20 Lead Generation Strategies to Win at Sales in 2024

1. Use personalized cold emails to increase lead responses

McKinsey’s research shows that a more personalized marketing strategy helps B2B companies capture a bigger market share. Wondering why? 

Personalization enables you to reach the right decision-maker at the right time with the right messaging. That’s your key to unlocking higher open rates for cold emails and avoiding the spam folder altogether.

Instead of using a rinse-and-repeat template for cold outreach, you have to invest efforts to create tailored pitches for all prospects. 

A good place to start this personalization approach is by experimenting with a handful of prospects—try different types of pitches, subject lines, calls to action, follow-up sequences, and all that sweet stuff. 

Once you’ve found your mojo and narrowed down a few good pitches with a high open + response rate, you’re ready to scale your approach. 

You can build airtight workflows to complete every step in the personalization process, like researching each recipient, mapping them to the right messaging style, setting up follow-up sequences, etc. Templatize your approach to gain repeatable success with hundreds of leads!

2. Make targeted cold calls to generate immediate interest 

Fact: 82% of buyers claim they've accepted invites to a sales conversation after talking to the seller over a cold call. 

That's just one data point to prove the value of cold calling as one of the best lead-generation strategies for B2B businesses. If you want to tap into the impact of cold calling, start by creating the perfect script for conversations with prospects.

A good cold call script:

• Asks meaningful questions to discover specific pain points 
• Clearly states the value propositions that are relevant to the buyer
• Empathizes with the prospects with a been-there-faced-that angle
• Engages prospects in a conversation rather than a one-sided lecture
• Politely acknowledges prospects’ responses without sounding pushy

But your cold call script is only as good as the kind of people you reach out to. You need up-to-date databases to call potential customers and kick-start a conversation. That’s where GO Data can change the game for you. 

GO Data brings you accurate and validated sales data of leads from any industry. You need to define your Ideal Customer Profile by defining parameters like Job Function, Industry, Title, Seniority, etc., and GO Data will handle the rest.

What’s more, you can also upload your chosen accounts to collect critical details about prospects in those companies. 

3. Utilize LinkedIn outreach to expand your professional network

Ask any successful sales rep about LinkedIn, and all of them will tell you the same thing: LinkedIn is a goldmine for prospecting and outreach. 

While the platform was once considered just a job search tool, LinkedIn has become much bigger than that definition. It's a place to connect with your prospects, keep tabs on them, and find critical insights about buyers you likely won't find elsewhere. 

But, using LinkedIn as a part of your lead generation strategy shouldn’t be limited to just sending connection requests to potential customers. After all, you’re bound to hit the LinkedIn connect request limit!

You have to actively build your network and become a known face among prospects. Start by optimizing your profile to best reflect your expertise. Then, create a realistic strategy to consistently post content on the platform and engage with others' content. 

LinkedIn lead generation isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. You have to keep at it for as long as possible to drive decent ROI. 

4. Create engaging ads to capture quality leads

Another great B2B lead generation strategy is running high-intent ads to drive brand awareness and retarget potential customers.

But here’s the catch: the process of running ads for your B2B business differs starkly from a B2C or eCommerce brand. You need a programmatic approach to run ads effectively and see tangible results. GO Digital can do the heavy lifting to run your ads programmatically!

The tool is purpose-built for B2B businesses to create refined, in-depth audience profiles and reach the right people with ads. 

You can define your audience by choosing from 100+ filters and personalize your ads based on who's watching. Combined with your outreach efforts, these programmatic ads can significantly ramp up the number of high-quality leads in your database. 

5. Implement visitor tracking to identify and follow up with potential leads

If you've done a good amount of work on your inbound marketing efforts, you likely generate a high volume of leads from your website. Which one of the lead generation strategies will help you convert this inbound interest into potential customers? Through strategic visitor tracking. 

You need specialized lead tracking software like GO Show to stay on top of potential customers showing interest in your business. 

GO Show captures critical data points about website visitors to help you properly segment and score leads. You can also use this data to filter out the low-intent or poor-quality leads from the outset.

Plus, GO Show will give you accurate information to guide your remarketing efforts and re-engage visitors who showed interest in your brand but didn't go further. 

6. Encourage customer referrals to gain trusted leads

Customer advocacy is one of the best lead generation strategies for B2B businesses. Buyers are more discerning than ever, and they don't take sellers at face value. They spend time doing their own research, and word-of-mouth is a big part of this process. 

