AI, automation, and other such technologies have firmly planted their feet in the world of sales and marketing. B2B companies in particular have adopted AI for nearly everything the go-to-market team does. And one of the best uses of AI is for generating relevant leads and closing more deals faster.
What is AI lead generation?
AI lead generation is the process of using artificial intelligence (AI) to process large amounts of data to identify high-value leads. AI simplifies the task of finding prospects, making it easier for sales teams to focus on closing deals and helps B2B businesses grow faster with fewer resources.
How can you use AI for B2B lead generation?
B2B businesses today are moving from traditional lead generation to AI lead generation because it makes sales more efficient.
What’s critical for a successful outbound sales motion is not just a large number of leads, but having high-value leads that match your ICP and are enriched with signals and insight that help sales development representatives (SDRs) with sharper outreach. With AI lead generation tools, businesses are able to refine and optimize their leadgen and outreach efforts, secure more meetings with prospects and increase conversion rates in a shorter time. Large enterprises such as Joveo, Lifesight, and Netcore use Highperformr for AI lead generation, lead enrichment, and spearfishing leads with social signals.
Similarly, AI lead generation also helps the inbound channel because businesses would be able to better identify their social audience or website visitors using AI tools and unlock new channels such as social media for B2B lead generation.
If you take the AI lead generation approach, you’ll be able to explore more avenues for attracting audiences and generating leads, consolidate the leads from multiple sources to compile a much larger number of raw leads, enrich the leads easily at scale, filter the signals from the noise to get a high-value lead list, and build an account book with well-enriched contacts that are actually useful for your sales teams.
How to structure an AI lead generation team
Business models, tech stacks, team structures, and individual roles are all evolving to keep up with the proliferation of AI. If you’re ready to now reorganize your sales and marketing function and bring AI lead generation in, here’s how you can do it:
Revamp your GTM workflow
Focusing on AI lead generation means that leadgen is no longer restricted to the demand generation and marketing teams. Every employee in the organization will be able to bring leads to the table and your company will be able to unlock and open up new avenues of lead generation.
1️⃣ Hire an applied ai engineer or ai lead generation specialist
An applied AI engineer or an AI lead generation specialist is someone who uses AI to solve business problems, which in our case is lead generation. The applied AI engineer uses AI-native tools to optimize lead generation. The person will be in charge of streamlining the lead generation and data enrichment process. Here are some processes and activities the person will handle:
- Consolidate leads from multiple sources such as website, social media, events, lead databases, etc.
- Enrich leads with contact information and signals to understand the person better
- Filter for ICP
- Applify similarity search to build bigger lead lists and account books
- Use AI features like keyword search and other such filters to find relevant high-value leads
2️⃣ Promote social selling
Social selling is the process of finding leads and establishing connections with them on social media in order to make a sale.
Most marketing and lead generation efforts today focus on the small segment of the target audience that is ready to buy now. Not much attention is given to the nearly 95% of the ICP audience that are relevant ICP leads but are not ready to buy yet.
Social media is a great channel to engage with this audience and nurture relationships so that when the time is ready to make the sale, they are already aware of your brand and the product. Social selling also empowers SDRs to identify and nurture their own leads in addition to the ones assigned to them as part of their account books.
3️⃣ Set up an employee advocacy team
Employee advocacy is when employees promote their company, its products, or its brand on social media. This includes sharing company content, discussing industry insights, or advocating for the company’s products. It’s a powerful channel for attracting leads.
Employee advocacy is a part of the process of AI lead generation because AI platforms for employee advocacy – such as Highperformr – help employees create and share content about the company/product at scale, drive awareness about the product, and attract leads through this content.
By empowering every employee to create and share content, companies can reach a wider, more relevant audience on social media, turning their collective efforts into a lead generation engine.
How to define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Before you start using products or tools for AI lead generation, it is important to define your ideal customer profile so your AI tool can identify and filter through thousands of profiles and find you the leads that match your ICP. But what’s an ICP?
Simply put, not every customer is the right fit for what you offer. Some accounts align perfectly with your product, see great value, and stay with you for the long term, but there might be others who aren’t really the best match and end up consuming your time and resources without much return.
An ICP helps focusing on the ones that really matter. The ICP will be vastly different for every organization. Here’s a guide and template to help you define the ICP for your business.
