Table of Contents
If you’re feeling the pressure of finding new ways to generate B2B leads in an increasingly competitive market, you’re not alone. Let’s be real: the B2B world is like a high-stakes chess game, and the wrong move could leave you struggling for leads.
But with 2025 on the horizon, now’s the time to get creative and strategic.
In this article, we’ll dive into 17 proven lead generation tactics that can help elevate your sales pipeline and set your business up for success in the coming year.
Let’s get started!
What is B2B lead generation?
B2B lead generation refers to the process of identifying and attracting potential business customers (or leads) who are likely to be interested in your product or service.
It’s all about filling your pipeline with prospects that your sales team can nurture into long-term customers.
But successful lead generation isn’t about casting the widest net—it’s about strategically targeting businesses that need what you offer.
Types of B2B leads
There are two main categories of B2B leads:
1. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
MQLs are leads who have shown a level of interest in your product or service but aren’t quite ready to make a purchasing decision.
These are the individuals or companies that may have interacted with your brand by downloading an ebook, subscribing to your newsletter, attending a webinar, or engaging with your blog posts.
They’ve expressed curiosity but haven’t taken actions that suggest they’re prepared to have a direct conversation with your sales team just yet.
Examples of MQL behaviors:
- Downloading a whitepaper or case study
- Registering for a webinar
- Subscribing to your email newsletter
- Following your company on social media or engaging with posts
- Visiting your website multiple times without requesting a demo or consultation
What to do with MQLs:
- Continue nurturing through email campaigns and educational content
- Score leads based on engagement to determine when they’re ready for sales outreach
- Personalize follow-up actions based on the lead’s interaction history
2. Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
SQLs are leads who have moved beyond the exploratory phase and are now showing strong buying intent.
These leads have actively engaged with your brand in ways that indicate they’re ready for a deeper conversation with your sales team.
Actions like requesting a demo, scheduling a call, or filling out a detailed contact form signal that they’re prepared to evaluate your product as a potential solution to their business needs.
Examples of SQL behaviors:
- Requesting a demo or free trial
- Filling out a form to speak with a sales rep
- Asking detailed questions about pricing, product features, or implementation
- Engaging in a live chat or calling the sales team directly
- Returning to the pricing page multiple times
What to do with SQLs:
- Provide a more personalized, one-on-one sales experience
- Offer tailored product demos or consultations
- Address specific pain points and objections to move them toward a purchase decision
- Ensure a timely and professional follow-up to maintain momentum
3 tips for identifying your target audience
Let’s be honest: trying to sell to everyone is like shouting into a void. To nail down your lead generation strategy, you need to know exactly who you’re targeting.
Here are three tips to help:
1. Create buyer personas
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, including their demographics, job title, goals, challenges, and behaviors.
By developing detailed buyer personas, you can better understand your target audience’s needs and tailor your B2B lead generation strategies to meet those needs.
For example, if your target audience includes marketing managers at mid-sized tech companies, your buyer persona might include details such as their job title, typical challenges they face (e.g., generating high-quality leads), and their goals (e.g., increasing conversion rates).
This level of detail helps you create more targeted and effective lead generation campaigns.
2. Understand customer needs and pain points
Understanding your target audience’s needs and pain points is essential for creating effective lead generation strategies. This involves researching your target audience’s goals, challenges, and behaviors, as well as identifying their pain points and how your product or service can solve them.
For instance, if your target audience struggles with managing their sales pipeline, your lead generation strategies should highlight how your solution simplifies pipeline management and improves efficiency.
By addressing specific pain points, you can create more compelling and relevant content that resonates with your audience.
3. Identify ideal buyer characteristics
Identifying ideal buyer characteristics involves analyzing your target audience’s demographics, job title, industry, company size, and other relevant factors. By pinpointing these characteristics, you can create targeted lead generation campaigns that resonate with your ideal buyer.
For example, if your ideal buyers are decision-makers in large enterprises, your lead generation efforts should focus on creating content and offers that appeal to this group.
This might include detailed case studies, industry reports, and personalized demos that showcase the value of your solution for large organizations.
17 proven strategies for generating leads for your B2B business
Now that we have the basics covered, let’s dive into 17 strategies you can use to generate more leads.