You can tap into the power of customer marketing to generate more leads by setting up a referral program. Incentivize existing users to create interest in your business and bring high-intent leads. 

Remember to make this referral program easy and accessible for everyone. Instead of complicating everything with cryptic terms & conditions, set simple rules. And create a process for tracking referrals so you never miss a new lead or due incentive. 

7. Deploy chatbots to qualify leads in real-time

Generating leads is only half the battle. The other half is filtering the good leads from the bad ones. 

SDRs spend so much time building their lead databases only to find a handful of quality leads to pursue. You don’t have to waste all this effort anymore. 

You can use a custom-trained chatbot as the first line of communication to filter out poor leads and funnel the high-intent ones straight to the sales team. Think of these chatbots as intelligent routing systems where they collect key information and assign each prospect to relevant reps. 

GO Chat can do all that—and more. 

This intelligent chatbot is designed to steer conversations toward building your pipeline. You can configure as many chatbot flows as you want and make a truly capable chatbot to engage your prospects. 

It's perfect for maintaining round-the-clock availability for leads and strategically distributing captured leads among a team. 

8. Practice social selling to connect with leads on social platforms

With traditional lead generation strategies becoming obsolete, social selling is the name of the game for today’s SDRs. 

Put simply, social selling leverages social platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, and others to create brand awareness and capture leads. And it’s 100% possible. 

You can first set up an optimized profile on any platform to add credibility to your name. Then, focus on actively engaging with your prospects to position yourself as a knowledgeable expert. Then, ultimately, convert these conversations into gentle nudges to buy your product/service. It's organic, meaningful, and not pushy!

9. Simplify lead capture with online appointment scheduling

One of the easiest ways to generate a high volume of leads consistently is to make it convenient for potential customers to share their details and chat with you.

You need an intuitive and seamless appointment scheduling platform to remove any points of friction when buyers want to connect with you directly. This will also help you book meetings quickly and accelerate the sales cycle. 

And guess what? You don’t have to look far away to find the perfect appointment scheduling tool. With GO Schedule, you’re always a step ahead of buyers with updated calendars, routing forms, sales workflows, and much more. 

The tool operationalizes the Round-Robin system to avoid double bookings and streamline meetings for your reps and prospects alike. 

10. Leverage intent data for precise targeting of ready-to-buy prospects

You can take an edge over the competition and find leads with a stronger buying propensity by analyzing intent data. This data will reveal how likely prospects are to make a purchase decision. It’s great to make your lead generation and nurturing campaigns more targeted, spending time only on the high-intent leads. 

The good news: you can find these high-intent buyers in the market with GO Intent. 

You can search for over 10,000 topics to think from buyers’ perspectives and find the ones with a higher likelihood of purchase. The tool gives you unlimited keyword searches and advanced tracking capabilities to truly go above and beyond for your buyers.

Knowing buyer intent will also help you in the detailed proposal outlining process to make a solid impression. 

11. Improve SEO to increase organic lead traffic

SEO is another proven marketing tactic to generate quality leads through organic search. A good SEO strategy wins precious real estate on search engines for the most relevant keywords. 

That means, when buyers are looking for problems/solutions related to your main offering, they discover you on organic search. 

You need to publish high-quality content, build good backlinks, and regularly optimize your website to win high rankings on search engines for the right keywords.

12. Boost lead conversion with strategic sales engagement

When you scale your lead generation efforts, the focus should be on driving your team’s efficiency more than anything else. This is possible through a sales engagement platform like GO Engage. 

GO Engage gives you an all-in-one solution for:

• Running outreach campaigns across various platforms
• Personalizing your messaging through the power of AI
• Segmenting and tracking contacts in your database 
• A/B testing and lead scoring for better targeting 

Together with CIENCE’s suite of tools like GO Show, GO Data, and GO Flow, this platform can truly complete your sales tech stack to maximize efficiency for each SDR. 

13. Utilize video marketing to engage and convert prospects

9 out of 10 B2B decision-makers agree that marketing and sales functions should work more closely together to close more details. Video marketing is a promising avenue where these two teams can collaborate well.

People increasingly prefer consuming videos over other content formats—and your buyers are no exception. Sales teams can partner with marketers to create impactful videos to attract leads and send them down the funnel. 

