As a product-led company—and the product being a lead scoring—at Breadcrumbs, we know a thing or two about lead generation.
So, here’s a definitive guide that features all the need-to-know information about B2B lead generation (including nine examples you can leverage).
Let’s dive in.
Defining B2B Lead Generation
First, let’s knock out some of the basics before we get too ahead of ourselves.
What is B2B Lead Generation Exactly?
Simply put, B2B lead generation is the practice of finding potential customers for your B2B company.
In practice, this means nurturing these to-be customers through many, many interactions like:
- Sending them emails and product offers
- Posting content on social media
- Running retargeting campaigns
While conducting lead generation efforts, most companies tend to target warm leads (aka leads that are ready to convert) as opposed to cold leads (aka those that are not so ready to convert).
Importance of Lead Generation in Today’s Market
Today, lead generation campaigns are a way to stand out from the competition.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Imagine you know there are thousands of businesses online selling the product you repeatedly buy (e.g., furniture). However, whenever you go online, you keep seeing ads, social media posts, and content from only three brands with memorable and creative logos.
Now, if you’re ready to replace your sofa and coffee table and think about purchasing these items online, which brand names are likely to pop up in your brain first?
Three guesses say that those same brands repeatedly engaged and interacted with you. The B2B lead generation tool market has evolved significantly to provide businesses with the tools to stay top-of-mind, just like those brands.
Lead generation can also help you:
- Grow as a brand (i.e., through lead generation efforts, you can establish yourself as an authoritative and trusted brand in the industry).
- Interact and build relationships with your target audience.
- Maximize your ROI (return on investment).
- Get insights into customer behaviors.
Many B2B lead generation software programs can help you achieve these goals simultaneously by minimizing the time and effort required to accomplish these milestones.
9 B2B Lead Generation Examples to Steal in 2024
Without further ado, here are nine B2B lead generation strategies to inspire your own marketing efforts.
1. Content Marketing
Some of the biggest companies in the world—those with the likes of Moz, Ahrefs, and Buffer—rely on content marketing as a lead generation tactic. Blog posts are a simple way to turn visitors into leads, especially when incorporating 2025 design trends.
In real estate, for example, it can be highly effective for real estate lead generation tactics, and real estate flyer templates can surely help attract and convert potential clients.
For example, one quick look at the Moz website will show you the company invests heavily in content marketing through guides, ebooks, webinars, blogs, etc. Moz also has a dedicated learning center and academy, as well as a bunch of free tools.
The same is true for the other companies mentioned above, namely because:
- Ahrefs has an extensive help center with bite-sized resources, a blog that relies heavily on subject matter experts (SME), a bunch of free tools (e.g., keyword generator, website authority checker, AI writing tools), and other great resources like their SEO guides and digital marketing academy.
- Buffer regularly uploads blogs and case studies sourced from SMEs that focus on trending and relevant topics. Not to mention that its website also features podcasts and industry-relevant news.
Oh, and all these companies have an engaging newsletter with a thriving subscriber list and are also regularly active on their social media channels.
And since these are all established companies, they also work with (and employ) experts who also have an established personal brand.
2. Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is something most companies invest in for lead generation.
A few scrolls on your LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and other social media platforms will show you examples of brands that advertise on social media.
Here are a few that we found:
3. Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is another great way to generate leads.
A strategic email marketing campaign works particularly well when you’re running retargeting ads, as you can provide personalized recommendations to your customers.
For example, consider the case of Netflix and its personalized retargeting campaign:
Another example you can consider is Grammarly (it, too, leverages email marketing to retarget customers):
Neil Patel’s newsletter is another example you can consider as a ploy for lead generation efforts (although this example doesn’t come under the umbrella of retargeting campaigns):
Other companies, like Airbnb, theSkimm, Buzzfeed, etc., also have thriving newsletters with an extensive follower list.
4. SEO and Organic Traffic
What’s the one thing that’s common between Healthline, Search Engine Land, and NerdWallet?
All these companies are known for their solid SEO strategies, which regularly generate organic traffic and backlinks, resulting in leads.
This also means that if you look up a topic within their respected niche, these brands will pop up on the first page of the search engine, if not in the first three results.
Cases in point:
5. Webinars and Virtual Events
We previously touched upon a few companies (like Moz) that run webinars as a lead-generation exercise. Well, as it turns out, webinars are a common industry practice, and other brands have been leveraging them too, namely:
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: LinkedIn often runs free webinars for different industries to educate your target audience on how to use their products.
- Semrush: Semrush’s webinar directory is so extensive you can filter it out based on the topic, language, and format. The company also hosts virtual events yearly.
