What does a B2B lead generation agency do?
A lead generation agency makes sure enquiries come in from companies you want to speak to. In B2B that means two things at once: becoming known to companies that are not searching yet, and being found the moment they do. Whoever only does the second fishes in a small pond.
We call the first demand generation and the second demand capture. Around them sits a third layer: knowing which companies show interest before they fill in a form, which is sales intelligence.
Why lead generation in B2B differs from a webshop:
- A buying journey takes months and involves several people in the same company.
- Only a small part of your market is buying at any given moment; the rest is orienting.
- A lead is only worth something once sales turns it into a meeting, and that needs context with the lead.
That is why we treat lead generation as a system rather than a campaign, with one strategy for marketing and sales together. It is laid out in the way we work, from buying signal to sales meeting.
Marketing delivers leads, sales does not call them
Companies rarely call us because there are no leads. The leads come in, but sales finds them cold, too small or too early. Marketing counts forms, sales counts deals, and nobody sees the part in between.
The causes are usually the same. Nobody ever agreed which company counts as a good lead. Campaigns aim at everyone who types a keyword. And a lead arrives as a name and an email address, without sales knowing where it came from or what it has already seen.
How we handle B2B lead generation
We work in four steps.
The monthly report shows enquiries and sales meetings, with the campaigns that produced them. In our campaigns for DBT-Energie we saw what that does: sales knows for each lead which campaign it came from. That changed the conversation about marketing from "how many leads" to "which leads".
We choose the channels after the customer profile, not before it. For most B2B companies that is a mix of LinkedIn, search ads and content, with email once someone already knows you.
Ideal customer profile
Together with sales we set which companies and roles you want to speak to, and which you do not. That ideal customer profile decides everything that follows.
Build demand
Through LinkedIn and content we make you recognisable to those companies, well before they look for a supplier.
Capture demand
Search ads and findable pages capture the demand as soon as someone actively searches.
Signal to sales
We see which companies show interest, enrich every lead with company data and the pages visited, and put it with the right account manager.
sales knows for each lead which campaign it came from
Who a lead generation agency works for, and who it does not
It works when you have a sales team that can hold conversations and a client is worth months of work.
- Your order value is high enough to carry a long buying journey.
- There are account managers who follow up a lead within a day.
- You can say which companies you do and do not want, or you want to work that out together.
It does not work in every situation, and we would rather say so up front.
- You sell to consumers or through a webshop. Other agencies are more at home there.
- You want enquiries this month while nobody is asking for your solution yet.
- Sales has no time to report back which leads became a meeting. Without that feedback we cannot adjust.
How we work together
The person you speak to also builds the campaigns; there is no junior in between. Once a month we go through what came in and what changes the month after, with marketing and sales at the table.
From you we need access to your advertising accounts and your CRM, and a sales team that takes part. We fill the diaries of your account managers. Closing deals they can do themselves.
Frequently asked questions
How do I generate leads for B2B companies?
Generating leads for B2B companies starts with deciding which companies you want to speak to. Then you build recognition with those companies through LinkedIn and content, and make sure you are found as soon as they search. The lead that comes out of it goes to sales with context: which campaign, which pages, which company.
What is the difference between B2C and B2B lead generation?
B2B lead generation aims at companies where several people weigh in on a purchase that can take months. B2C lead generation aims at one person who often decides the same day. So B2B is about building recognition and adding context to the lead, where B2C is about volume and speed.
When can I expect results from B2B lead generation?
Results from B2B lead generation arrive in stages. Search ads produce the first enquiries within weeks if people already search for you. Building recognition with companies that are not searching yet takes months, and that investment pays off in meetings that would otherwise never have happened.
How do you stop sales from finding leads cold?
Sales finds a lead cold when it arrives without a story. Prevent that by enriching every lead with company data, the campaign it came from and the pages it looked at. Also agree with sales what a good lead is, so marketing can steer on it.