1. Use exit-intent popups
One of the easiest ways to capture leads before they leave your site is through exit-intent popups.
These popups detect when users are about to click away and offer a compelling message, like a discount or free resource, in exchange for their email.
For example, eCommerce Fastlane effectively uses exit-intent popups to offer a free trial along with a discount on the first month of Shopify. This approach capitalizes on urgency and value, pushing leads to take action before leaving the site.
Brand Growth Experts takes a simpler yet equally effective approach, promoting a newsletter subscription in exchange for access to valuable content. It’s a low-friction ask that works well for businesses looking to build their email lists.b
Whether your goal is to boost conversions or grow your email list, exit-intent popups are a quick and effective solution.
Plus, with the ability to customize the message based on user behavior, you can ensure that each visitor sees an offer relevant to their interests, increasing the likelihood of a successful conversion.
So, before a visitor says goodbye to your website, why not give them a compelling reason to stay? Here are some exit-intent popup templates you can try right now:
2. Use interactive content for engagement
Interactive content, such as quizzes, assessments, and calculators, offers a personalized experience that captures attention and keeps leads engaged.
Not only does this type of content stand out in a sea of static articles, but it also provides valuable insights into your audience, which can help you tailor future outreach.
By incorporating interactive content like these into your lead generation strategy, you capture attention and collect valuable data that allows for hyper-targeted follow-up.
Check out these quiz popup templates:
3. Create a robust lead magnet
A well-crafted lead magnet is one of the most powerful tools in your lead generation arsenal. Whether it’s an ebook, guide, checklist, or free trial, a lead magnet offers valuable content or services in exchange for a prospect’s contact information.
Make sure your lead magnet provides real value, solving a pain point or answering a pressing question that your target audience has.
To maximize the impact of your lead magnets, consider promoting them on popups. These popups can offer your lead magnet at the precise moment your visitor is most engaged—such as when they finish reading a blog post or are about to leave your pricing page.
4. Build a referral program
Your happiest customers are often your most powerful advocates. By creating a referral program (or affiliate program), you can turn that satisfaction into a steady stream of high-quality leads.
By offering rewards, such as discounts or exclusive offers, you can tap into your network of satisfied customers to generate new, high-quality leads.
To build an effective referral program:
- Offer incentives that genuinely motivate your customers, like discounts on future services or access to exclusive features.
- Make the process seamless with easy-to-use referral forms or referral links that clients can share with their network.
- Regularly promote your referral program to keep it top of mind for your customers.
5. Invest in data-driven personalization
Personalization is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a must.
Data-driven personalization means delivering highly tailored content to your leads at the right time, based on their behavior, preferences, and past interactions with your brand.
By using personalization tools like OptiMonk AI, you can personalize your landing pages for each and every visitor. Tailor any headline, description or text based on the interest of your visitor – 100% automatically.
Let’s take a look at a real-life example. Shoprenter personalized the headline on its homepage for each keyword visitors have searched for.
People who searched for “opening an online store” and clicked on Shoprenter’s ad saw the following message:
Those who were looking at an alternative by searching for the “shopify” keyword, saw the following message:
6. Create high-quality thought leadership content
Positioning your business as an industry leader builds trust with prospects and helps generate sales leads.
High-quality thought leadership content, such as white papers, industry reports, webinars, and podcasts, demonstrates your expertise and provides value to your audience.
When creating thought leadership content, focus on:
- Solving key challenges your target audience faces.
- Offering data-driven insights and original research.
- Being transparent and authentic in your viewpoints.
This helps you attract leads who are seeking knowledgeable partners.
7. Host virtual events & webinars
Virtual events and webinars offer the perfect platform for engaging with prospects in real-time.
By hosting a webinar on a topic that resonates with your target audience, you can attract leads that are already interested in your industry or solutions.
Not only do webinars provide a platform for educating potential leads, but they also allow for meaningful interactions through Q&A sessions, polls, and live chats—creating a more personal connection with your audience.
Take Neil Patel, for example. He frequently hosts webinars because they’re a proven way to showcase expertise while generating leads. His webinars often include current trends, insider tips, and, of course, some promotion of his own product.
8. Collaborate with influencers in your industry
Influencer marketing isn’t just for B2C—B2B brands can benefit from it too.
