Lead generation is a crucial tactic to ensuring that your business is constantly identifying, reaching, and cultivating valuable relationships with new prospects. While lead generation can typically reside within either the sales or marketing teams, it oftentimes is a specialty requiring skill sets beyond just everyday marketing or sales operations — as such, many organizations will opt to outsource or white label their sales prospecting to a B2B lead generation company.
Working with an experienced lead generation company can significantly boost your outreach without a massive financial or time investment. However, finding the best B2B lead generation company requires an understanding of the landscape and research into the different options available:
What is a Lead Generation Company?
Lead generation companies, also known as agencies, spend their time finding prospects who might be a particularly good fit for a product, service, or company,
Some of these agencies generate leads through inbound and outbound marketing campaigns for a specific client, while others find potential customers in a sector or industry and then sell these leads to other organizations.
Lead generation agencies gather leads through a variety of methods, including outreach, advertising, and even purchasing information from data collection firms. Some agencies then qualify these leads based on how likely they are to convert (i.e. the “warmth” of the lead) before providing them to other businesses.
What is a B2B Lead Generation Company?
B2B (business-to-business) lead generation is similar to consumer lead generation except that the focus is on identifying businesses and/or their employees as potential end-users. This process can be difficult since it often relies on reaching those who make purchasing decisions on behalf of their organization e.g. upper management, executives, c-suites, etc.
These individuals are often only reachable through several layers of support staff. To avoid these potential roadblocks, a B2B lead generation company might use multiple tactics, including direct outreach on social platforms like LinkedIn.
What is the Lead Generation Process?
Before gathering leads, an agency needs to identify and understand its target audience. They will often build a “buyer persona” or ICP (ideal customer profile) that combines different applicable characteristics, such as demographics, presumed pain points, estimated budget, etc. This persona gives a clearer view of who a potential customer is and helps the agency shape their efforts to reach them.
Each persona is unique, and agencies will often look to places where the audience is active. For example, perhaps the desired audience is made up of heavy Instragam users, or they listen to a particular podcast. Lead generation agencies will find creative ways to speak to these audiences and grab their attention.
Some will place ads, others could build out a social campaign, and still, others might conduct direct outreach. Agencies may also use lead magnets like free e-books or other content to provide a prospective customer with value upfront.
What Does a B2B Lead Generation Company Do?
B2B lead generation companies identify and target company decision-makers, often using personalized content to make contact. This can be achieved through numerous avenues, such as:
- LinkedIn Paid Ads: Targeted ads on LinkedIn are used to capture the attention of potential customers and ask them to take the next step i.e. CTA (call to action). These next steps might include downloading a free giveaway, signing up for more information, or setting up a demo.
- LinkedIn Content Service: These services create and publish engaging LinkedIn content to help boost visibility, reputation, and credibility around your business or personal brand.
- SEO Content & Blog Writing: The best B2B lead generation companies understand how to craft SEO-driven content that ranks highly in search engines to bring in relevant leads.
- Google Ads Management: Making the most of Google Ads requires constant attention and adjustment. Quality lead generation agencies ensure that Google Ads are performing well and generating traffic.
- Email Service: Some agencies are able to turn cold emails into warm leads through thoughtful outbound email marketing campaigns.
Is LinkedIn Good for Lead Generation?
As you’ve likely gathered, LinkedIn offers a lot and some of the best opportunities for B2B lead generation. In 2020, 95% of surveyed B2B marketers leveraged LinkedIn to make it a top lead gen channel.
And with 33% of B2B decision makers using LinkedIn to research purchases, there is an abundance of opportunities to get on a prospect’s radar.
Why is LinkedIn Best for Lead Generation?
LinkedIn is proven to be one of the best platforms for lead generation, offering access to vast networks of professionals who have the power to make purchasing decisions. Often referred to as a social network, the platform has become much more than that for many professionals:
Is LinkedIn Good for B2B Marketing?
LinkedIn is ideal for any B2B marketer looking to expand their reach, share thought leadership, and/or leverage to build their own personal professional brand.
The platform is designed for business networking, which immediately makes it more adept for lead generation than other, similar platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and others. Moreover, the ability to reach individuals with decision-making or purchasing power puts LinkedIn in a league of its own.
Are Lead Generation Companies Worth It?
Lead generation companies can be worth the investment when they add value to your business. This is typically through the promotion of your organization, products, or services, the provision of qualified leads, as well as other marketing and/or sales services. If you’re able to pair a qualified lead generation company with a skillful sales team, it can have a powerful effect on your company and revenue.
How Do You Choose a Lead Generation Company?
Consider lead generation companies that use a number of outreach tactics. For example, different inbound and outbound strategies across a variety of channels. This is why services like Cleverly can be so powerful; they combine LinkedIn outreach, LinkedIn and Google Ads management, SEO content, and more to help you reach the most relevant and active potential buyers.
Social proof is important as well.
Make sure you choose a lead generation company that has delivered for customers like you. Cleverly uses proven, successful data from running thousands of B2B lead generation campaigns and is well-reviewed.
Conclusion: What is the Best B2B Lead Generation Company?
Cleverly has become one of the most attractive lead generation companies in the market, generating leads that include Uber, PayPal, Sony, Amazon, Google, and many more. To see what Cleverly can do for you and your organization, get in touch today for a free consultation.
Whether you need help defining your ideal buyer persona, generating more leads, or reaching key decision-makers, Cleverly’s blended approach to lead generation can help.
