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Generating B2B Sales Leads is harder than generating consumer leads most of the time.  I say most of the time, because some things that are a common problem for all businesses can use the consumer lead generation model and be successful.

However, for the sake of this article lets assume you are selling a high end B2B product and you want to generate qualified B2B sales leads and each sale is very valuable to you.

I see this all the time and the problem here is that the business that wants to think like consumer sales leads and they get discouraged when they do not get a flood of sales leads for their consulting practice or their specialized software.

I think the first thing to say is that not all products and services are best sold on the web.  In nearly all cases, the web can contribute to the sales process and can generate the occasional lead, but it will not replace a good sales force and often for these services, the lead (no matter how you got it) need fast and good followup.

Next, if your leads are worth, say $10,000 over the lifetime of the customer and you are going to have to spend hours talking to them, helping them, etc. etc to earn that money, the last thing you want to do is generate 100 low quality leads every week.  In B2B Sales Leads generation, getting a couple of high quality sales leads that you can put into your B2B sales funnel is a great month.

So when a B2B client wants to generate B2B leads online, you have to look at what a good goal is.  Can you generate thousands of leads in a year or are you better off with generating 20 good leads in the year?  That really depends on what you are selling, but do not get confused and pursue the wrong B2B lead generation strategy because it will not be a winning situation for anyone.

A CRM is a customer relationship management software that helps you manage your relationships.  Any business serious about sales needs this important lead management tool.  There are many CRM’s on the market.  There are free CRM tools and there are very costly CRM tools.

I have used many systems, and the question is not which is the best CRM on the market.  Instead, you have to ask yourself what is the best CRM to match your current and future sales process.

First you need a defined sales process.  Without it, you will not be able to pick the best CRM for your company.

The CRM begins as a lead management tool and should then flow qualified leads into a sales funnel where your CRM will send emails, schedule tasks such as calls and more.  It helps you build relationships.

A CRM is not a lead generation tool.  I have not seen a single CRM that generates leads and this is an important distinction.  You need to do a variety of lead generation activities, such as lead generation blogging, list buying, networking and more to pump your CRM full of leads.

All too often, a business buys a good CRM such as Salesforce.com, Sugar CRM, Highrise, Zoho CRM or others and they wonder why sales do not go up dramatically.  The reasons are simple. 

1) It takes a long time to adapt a CRM to your sales model and make it profitable.

2) You still need quality lead generation or the CRM will fail.

Lead generation and lead management tools are two different things and you need to understand the difference to build a profitable sales model.

Why is Inbound Marketing more effective than other forms of marketing for many industries?

Simple.  Inbound Marketing has higher trust right off the bat.

If you are working on lead generation strategies and you are pushing your message out and interrupting people, you are going to be ignored and shut out by most of the people you interrupt.

On the other hand, if you lay the groundwork with a great business blog and you put out good information, you are going to attract people that are looking for what you have to offer and because they came to you, you will get their attention.

This is why Inbound Marketing is the preferred lead generation technique, especially when it comes to small business Internet Marketing.  Smaller businesses do not have a chance advertising in traditional ways against their much bigger competitors.  But using inbound marketing techniques, a smaller business can become a valuable resource to prospective buyers and there is a good chance the bigger companies will never even realize what happened.

You should try many types of lead generation techniques to see what works well for you.  But you owe it to yourself to give Inbound Marketing with Blogs a try.

Online Lead Generation is not that difficult but what you need to begin with is a solid sales and lead capture strategy.

This means you need to have a good offer and a good lead capture system in place.

Then, assuming these things are sound, you can use many different lead generation online techniques to attract targeted traffic and convert visitors to leads.

Techniques include things like Buzzoodle can help you with, such as inbound marketing and search engine optimization as well as things like Adwords, banner ads, commenting on blogs and many other ways to create targeted traffic.  Trust my, the attraction is not as hard if you have built the proper lead conversion system in advance.

Are you looking or online lead generation?  You are not alone.  Everyone thinks that online lead generation is the way to go, and it is.  However, because of the low costs of lead generation online as well as the ease of execution, you will find that you have a lot of competition in this areas in any industry.

But I have some good news for you as well.  Most people are trying to do it themselves and they think it should happen quickly.  That means that people will try one online lead generation strategy for a few weeks and then give up.  The people that have success online with lead generation are the people that have a long term lead generation stategy and they continue to execute it over time.

Because I work with many clients in this area, I can tell you this is the most important thing.  People will ask, “How long should it take” but it is not the correct question because it depends on the competition and a little bit of luck in your particlular industry.  I have seen people get results in week and other not get very good results even after six months, but it is not a question on the online lead generation strategy.  It is a question of commitment, industry and long term effort.

You can succeed with lead generation online but remember the winners are the people that keep at it and set goals and measure results.

With the rise of FaceBook you might think that you need to move from SEO for Search Engines into the area of FaceBook Advertising.

The important thing to remember is that it is never an either/or option.  SEO will be important for a long time because searching for information on Google is what people do when they are doing research when they are thinking about buying something.

FaceBook is where people go to be social and have fun.  Some products will perform well when advertised in this environment but many will not.  The good thing is that FaceBook advertising is fairly inexpensive.  The bad thing is that, while it may produce a lot of visitors, it will not be a good source of quality lead generation in many cases.

Does that mean you should not try it?  Of course not.  However, do not just jump from trend to trend in marketing.  Measure your lead generation activity and know where your leads are coming from.  Understand the up front commitment for lead strategies and make sure you give things a fair chance, but pull the plug if they do not bring in a positive ROI.

FaceBook lead generation can work for the right kind of business, but it will not work for many types of businesses.  Be smart with your marketing dollars and demand the best from your marketing strategies.