The success of your lead generation campaigns directly affects the growth and longevity of your company. Establishing a solid lead gen strategy is essential to ensure you never run out of conversion opportunities, allowing you to reach your business goals faster.
What is Lead Generation?
Lead generation is the process of gaining prospects’ attention and nurturing them into buyers. This activity is essential to keep sales pipelines full and position brands as authorities in their industries.
You can start creating your lead generation strategy by building a sales funnel. This is a visual representation of your customer’s journey from awareness to conversion and is typically composed of the following stages:
- Awareness: The awareness stage is where prospects get to know your product or service. You can create awareness using channels such as social media, email marketing, content marketing, or paid advertising. This first stage aims to grab potential customers’ attention and introduce your brand and offerings.
- Interest: In this stage, customers start to show interest in the product or service and may engage with the brand by visiting its website, downloading content, or subscribing to a newsletter. The goal now is to keep the customer engaged and start building a relationship.
- Evaluation: In the evaluation stage, prospects consider acquiring the products and services you offer and compare them to other options. They may ask for more information, request a demo, or compare prices. This phase aims to provide potential customers with all the knowledge they need to make an educated purchase choice and set your brand apart from the competition.
- Purchase: Leads are now ready to buy. They feel confident about your solutions and trust your brand enough to purchase. To increase the chances of conversion, it is essential to have a seamless and streamlined purchasing process and offer clear information about the product or service.
Note that not all prospects will continue down the funnel, and some may drop out at certain times. This is why salespeople and marketers must continually monitor and optimize each stage to improve the overall lead generation process and achieve better results.
B2B Lead Generation Funnel Template
A B2B lead generation template is a blueprint or guide that outlines the steps and best practices for generating leads in the B2B sector. It typically includes a step-by-step process for attracting, nurturing, and converting leads into customers.
Here’s an effective template that you can tweak according to your company’s needs:
| Stage | Objectives | Tactics | Key Metrics |
| Awareness | Establish brand recognition and create a good first impression. | Content marketing (e.g. blog posts, infographics, white papers) Social media advertising (e.g LinkedIn Ads) Paid search advertising (e.g. Google AdWords) Event Sponsorships and trade show | Impressions Website traffic Content downloads |
| Interest | Build relationships with potential customers and move them to the next stage of the funnel. | Email marketing Lead magnets (e.g. eBooks, webinars) Landing pages Lead scoring and nurturing | Email open rates Landing page conversions Lead nurturing conversions |
| Evaluation/ Purchase | Differentiate the brand and its offerings from competitors. | Case studies and testimonials Product demos and free trials Comparative analysis Sales calls and meetings | Number of requests for information Number of demos Sales call conversions |
It’s important to tailor your B2B lead generation funnel based on your target audience. Different audiences have different pain points and preferences, so the strategies that resonate with them may vary.
A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Calculate Lead Generation Campaigns
Measuring the success of your lead generation campaigns is crucial to evaluate your return on investment and make informed decisions.
Here are the steps on how to calculate the effectiveness of your lead generation campaigns:
Step 1: Determine Your Lead Generation Goal
The first step in calculating lead generation is to determine your goal. This could be anything from a specific number of leads per week or month to a certain sales income from leads generated.
The following steps can help set measurable lead generation goals:
- Identify your target audience: Before setting your goals, it’s important to understand your target audience. This will help tailor your objectives to their specific needs and preferences.
- Assess your current lead generation process: Take a look at your current lead generation process and assess its effectiveness. This will help you identify areas that need improvement and set realistic goals.
- Define your lead generation objectives: Identify the specific outcomes you want to achieve through your lead generation efforts. This could include increasing the number of leads generated, improving lead quality, or reducing the cost per lead.
- Set quantifiable goals: Setting measurable goals makes it possible to track progress and make adjustments as needed. If your goal is to generate 100 qualified leads per month, you can start thinking about actionable steps to progress in this direction.
- Establish a timeline: Determine when you want to achieve your lead generation goals. This will help you create a timeline for implementing your lead generation strategy and monitor progress.
