content, built around buyer personas, addresses the challenges people feel and seek a solution for. Use methods such as blogging, social engagement, SEO and videos to find, build rapport, and help build trust.

Then, based on this approach, transition a casual visitor into an interested person through actionable call to actions and ways to gain their information in exchange for giving solutions. One example that gets missed all too often is in employee signatures. Learn to generate business leads from the email traffic your team sends already.

Outbound Lead Generation Tactics

Direct engagement goes directly into the process, building targeted outreach with calls, direct email, and even focused in-person conversations. Sometimes, outbound might give a more immediate impact by getting a new, quality lead in the sales system much faster.

But it is important to recognize that sales cycles require patience. Over 30% of B2B sales take at least one to three months to finalize (and ERP lead can take 18 months or longer to bring to fruition), so even this can depend on the situation.

Leveraging LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

LinkedIn presents one powerful place to start building networks with potential buyers. Millions of decision makers exist on that one platform alone, using professional network connections to give solutions.

Research indicates 61 million users of LinkedIn exist with "influence". These people and this social network needs to get prioritized. There is so much noise online today that getting direct exposure takes more effort than before.

Online Advertising and Retargeting Efforts

Platforms, Google for example, have PPC models that use targeted key-terms to drive ads when a consumer types those terms on that search engine. Retargeting helps showcase your digital presence after someone finds a webpage to follow-up even more on their discovery of a solution you are marketing.

It is rare for prospects to act right away so digital methods build consistent outreach. Consider testing free trials of software or services as part of your online strategy.

These are roughly equivalent to the 'puppy dog' approach to sales.  No one returns a puppy.

Referrals Drive Quality Conversations

There are few methods as effective at bringing in more sales than referrals. It has always served companies well by going this route of engagement when providing services, regardless if you have a retainer, flat-fee or some other structure.

I once knew a salesman at SAP early in my career who told me, his number one rule was "always ask for the referral". And when those customers share those positive results, that creates credibility through trusted sources - and the deal comes full circle. A referral program can greatly increase high quality lead flow.

Guest Blogging Helps SEO Too

Working with businesses that fit your target audience helps find people and clients who understand what is at stake when finding new customers. But if you go the inbound marketing strategy with blogs, getting higher authority is also another key point.

Google looks for how trustworthy websites link back to your webpage. Guest blogs do just that. Writing something insightful and new gets those trusted publications, blogs and channels linking in to your writing and in effect builds your domain value too. And the by-product is when someone searches on Google for that targeted phrase, you also rank better organically.

Website Optimization for Lead Capture

Optimizing a website so that it attracts more business is only half the challenge. How does the content capture information though?

Simple tweaks get frequently missed: buttons, embedded sign ups, and even live chat windows help here. Think of each step in a customer process and write a process around that discovery.

Pop-Ups: Friend or Foe?

There are different feelings about Pop-Ups - good and bad. Some people like the immediate reminder and a recent study found that at least 3% found it useful enough to follow it to its conclusion.

But, many more people felt otherwise at nearly 73% who hated the disruptive method and dismissed it altogether. Use pop-ups, but be cautious.

Live Chat Support

Sometimes people have questions to fully understand the picture of the sale and where it's headed next. Some analysis shows that at least 42% like the faster connection for the immediate situation that needs answering now.

If people have quick answers it removes friction points to your sales closing process and even provides an opportunity to build on generating leads through the conversation. It helps prevent some lost deals in many cases too.

Don't Send Leads Directly to Sales

A challenge many companies deal with occurs after getting information into their marketing automation tool - like what HubSpot provides to segment follow ups based on their online activity, for example. When does that get handed over for more personalized communications?

One analysis indicated that 61% of B2B businesses pass on a lead without that critical next step. I saw how even basic qualification calls helps move this down stream to faster decisions. Remember not all leads are created equal.

Qualifying Leads is Critical

One of the biggest factors contributing to lost sales involved - 67% of cases- sending leads through too fast. Qualification of a marketing qualified lead helps solve that massive problem.

Cold Calling Has Very Limited Impact

Although it works to some level with getting things moving in a new direction, sometimes things need a bit more than starting off from scratch with just a call. Some claim, it barely connects at around 2%.

I have used that process a lot before, but over time, things began changing more as more social media networks, such as LinkedIn, grew. Building that outreach over multiple attempts instead makes for far better impact than that older and isolated approach.

The Length of the Form Does Impact Conversion

Getting that important information into your sales system sometimes gets blocked at a point too soon - even when beginning. Filling it out and quitting happened more than we want to admit; a reported 81% who walked away and didn't follow it through.

The art-form involves how it's written to show it benefits them, but also understanding how many "steps" or fields the forms had. Most studies suggested it works better at around five parts. But other businesses may be more successful with far fewer. I always ask myself, "what's the most minimal requirement to have a quality interaction?". Focus on what will increase your conversion rate.

Keeping It Simple Wins Out

Regardless of how the communication flows, the length and simplicity helps. Using email programs such as what Yesware provides gives you one less hurdle, offering features to help track email opens and engagement.

The same thought exists for your proposal software, whether you need to track if someone actually read or opened up what you sent matters for making quick decision, and time saved following up only on the serious potential client.

Generate Business Leads From Partner Sites

Other businesses, outside of what you have influence, holds potential in attracting new people to help your bottom-line. There are different places you can search on and some have more of a reputation for connecting sales and customers together.

Using prospecting software or business sites such as, LeadFuze or SkyLine, drives awareness too on people, with contact details that you are looking for, to speed up those business leads to drive growth. It also depends on your business model too, however and whether inbound or outbound suits it better.

LeadFuze offers solutions here. A critical place to gain access to targeted business leads. These lead generation tools can make a huge difference.

Conclusion

There's not just "one method" to generate leads and bring sales leads into your funnel, but many options do exist. How a company manages its ability to generate quality leads ultimately helps it in the long term.

From years of practice, getting direct access faster than old ways - that require more steps - gives far better return over that same timeframe invested. Focus your generation strategy, be adaptable, and you'll see results.