A successful, conversion-driven video marketing strategy includes:

• Pain-point-focused themes to resonate with the target customers
• Clear storyboarding and narrative to produce a standout output
• Strong video SEO capabilities to maximize organic video engagement
• A full-fledged distribution plan to reach a wide audience

14. Apply AI and automation for higher lead generation efficiency

If you’re not using AI to automate and fast-track your B2B lead generation strategy, you’re leaving money on the table. 

With CIENCE’s sales AI suite of tools, you can integrate AI to automate several parts of the lead generation process, such as:

• GO Expert AI: Connect multiple data sources to train LLMs about your business and use an expert AI assistant for multiple use cases, like email messages, chat interactions, sales enablement content, and more. 

• GO Campaign AI: Personalize your campaigns across different channels for each buyer with AI-powered automation. The tool will keep tweaking and optimizing your sales pitches based on past campaigns + performance. 

• GO Dialogue AI: Program an AI model to have a confident conversation with buyers and nudge them toward a more in-depth chat with you. Maintain your brand voice while an AI assistant talks to potential customers over different channels. 

• GO Voice AI: Make your prospecting efforts faster, more diverse, and more streamlined than ever with an AI SDR to handle all parts of the process. 

The bottom line: CIENCE has everything you need to sell better and with greater confidence, especially when you want to tap into the power of AI.

15. Run content campaigns to attract and nurture leads

Content marketing is another viable channel for your lead generation strategy. 57% of the most successful B2B marketers use high-quality content as a lever for revenue growth. 

Identify your target buyers’ biggest pain points and reverse engineer these challenges to create meaningful content assets. This exercise will help you find value-driven themes that your audience is genuinely interested in. 

You can also create content consistently through social media and your website blog to answer prospects’ biggest questions. Maintain a regular publishing cadence to gain their trust and keep them engaged.

16. Perform A/B testing to maximize lead conversion rates

A/B testing different aspects of your outreach can also attract more leads and drive conversion rates. While it’s fairly common to split test email subject lines or CTA buttons, you can test and optimize finer details like:

• Email signature 
• Number of follow-ups
• Overall message length
• Time/day for sending the message

17. Add social proof to enhance credibility and attract new leads

Social proof can make or break your lead-generation efforts. When potential customers discover your brand, they make an impression about your brand through the kind of social proof available on your website. 

But it’s not just the website. You can funnel more leads to your sales team by creatively using testimonials throughout your lead-gen process.

Here’s an example of an email signature with social proof indicating all the awards and certifications this agency has earned:

You can also add social proof to your page for booking a meeting, like this example. Show off your marquee clients or add your ratings from review sites like G2—anything to make prospects trust you more!

Source 

You can also add testimonials to the landing pages for any ads you run. Make these prominent visibly so that prospects don’t have to struggle to find customer reviews.

18. Showcase success with case studies to build trust and attract leads

Take your social proof to the next level by sharing success stories of your clients. Create a story around the key challenges they face and how your product/service tackled their problems. 

You can present case studies in different formats, like downloadable PDFs, blog posts, YouTube videos, and slideshow. Involve your customers as much as possible throughout the process to make these stories genuinely engaging and user-centric. 

Remember to distribute these case studies on various channels to create enough inbound interest. 

19. Partner with affiliates to tap into new lead sources

Affiliate marketing is another viable lead generation channel for B2B businesses. You can launch an affiliate program to get leads through a network of individuals selling your product on your behalf. 

A good affiliate program:

• Defines what counts as a conversion and specifies what doesn’t
• Provides clear guidelines on what affiliate partners should/shouldn’t do
• Includes workflows to share and track affiliate sales through custom links/codes
• Shares a brand kit with resources that affiliates can refer to when spreading the word

Here’s an example of ClickUp’s affiliate program with three simple steps to follow. 

Source 

20. Drive email sign-ups to build a lead nurturing funnel

Email is a tried-and-tested channel for success when it comes to B2B lead generation. You can combine various tactics and use emails as the final pitstop to capture prospect information. 

For example, you can launch a content campaign—like releasing an industry playbook—and gate it behind a lead form. Or you can create video libraries on any topic and ask for user details to share access. 

Build your email database to capture more leads and nurture them for conversion. Be sure to share value-add insights through your emails to gently nudge prospects to buy. 

 Get Started with These Lead Generation Strategies 

The world of B2B sales has progressed forward in leaps and bounds. You need these 20 lead generation strategies to stay ahead of the curve and close deals like a pro. Bookmark this guide to plan your roadmap for the coming quarter and get ready to hit quota one after another!