The 5 Main Lead Generation Goals: What Has Changed & How to Reach Them

Lead generation is a critical aspect of any business’s marketing efforts—it plays a vital role in driving your business’s growth and success. However, the strategies, tools, and goals for generating quality B2B leads have shifted significantly over the past few years.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, so do the lead generation goals and strategies for effective B2B lead generation. Adapting to these changes is essential to stay competitive and ensure that your B2B lead generation efforts are not just keeping pace but leading the charge.

Here’s a closer look at the key shifts in lead generation goals and how to adjust your strategies to achieve them:

Identifying the Shift in Lead Generation Goals 

We all know that change is constant and the B2B buying process is changing. Lead generation is no exception and is no longer the linear process it once was, with more decision-makers and touchpoints involved. Buyers today engage much later in the sales cycle, often after conducting extensive research and narrowing options on their own. This shift requires marketers to extend their reach into new areas traditionally not within their domain, adapting to a buyer-led process with multiple decision-makers involved.

Hence, it’s vital to recognize the shifting dynamics and adapt our strategies accordingly. So, what has changed?
Here are the two major shifts impacting lead generation today:

Moving Beyond Quantity to Quality

Traditionally, lead generation was often focused on generating a high volume of leads. The more leads, the better—or so it seemed. However, as competition intensifies and businesses place a greater emphasis on return on investment (ROI), the focus has shifted towards acquiring high-quality leads that are more likely to convert into customers.

Instead of casting a wide net and indiscriminately capturing as many leads as possible, today’s lead goal prioritizes the quality of leads. This means identifying and targeting individuals or companies that align with your ideal customer profile. By focusing on quality leads, you can optimize your resources, streamline your sales process, and ultimately improve your conversion rates and revenue.

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Personalization and Targeting

In the past, generic, one-size-fits-all approaches sufficed for lead generation. However, modern lead generation goals revolve around personalization and targeting specific segments or personas within your target audience. Generic messaging and offers no longer resonate with today’s consumers who are inundated with information and have high expectations.

To enhance lead generation outcomes, it is essential to tailor your messaging and offers to the unique needs and preferences of your target audience. By leveraging data and insights, you can create highly personalized experiences that resonate with individuals on a deeper level. This may involve segmenting your audience based on demographics, behavior, or interests and crafting targeted campaigns that speak directly to their pain points and aspirations. Personalization and targeting can significantly improve engagement, response rates, and ultimately, conversions.

What are the 5 Lead Generation Goals

Decades ago, lead generation meant collecting potential buyers’ names and contact details to be passed on to sales. Today, lead generation is part of a robust process of building trust and capturing interest. With this new focus, lead generation goals now play a number of new roles in the marketing process, which include:

#1. Generating Revenue

Contributing to sales is still the main goal that lead generation tries to achieve, but there’s a stark difference between the way that marketers use lead generation for revenue production today than in the past. It’s no longer enough to just call or email as many prospects as humanly possible in order to qualify leads to eliminate those that are not qualified or book appointments for sales teams. There’s now a strong focus on the quality of leads among a majority of B2B marketers.

How to Achieve It:

• Focus on quality over quantity by targeting leads that fit your ideal customer profile.
• Use personalized, data-driven outreach to build trust and nurture relationships.

Lead generation today makes use of insights and intelligence to engage prospects through targeted conversations rather than through cold calls. It’s about doing personalized outreach to build and nurture relationships with prospects before transferring them as opportunities to sales.

Increase Lead Volume

To effectively achieve your revenue goals, you also need to drive more leads into your pipeline. While lead volume is still important, the focus has shifted from merely increasing numbers to prioritizing the quality of those leads. Marketers now emphasize targeting leads that are more likely to convert into customers.

How to Achieve It:

• Optimize your lead acquisition process by expanding your reach through multiple channels like social media, paid ads, and SEO.
• Implement scalable tactics such as referral programs, lead magnets, or gated content to attract a higher number of prospects without sacrificing quality.

Driving Awareness and Interest

In the past, it was brand awareness versus lead generation. There was always an epic battle between these two activities for priority on the marketing budget or the marketing to-do list. Marketers had to choose one over the other. Marketers simply couldn’t have their cake and eat it, too.

How to Achieve It:

• Combine inbound and outbound tactics to create a consistent message across touchpoints.
• Use insights from lead gen campaigns to refine content and ensure it resonates with your target audience.

But today, marketers also use lead generation strategies to boost the results of brand awareness initiatives. Insights from inbound lead generation campaigns help marketers craft more compelling and relevant content for raising awareness. Outbound lead generation programs meanwhile provide a direct and targeted way for you to create and leave an impression on your desired audience.

Discover our effective lead generation strategies across industries.

Gathering Feedback and Intelligence

The tools and techniques used in lead generation also work well for gathering feedback and doing market research. Telemarketing, for example, has proven to be an effective channel for carrying out market research, either as part of an ongoing campaign or as a standalone project altogether. Marketers often depend on this outbound lead generation tool for quickly gauging product reviews and customer feedback on a large scale.

How to Achieve It:

• Leverage both inbound and outbound lead generation channels for gathering customer insights.
• Use these insights to continuously improve your product, messaging, and marketing efforts.

Inbound lead generation channels such as websites and social media also serve as sources of feedback and insights. While conversion rate numbers for lead generation websites are hard to come by, there’s evidence that shows this type of website converts some 13% to 28% of traffic. That’s why marketers leverage websites to gather feedback through live chat or click-to-call numbers.

