Outreach Tools to Make B2B Lead Generation Process Easier

Table of contents:

• What is the Role of Lead Generation Outreach in B2B
• How Lead Gen Outreach Tools Can Help
• 5 Outreach Tools to Make B2B Lead Generation Process Easier
• Conclusion

Lead generation is an agonising endeavor for most marketers — no thanks to the ever-rising competition from rivalry brands online.

B2B marketers don’t find it easy either. In fact, a MarketingProfs survey conducted in May 2021 revealed that 60% of B2B marketers say that lead generation challenges brought about a significant waste of time and resources. The survey went on to reveal that 59% of these marketers missed opportunities due to these lead generation challenges.

One of the biggest challenges in lead generation is that it demands tons of time and relentless effort to study the ideal customer profile, craft the perfect LinkedIn message, write down an email, and follow up with the customer. Thankfully, the tools brought forth in this article will help you smoothen your future sales cycle! Continue reading.

What is the Role of Lead Generation Outreach in B2B

Businesses need customers to survive. In a B2B setting, these customers are other businesses and decision-makers in the same industry.

Outreach in B2B is a way to reach out to other professionals in your industry, thought leaders, and influencers, regardless of whether you have a prior relationship with them or not. And like other lead generation campaigns, lead generation outreach in B2B is inherently tied to the product or service.

Here’s a brief overview of the core functions of lead generation outreach in a B2B environment:

• To identify the ideal customer for your product or service – The ideal customer is an individual with a genuine interest in your product/service and intent to buy at the present or future time.

• To create interest in your product or service – Lead generation outreach is a process of sparking interest in your products and services. Sometimes the customer does not know about their needs because “It is not the customer’s job to know what they want” ~ Steve Jobs. Often marketers unveil hidden customer needs and bring them to the prospect’s attention. 

• To nurture leads into a sale – Eventually, all your outreach efforts narrow in on a shared goal – converting into sales. This can be achieved by educating potential customers with high-value content, e-books, case studies, articles and blogs, and other resources.

• To build a strong relationship with your customers – Happy customers are loyal customers – a quality that’s vital in modern business. Fortifying customer relationships with excellent service and quality offerings motivates them to stick around longer. And keeping a customer around longer is a sure way to save more – it costs 6-7 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

Ideally, lead generation outreach aims at filling up your sales pipeline with high-value, qualified leads.

How Lead Gen Outreach Tools Can Help

As mentioned earlier, lead generation is a time and resource-intensive task. Even the most qualified sales expert can get worn down due to the overwhelming nature of the dynamic variables in the sales cycle.

For instance, hot leads that have been qualified by sales can cancel at the last minute. Or pouring time and resources into a lead generation campaign only to discover that your leads are not the right fit for your business. Although some factors cannot be controlled, a lead generation outreach tool can help sand down any barriers that hinder the success of the campaign.

Here are some roles of lead generation outreach tools in your campaign:

• Reducing the manual workload for your sales team – Lead generation tools minimize workloads by automating repetitive manual tasks such as creating email templates for the campaign. Several automation tools come with pre-built templates, while others require you to create a reusable template manually. Either way, it saves both time and money.

• Lead capture – Automated lead generation tools capture prospect information, including their contact information (email and phone numbers), demographics, location, and so much more on behalf of your sales team. This way, you have access to customer information to follow up with them later in the campaign.

• Automated follow-up – about a half of salespeople follow-up with customers only once before giving up. A lead generation outreach tool can help with the follow-up by sending automated emails at set intervals without being too pushy, as salespeople often fear.

Of course, lead generation outreach tools can do so much more for the company, provided that you have a clearly laid out strategy.