Partnering with industry influencers can boost your brand’s credibility and reach. When trusted voices in your niche endorse your product or service, it builds instant trust with their followers, many of whom may be your ideal customers.
The key is to choose influencers who are well-respected in your industry and align with your brand values. Their audience should overlap with your target market to ensure you’re reaching the right people.
For example, collaborating with an industry leader to co-host a webinar or share content can expose your business to a wider, more engaged audience. Just make sure the collaboration feels authentic and mutually beneficial for both parties.
9. Master social selling on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B networking and lead generation.
Instead of pushing a hard sell, focus on providing insights and building rapport with your LinkedIn connections.
Share relevant content, join industry groups, and use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to target the right leads. Personalized connection requests and direct messages can also help spark meaningful conversations.
10. Utilize video marketing
Video content is one of the most engaging ways to communicate with your audience, making it an essential tool for B2B lead generation.
Product demos, customer testimonials, or explainer videos can help simplify complex information and leave a lasting impression on your audience.
Video content allows you to showcase your product or service in action, which can be especially helpful for leads in the consideration stage. A well-crafted video can quickly communicate the value of your solution, making it easier for potential customers to envision how it will solve their problems.
11. Develop a strong SEO and content marketing strategy
To stand out in the competitive B2B landscape, having a robust SEO and content marketing strategy is crucial. Because if you’re not on page one of Google, do you even exist?
A well-executed SEO strategy ensures your business ranks for the keywords your target audience is actively searching for, driving organic traffic to your site.
Focus on creating topic clusters—a group of interrelated pieces of content centered around a core theme—while incorporating long-tail keywords that align with your audience’s search intent.
Regularly publishing blog posts, case studies, and whitepapers not only helps with ranking but also positions your brand as a thought leader. Keep your content fresh, updated, and tailored to your audience’s pain points to build trust and drive conversions.
12. Leverage paid advertising
While SEO focuses on organic growth, paid advertising offers a more immediate way to generate leads.
Platforms like Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads allow you to reach a highly targeted audience, fast-tracking your visibility.
To get the most out of your investment, focus on retargeting users who have already interacted with your website or content. By serving ads to those familiar with your brand, you increase the likelihood of conversion.
13. Nurture leads with email marketing
Despite the rise of new marketing channels, email marketing remains one of the most effective tools for nurturing B2B leads. If you’re not nurturing your leads with emails, you’re leaving money on the table—plain and simple.
To succeed, create segmented, personalized drip campaigns that deliver the right message at the right time.
Personalize your emails based on the recipient’s behavior—whether they downloaded an ebook, attended a webinar, or visited specific pages on your website.
14. Implement retargeting strategies
Many prospects visit your website without converting on the first visit. That’s where retargeting comes in. This strategy allows you to re-engage users who have previously visited your site or interacted with your ads but haven’t yet taken action.
Platforms like Google Display Network, LinkedIn, and Facebook allow you to serve highly relevant ads to these prospects, keeping your brand in front of them while they make their purchasing decision.
15. Build strong partnerships and co-marketing
Strategic partnerships with complementary businesses can be a goldmine for lead generation.
By collaborating on co-marketing activities, such as joint webinars, guest blogging, or co-branded content, you can tap into each other’s audiences and share leads.
For example, if you’re a software company, partnering with a consulting firm that serves your target market can open up new opportunities for both businesses. Jointly offering value-packed content or events strengthens both brands while expanding reach.
16. Use case studies and testimonials
Case studies and testimonials offer powerful social proof that builds trust and credibility. They demonstrate how your product or service has delivered tangible results for other businesses, helping potential leads envision how you can solve their problems too.
To make your case studies more impactful, focus on specific outcomes—such as increased revenue, efficiency improvements, or cost savings—that your solution achieved.
An excellent example of this approach is how Shopify shares founder stories. They frequently highlight success stories from the entrepreneurs who use their platform. These stories go beyond just metrics. They humanize the brand by showcasing the journeys of real people.
Testimonials from satisfied clients also humanize your brand, making it easier for prospects to trust you as a reliable partner.
17. Implement chatbots and conversational marketing
AI-powered chatbots offer instant engagement with website visitors 24/7, providing answers to common questions, qualifying leads, and even scheduling meetings—all in real time.