- Evaluate and adjust: Regularly evaluate your lead generation efforts to determine if you’re meeting your goals. If you’re not, adjust your strategy and methods as needed.
Step 2: Track Your Lead Sources
To accurately calculate lead generation, you need to know where your leads are coming from. Lead sources are the various channels, platforms, and activities that generate leads for your business. They include social media, websites, referrals, and paid advertisements.
You can track lead sources using these steps:
- Identify your lead sources: Identify all the lead sources that generate leads for your business, including your website, social media, email marketing, referrals, and trade shows.
- Assign unique tracking codes: Create unique tracking codes for each lead source. This will help you determine which source generated each lead.
- Integrate tracking codes into your lead generation process: Use the tracking codes you created in your lead generation process. These can include your website’s contact forms or email sign-up forms.
- Monitor lead source data: Regularly monitor your lead source data to see which channels are working and which ones need improvement.
- Evaluate lead source performance: Assess each channel by comparing the number of leads generated to the cost of each lead source.
- Refine your lead generation strategy: Based on your lead source data, improve your strategy by increasing investment in the channels that are generating the most leads and reducing investment in the underperforming sources.
You can also use tools like Google Analytics or a marketing automation platform to track your lead sources.
Step 3: Measure the Number of Leads Generated
The number of leads generated refers to the total number of individuals or businesses showing interest in a company and providing their contact information for follow-up. This can happen through a variety of channels such as website forms, landing pages, and webinars.
To calculate the number of leads generated, simply add the total number of individuals or organizations that have provided contact information. You can collect this information through website forms, landing pages, trade shows, webinars, etc.
Here’s an example of how to calculate the number of leads generated:
- Website form submissions: 100
- Trade show attendees who provided contact information: 50
- Webinar registrants: 75
Total number of leads generated: 225
Tracking the number of leads generated is vital for businesses, as it helps them understand the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and allocate resources appropriately. It can also help reveal trends such as seasonality, allowing your team to optimize their lead generation efforts and yield better results.
Step 4: Calculate Lead Conversion Rate
Lead conversion rate is a metric that calculates the percentage of leads that turn into paying customers. It’s an essential metric for businesses to track, as it gives insight into the effectiveness of lead generation and sales processes. To calculate your lead conversion rate, you can use this formula:
Lead Conversion Rate = Number of Converted Leads ÷ Total Number of Leads × 100%
For example, if a business generates 100 leads and 20 become paying customers, the lead conversion rate would be 20 ÷ 100 × 100% = 20%.
Tracking lead conversion rates over time is crucial to identify trends and improve your lead generation and sales processes. This could involve adjusting your marketing strategies, improving your lead nurturing process, or changing your sales approach.
Step 5: Calculate the Cost per Lead
Calculating the cost of lead generation involves determining the cost per lead (CPL). According to research by HubSpot,1 the average price of outbound leads is $346, while inbound leads are around $135.
The formula for this calculation is:
CPL = Total Marketing and Sales Expenses / Number of Leads Generated
Here’s an example of how to calculate the cost of lead generation:
- Total marketing and sales expenses: $10,000
- Number of leads generated: 200
- Cost of Lead Generation = $10,000 / 200 = $50
The company spent $50 on marketing and sales for each lead generated.
Calculating the CPL allows businesses to determine if they are spending too much or too little to generate leads and adjust their strategies accordingly. This information can also help companies assess their marketing efforts’ return on investment (ROI), which is calculated by subtracting the CPL from the revenue generated.
Step 6: Determine the Return on Investment (ROI)
The final step in calculating lead generation is determining the return on investment (ROI). To do this, subtract all associated expenses from the revenue.
For example, if the total lead generation cost was $10,000 and the revenue generated from leads was $20,000, your ROI would be 100%.
Bottom Line
Lead generation campaigns are crucial to business success and require a well-planned and executed strategy. While this can be challenging, with the right approach and a focus on continuous improvement, it can be a powerful driver of growth for your business.
