7 Amazing Ways To Source Leads for Sales

What came first, the sale or the lead? In this case, the answer is clear: the lead. Sourcing leads is a crucial first step of a sale, and yet it can be challenging in an oversaturated market. Sales reps have to get creative in how they find their leads. 

As lead excerpts ourselves, we’ve put together seven tried-and-true ways to source new lead— plus a refresher on what defines a high quality lead. 

What’s a sales lead, and why do sales leads matter?

Imagine hiring a team of sales reps and expecting them to close business–with no lead lists. It’s pretty much impossible to achieve. Sales teams need contacts to reach out to that could realistically become customers. These contacts are sales leads, individuals and businesses that have some interest in your products or services. In other words, they’re potential buyers. 

Each day, your sales reps will email and call their sales leads and attempt to qualify them. If a lead doesn’t meet the minimum number of requirements, it has no chance of becoming a sales opportunity and is discarded. 

There are two approaches to lead sourcing: 

• Inbound sales: 

Companies put a lot of time and energy into creating marketing campaigns, which include advertisements, white papers, case studies, live events, and more. When someone hits Google and searches for a product that can solve their problems, they’ll find your content.  

• Outbound sales: 

Some industries, like software, are very competitive and lead lists are exhausted quickly. Outbound sales reps will source new leads by researching their territories, identifying which companies fit their ideal customer profile, and then cold emailing or calling decision makers at those organizations.  

Everyone wants more leads but if they’re poor quality, your sales reps will be working hard but going nowhere fast. To avoid this scenario, make sure you have a system for qualifying leads so that your reps can focus on moving good opportunities through their sales pipeline.  

What does a good lead look like?

Determining whether a lead qualifies as “good” is both an art and a science. The process can be broken down into two categories: a marketing qualified lead (MQL), based on engagement, and a sales qualified lead (SQL), which is based on buying indicators. 

Marketing qualified leads 

An MQL has engaged with your marketing efforts in some way. This person has filled out a contact form, registered for an event, downloaded a white paper or visited your web pages. These potential buyers usually haven’t engaged with the sales team yet but they’re more open to a conversation. 

Marketing teams set engagement thresholds and, once a lead meets those, it’s sent to the sales team. For example, if someone fills out a “contact us” form, they’ll be sent straight to a sales rep. Another lead may engage by registering to attend a webinar, and then visiting your product pricing page.

Sales qualified leads 

A sales qualified lead (SQL ) is when the marketing qualification threshold is met and marketing determines that the lead is ready to talk to a sales person. Keep in mind, only 44% of MQLs make it to the sales team to follow up with. If the sales rep determines that this lead meets buying signs, they will convert it to an SQL. Reps can use a helpful tool—the buyer persona—to make this decision.

The buyer persona

A buyer persona is a fictional person that represents your ideal customer. You’ll need to really research your existing customer base to find out what they have in common and why those variables are strong buying signs.  

A buyer persona is made up of components like: 

• Demographic information including an individual’s job seniority, job title, and ability to make a purchase.
• Firmographic information like the company’s industry, location, annual revenue. 
• Technographic information like whether the company is technologically mature enough to purchase your product, or whether they have an IT budget. 

Engagement

Every time someone interacts with your business, it’s an engagement. The types and number of interactions can be weighed and tallied. Engagement can include website visits, social media interactions, signing up for webinars, email opens, networking events, sales calls, and much more. The more engagement you have with a lead, the better qualified it is. 

Lead scoring

Finally, lead scoring can bring together all of the lead variables so you know how qualified a lead is. Your company might say that a lead needs to have 5 points of engagement in order to be an MQL. These points can come from a combination of interactions. 

Aspects of the buyer persona are also included in a lead score. A high lead score will meet requirements like company size, revenue, industry, location, budget, role and seniority of the contact. 

7 ways to source leads for your sales team:

Setting up your lead qualification process is important, but first you need to generate more leads. We’ve put together seven ways to source your own leads, and fill your sales funnel. 

1. Referrals

Call up your happy customers and see if they will refer their peers to your business. Referrals are effective because they come from trusted and valuable sources. Not only can your existing customer vouch for you and your business, you’ll start the new conversation on a very positive note. Some companies even offer referral bonuses to incentivize partners and customers to send new business their way. 

2. Twitter

Twitter is a great way to reach a wider audience and connect with your existing customer base. Start by creating your account and then upload your customer email lists into Twitter so you can follow each of their accounts. Social media engagement takes time and consistency, so get in the habit of posting regularly and engaging with the posts of your top customers and prospects. 

3. Linkedin Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is one of the most powerful tools for generating leads. Sales reps who use Sales Navigator are almost 2.5x more likely to connect to their ideal buyers. The advanced filters help you hone in on the types of leads that best fit your ideal customer or buyer persona. It’s like lead scoring, but instead of drawing people to your content or forms, the data is already available and ready to be segmented through LinkedIn lead lists. This becomes even more powerful when you use #4…

4. Wiza

Wiza takes the power of LinkedIn Sales Navigator to a whole new level. It’s a chrome extension designed to help collect and verify email addresses. You can build lead lists inside Sales Navigator, export them, upload them into Wiza, and have Wiza verify the emails. This reduces your risk of being marked as spam, and lowers your bounce rate. 

You can seamlessly export up to 2,500 contacts at a time from Sales Navigator and be confident that the email data you receive is accurate. Wiza removes risky emails and unauthenticated emails from your list. 

5. Networking/industry events

No matter what changes technology goes through, there will always be networking events. Virtual or in person, your target audience will be attending events to learn more about how their industry is growing. 

Start by registering to attend industry events and conferences. You don’t need to have a sponsor booth at these events, but you will need to put in the leg work and talk to as many people as possible. 

6. Partnerships

Partner marketing is a way to collaborate with other businesses to mutually increase your lead flow. Your partners can be advocates for your products and act as a trusted voice. When their own customers ask for a solution that your product offers, they’ll send them your way. This is a great way to increase brand awareness, reach a wider audience, and improve lead generation. You can also enhance your SEO strategy by integrating partner marketing with targeted link-building outreach, driving more qualified traffic and improving your search engine rankings.

Popular Types of partner marketing include: 

• Affiliate marketing
• Distribution partnerships
• Co-branding 
• Sponsorships

7. Content creation 

The first page of Google is prime real estate because the majority of buyers start their research process on Google. One way to capture as much attention as you can is to create content that ranks highly for SEO. Your content can come in the form of case studies, white papers, webinars, videos, and blog posts. Using no-follow links strategically can also help guide traffic while keeping your SEO efforts clean and focused.

Try and educate your customers through your content and don’t make it all about the sale. Break your content into niche pieces because it typically takes over 20 touches with a prospect before they become an SQL.

How Wiza can help

Lead generation can be time consuming, so it’s important to have the right tools to make this process easier for your business and your sales reps. Wiza’s LinkedIn Sales Navigator chrome extension takes the manual work out of lead hunting. Increase your LinkedIn engagement by brushing up on our top LinkedIn prospecting tips for 2022.