This type of conversational marketing streamlines your lead generation process by offering an always-available touchpoint for prospects.
Not only do chatbots enhance the user experience by offering quick solutions, but they also gather valuable data that helps you better understand your leads.
The result? A smoother, faster journey from lead to conversion.
How to measure and analyze your lead generation efforts?
Measuring and analyzing your B2B lead generation strategies is crucial for understanding what’s working and what’s not.
By tracking website visitors’ actions, you can gain valuable insights into your target audience’s behavior and optimize your lead gen strategies accordingly. This involves using analytics tools to monitor how visitors interact with your website.
Some key metrics to track include:
- Page views: The number of times a page on your website is viewed. High page views indicate strong interest in your content.
- Bounce rates: The percentage of visitors who leave your website immediately after arriving. High bounce rates may suggest that your content isn’t engaging or relevant.
- Conversion rates: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. High conversion rates indicate effective lead generation strategies.
- Time on site: The amount of time visitors spend on your website. Longer time on site suggests that visitors find your content valuable and engaging.
Tracking these metrics allows you to gain valuable insights into your target audience’s behavior and optimize your lead generation strategies to improve results. For example, if you notice a high bounce rate on a particular landing page, you might need to revise the content or design to make it more engaging and relevant to your audience.
B2B lead generation tools
Having the right tools in your arsenal can significantly streamline and enhance your sales process and lead generation efforts.
Whether you’re focusing on data collection, automation, or customer relationship management (CRM), B2B lead generation tools can save time, improve accuracy, and ultimately boost your results.
Here are some essential categories of tools to consider:
1. Lead capture tools
Lead capture forms are critical for converting website visitors into leads, and tools like OptiMonk help create high-converting lead generation forms and popups.
These tools allow you to capture email addresses and other contact information in exchange for valuable content or offers, such as ebooks, webinars, or free trials.
2. Customer relationship management tools
CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM are vital for tracking interactions with leads, managing customer data, and automating follow-up tasks.
These platforms provide a centralized hub where your sales and marketing teams can access all lead information, track their progress through the funnel, and ensure no opportunity is missed.
3. Email marketing platforms
Email marketing remains a top channel for B2B lead nurturing, and tools like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Constant Contact help automate and personalize email campaigns.
These platforms allow you to segment your audience, create drip campaigns, and track engagement metrics such as open rates and click-throughs.
4. Lead scoring and data enrichment tools
Lead scoring tools, such as Clearbit or Leadfeeder, use data to qualify leads based on engagement and likelihood to convert.
These tools enrich your leads by pulling in additional information from external sources, such as company size, industry, and role, helping your sales team prioritize high-value prospects.
Wrapping up
Generating quality B2B leads require a combination of innovative tactics, data-driven insights, and the right tools to stay competitive. Whether you’re leveraging AI, refining your SEO strategy, or investing in personalized content, the key is to focus on creating meaningful connections with your target audience.
By implementing the 17 lead generation strategies we’ve outlined, you can fill your sales pipeline with high-quality leads that are primed for conversion.
So, start implementing these tactics now and watch your lead generation efforts pay off!
Migration has never been easier
We made switching a no-brainer with our free, white-glove onboarding service so you can get started in the blink of an eye.
What should you do next?
Thanks for reading till the end. Here are 4 ways we can help you grow your business:
Boost conversions with proven use cases
Explore our Use Case Library, filled with actionable personalization examples and step-by-step guides to unlock your website's full potential. Check out Use Case Library
Create a free OptiMonk account
Create a free OptiMonk account and easily get started with popups and conversion rate optimization. Get OptiMonk free
Get advice from a CRO expert
Schedule a personalized discovery call with one of our experts to explore how OptiMonk can help you grow your business. Book a demo
Join our weekly newsletter
Real CRO insights & marketing tips. No fluff. Straight to your inbox. Subscribe now
Share this article
Written by
Nikolett Lorincz
Nikolett is the Head of Content at OptiMonk. She is obsessed with content marketing and loves creating educational content for ecommerce store owners. She truly believes in the importance of quality over quantity.
You may also like
- Posted in
- Marketing
Product updates: September Release 2024