- Breadcrumbs: We also run webinars featuring industry experts to get their insights on how to apply marketing and sales principles in the real world.
6. Outbound Sales
Outbound sales is a tactic wherein you cold-call, DM, or email the person you’d like to reach out to.
While many companies apply this tactic, Paychex stands out. In a job posting, the company encouraged those who were comfortable with cold calling, asking questions, submitting paperwork, and closing business partnerships to apply.
Companies that invest in outbound sales also heavily rely on technologies like ZoomInfo, Hunter, Outreach, and Gong.
7. Freemium or Free Trials
When it comes to offering freemium services, there are a few other contenders that come close to the level of tools like Slack, Spotify, Grammarly and Mailchimp.
This practice of offering freemium models is great for lead generation. It also helps with upselling opportunities, getting to understand customer behavior, and increasing brand awareness.
8. Gamification and Interactive Tools
Companies like Jimmy Johns invested in gamification when the metaverse was all the hype.
In short, they invited customers to come online as a part of a contest, asked them to create digital sandwiches, and gave them coupons they could use in brick-and-mortar stores.
Alternatively, many companies invest in interactive tools—including Breadcrumbs—and a popular example to use here would be our Opportunity Cost Calculator.
9. Referrals and Loyalty Programs
Strategies like referrals and loyalty programs are big when it comes to lead generation, which is why it comes as no surprise that companies like Target, Walgreens, Macy’s, Kohl’s, etc., all run loyalty programs.
On the flip side, other companies like Instacart, ThredUp, Harry’s, and T-Mobile run referral programs.
The Role of Sales and Marketing Alignment in Conversion Rates
With all these great examples in mind, they’re all for nothing without the proper alignment between your sales and marketing teams.
Why is Sales and Marketing Alignment Important?
Sales and marketing alignment, while being a necessary component for any type of business activity, specifically helps with lead generation because it can:
- Provide insights about customer behavior
- Fill your sales funnel with qualified leads
- Make your messaging consistent
- Accelerate growth and revenue
- Help create better campaigns
- Improve the quality of leads
Tips for Better Sales and Marketing Alignment
To ensure your sales and marketing teams stay on the same page, here are a few things you can do:
- Create separate meetings to discuss customer information (e.g., pain points, preferences, needs, wants, etc.)
- Communicate the common messaging and goals early on
- Keep a structure with roles and handoffs in place
- Try to ensure they regularly have team meetings
- Try to set common KPIs and incentives
Using Breadcrumbs for Lead Scoring and Improved Conversion Rates
Let’s take a closer look at what tools you should add to your tech stack to help you streamline your lead generation efforts.
What is Breadcrumbs and How Does it Work?
Breadcrumbs is a lead scoring tool that helps businesses strategically target leads and improve conversion rates. Our solution can provide insights into customer behavior and allow you to target leads that are likely to convert.
You can book a demo to get a full-fledged understanding of how the tool works!
The Role of Breadcrumbs in Sales and Marketing Alignment
Since Breadcrumbs aims to increase sales through strategic marketing activities like creating lead-scoring models and providing insights into customer behaviors, it can support marketing and sales alignment.
As a company, we strive to provide resources and valuable content marketing materials for both sales teams and marketing teams that can benefit from the role of alignment!
Benefits of Using Breadcrumbs for Lead Scoring and Conversion Rates
Just to name a few benefits, with Breadcrumbs, you can:
- Find the overarching patterns among customer behaviors.
- Target potential customers based on their actions.
- Be more strategic with lead-generation efforts.
- Assess the quality of leads you’re getting.
To learn more about how Breadcrumbs can help you improve conversion rates through lead scoring, here’s a helpful resource for you: Improve Conversion Rates With Lead Scoring
Case Study on the Successful Use of Breadcrumbs
Companies like Thinkific, who previously didn’t have a well-versed understanding of their customer behavior and preferences, were able to leverage Breadcrumbs’ lead scoring tool, and in turn, it helped them:
- Find their ideal customer profiles (ICPs)
- Reduce SLA by 99.9%
- Improve lead quality
- Double MQL rates
Read more about the case study here.
Next Steps
In this article, we discussed how you can master your lead generation strategy through nine different activities—how (and why) to align sales and marketing teams to improve lead generation efforts and how Breadcrumbs’ lead scoring model can aid in finding qualified leads for your business.
For the next steps, let’s apply these examples in the actual situation, align our sales and marketing teams, and leverage solutions like lead scoring models to improve our lead generation process.
Here’s where you can book a demo with us today!