Collecting data to verify whether they fit your ICP
The first step is relatively simple. You can collect customer data by asking them to submit it when they sign up for something.
For example, you might ask that they submit their name, email address, industry, and job slovenia telemarketing title in exchange for letting them download a useful gude—which we’ll explain later in this article.
Tracking their engagement with your brand
Once you have the prospect’s email address, you can track their engagement to verify their interest in your company.
Say one of your prospects downloads one of your guides, signs up for your email newsletter, and clicks through to sign up for a webinar.
You’ll be able to track this activity because every time they submit their email address, you’ll see it appear on your sign-up list.
You can then identify which prospects fit your ICP and show the most engagement. You would hand these over to your sales team as high-quality leads. Sales teams are tasked with converting these leads into purchases.
4 Types of Qualified Leads
Marketers and sales teams can break down leads into subcategories that help them identify the level of qualification. These are:
Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
This is someone who has engaged with your marketing channels.
Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
A person or business that has indicated they are interested in making a purchase.
Product qualified leads (PQLs)
An individual who used a free version of your product—like a limited free trial—and has now expressed interest in a paid version, service, or add-on.
Service qualified leads
This is when a customer tells a member of your support team that they are interested in making a purchase. The team member usually passes the prospect on to a sales rep.
A 4-Step Process to Generate B2B Leads
B2B marketers aim to gradually move prospects through various stages of brand awareness and engagement to the point where they are ready to make a purchase.
Marketers call it the marketing funnel.
Salespeople call it the sales pipeline.
The marketing funnel usually covers everyone who interacts with a brand. It’s non-linear in that people are likely to read a blog post one day, sign up for a mailing list the next, and then not interact with the brand for months before signing up for a webinar.
The sales pipeline, on the other hand, focuses on processing leads, making it more linear. Prospects are moved along the pipeline, and if they say they aren’t interested, they are removed.
Many B2B businesses with sales and marketing funnels use a hybrid version where the marketing funnel produces MQLs fed into the sales pipeline.
We’ve used this structure, which includes awareness, interest, consideration, and decision, in the process outlined below. You can follow this process with your own lead-generation tactics:
Awareness
The aim of marketing activities at this stage of the process is to raise awareness about your products and services.
A good way to do this is by providing useful information that benefits people who match your ICP.
For example, if you provide search engine optimization (SEO) services to accountants, you might write a complete guide to SEO for accountants and publish it on your blog.
Accountancy firms needing SEO services will likely type keywords into Google and find your guide.
If you produce enough useful content like this, the customer will begin to trust your brand and view you as an expert in your field. This makes them more likely to approach you if they need SEO services.