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Providing Customer Service

Somewhat in line with the above point, lead generation can and should be used to improve how a company provides customer service and support. Insights and feedback collected from different lead generation channels can help businesses address customer concerns and promptly resolve issues. Lead response tools (such as phone calls, emails, contact forms, social and live chat, for example) can serve as touchpoints for prompt customer support.

How to Achieve It:

• Incorporate customer service touchpoints into your lead generation channels, such as live chat or social listening.
• Use content like blog posts and videos to provide customers with solutions to common problems or questions.

Also, content used in lead generation (such as blog posts, whitepapers, and videos) should include knowledge base articles/materials that answer customer questions or fix common issues. To serve both a lead generation and customer role at the same time, it’s good practice to make your knowledge base as extensive as possible, covering practical ways to make the best use of your product or service.

Effective Strategies for Reaching Lead Generation Goals 

Now that we understand the evolving lead generation goals, it’s time to equip ourselves with the right strategies. Here are some tried-and-true approaches to help you achieve your lead generation goals:

• Content Marketing: 
  Let’s first discuss the first strategy that will take your lead generation efforts to the next level—content marketing.
  
  Engage, educate, and empower your audience with valuable and relevant content. By creating valuable and relevant content, you can attract and engage your target audience. Invest in creating informative blog posts, e-books, videos, and other types of content that address the pain points of your prospects. This approach positions your brand as a trusted authority and helps generate quality leads.

• Social Media Engagement: 
  So why does social media engagement important? How it can amplify your lead generation results?
  
  Well, social media platforms provide an excellent opportunity to connect with your target audience directly. So don’t forget to leverage the power of social media to connect directly with your target audience. As, meaningful conversations, valuable content sharing, and targeted advertising can expand your reach and capture the attention of potential leads. 

• Email Marketing: 
  Well, social media platforms provide an excellent opportunity to connect with your target audience directly. So don’t forget to leverage the power of social media to connect directly with your target audience. As, meaningful conversations, valuable content sharing, and targeted advertising can expand your reach and capture the attention of potential leads. 

• Marketing Automation: 
  Lastly, marketing automation. How can marketing automation revolutionize your lead generation process?
  
  Say goodbye to repetitive tasks and hello to increased efficiency. As marketing automation tools help you streamline your lead generation efforts by automating tasks such as lead nurturing, email follow-ups, and lead scoring.
  
  So, automating these repetitive tasks will help you to focus your efforts on high-priority activities, improving efficiency and increasing the chances of converting leads into customers. Learn more about marketing automation.

Setting SMART Lead Generation Objectives 

Now that you’re armed with the right strategies, let’s ensure your lead generation efforts are laser-focused and measurable. We’ll walk you through setting SMART lead generation objectives:

• Specific
  
  Let’s define your lead generation objectives clearly. Are you aiming to increase qualified leads or improve conversion rates? 
  Your lead generation objectives should be clearly defined and focused. Instead of vague statements like “increase leads,” be specific about what you want to achieve. For example, your objective could be to “increase qualified leads by 20% within the next quarter.” This specificity helps you stay focused on a clear target.

• Measurable: 
  
  Numbers don’t lie. 
  It’s crucial to establish metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your progress and determine the success of your lead generation efforts. Having measurable goals allows you to track and evaluate your performance accurately. For instance, you can track metrics such as lead conversion rate, cost per lead, or lead quality score to gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns.

• Achievable:
   
  Let’s set realistic goals that align with your resources and capabilities. We want to set you up for success, not frustration.
  While it’s important to set ambitious goals, they should also be realistic and attainable. Consider your available resources, capabilities, and market conditions when setting your lead generation objectives. Setting unrealistic goals can lead to frustration and demotivation. Aim for a balance that pushes you to stretch but remains achievable within your means.

• Relevant: 
  
  Your lead generation objectives should align with your overall business goals. 
  Ensure that your lead generation objectives align with your overall business goals and objectives. They should directly contribute to the growth and success of your organization. For example, if your company’s goal is to expand into a new market segment, your lead generation objectives should align with acquiring leads from that specific segment.

• Time-Bound: 
  
  Time is of the essence. 
  Set a specific timeframe or deadline for achieving your lead generation objectives. This creates a sense of urgency and helps you prioritize your efforts and resources. It also allows for better planning and tracking. For instance, you might set a goal to “generate 100 leads per month for the next six months.”

By setting SMART lead generation objectives, you provide clarity and structure to your efforts. These objectives serve as guideposts, helping you stay focused, measure progress, make informed decisions, and adjust your strategies as needed. Remember to regularly review and reassess your objectives to ensure they remain relevant and aligned with your evolving business needs.

Setting SMART objectives not only enhances your lead generation efforts but also enables you to communicate your goals effectively with your team, align everyone’s efforts, and drive towards shared success.

Final Thought

Lead generation goals continue to evolve as the business landscape changes, and that’s a good thing. That’s mostly in response to how buyers are evolving. All these new roles that lead generation is expected to fill mean that it remains as relevant as ever.

So, by understanding the shifting dynamics and adopting effective strategies, you can stay ahead in the competitive world of B2B lead generation. Implementing a combination of personalized content marketing, social media engagement, email marketing, and marketing automation will propel your lead generation efforts toward success. Set SMART objectives, monitor your progress, and adapt your strategies as needed to ensure consistent growth and achievement of your lead generation goals.