How to use AI for list building and enrichment
Once the ICP is clearly defined, the AI lead generation process kicks in. AI lead generation tools will be able to sift through and identify leads that match the ICP you have defined.
Take Highperformr, for instance. The AI-native platform uses the ICP to filter LinkedIn, CSV sheets, or any other data source to identify leads that match the ICP. The AI takes inputs such as ICP, relevant topics or keywords, titles or designations, ideal profiles or handles, and generates lists of high-value leads.
For example, you can simply configure your ICP on Highperformr, pull in a list of target accounts to your Highperformr segment screen, and use the AI to generate leads. Highperformr enables you to find leads similar to your existing leads or customers, find leads that match specific keywords, find leads from a specific location, etc. AI lead generation with a tool like Highperformr makes lead generation more efficient, scalable, and relevant for sales teams.
Highperformr helps not just with AI lead generation but also with data enrichment, and this includes not just contact information but enrichment with signals such as intent, social activity, etc., that enable sales reps to prioritize their outreach and spearfish high-potential leads.
Here are the different ways in which you can orchestrate AI lead generation with Highperformr:
Get ICP lists from competitor engagements
- Find leads your competitors are targeting: Analyze conversations your competitors’ AEs and SDRs are having on social media to deduce deals they’re pursuing.
- Monitor competitors’ social conversations: Get data on new connections, comments, and other interactions on your competitors’ social handles and overlay this data with your account book to see if any active deals are at risk.
- Monitor activities of competitors’ sales teams: Set up a watchlist of your competitors’ AEs/SDRs and see who they engage with, and who engages with them regularly. Monitor if any profiles that match your ICP interact with your competitors.
- Gain strategic insight on competitor GTM activity based on social signals.
- Analyze competitor social strategy: Track competitors’ social media growth to spot new opportunities.
Get all ICP contacts from target accounts
- Identify ICP leads from your social audience: Track who engages with your social media content and spot ICP leads from the list.
- Find lookalike profiles: Cull out social profiles or companies that are similar to a specific contact or job title within your ICP. Use this to expand your account book with similar high-fit leads, enabling more focused but wider outreach.
- Filter ICP leads from your lead list: Import your lead lists as a CSV and use AI Agents to filter only the ones that match your ICP or those relevant for sales and marketing activities.
- Prioritize outreach strategy: Prioritize leads based on social signals to reach out to the most responsive ones first, focusing on high-potential contacts to increase response rate.
- Identify audiences for ABM: Build a contacts database from your and your competitors’ social audience to run email newsletters and other top-of-the-funnel marketing campaigns.
- Curate contacts for marketing campaigns: Build a contacts database from your and your competitors’ social audience to run email newsletters and other top-of-the-funnel marketing campaigns.
Build lists via LinkedIn keyword search
- Filter LinkedIn profiles based on keywords: Identify specific keywords or topics for each contact, with details on whether they appear in their headline, skills, or posts. Use the data to understand your contacts better before outreach.
- Track lead’s preferred channel of communication: Analyze activity on different social platforms to see which one is ideal for outreach.
- Capture user activities across LinkedIn: Document a comprehensive view of each buyer.
- Generate conversation starters based on social signals using the AI Agent to enhance response rates from cold outreach.
Create lists by tracking job changes
- Track customer advocates: Spot loyal advocates by analyzing social interactions and nurturing those relationships to build brand loyalty. Keep track of people who were your key contacts (champions) and have moved to other companies for new opportunities.
- Stay informed when key contacts change jobs or get promoted: Track career changes of key decision-makers or influencers in your ICP. Maintain connections with customer advocates, upsell or cross-sell, and acquire new customers.
- Identify possible referrals from past or current champions who could help introduce you to new decision-makers in target companies.
Build event audience lists from LinkedIn
- Get list of ICPs attending events: Discover ideal customer profiles attending industry events, so you can connect with them beforehand.
- Book meetings with event attendees: Increase response rates by setting up meetings with event attendees ahead of time, ensuring productive conversations.
- Find contacts for retargeting campaigns: Get audiences for retargeting campaigns based on interactions with you on social platforms.
- Find speakers for webinars and podcasts: Discover potential speakers for your webinars and podcasts. Track industry experts and influencers engaging with your content or similar topics, then reach out to them for event participation.
Enrich leads with social signals
- Enrich CRM for precision outreach: Keep your account book updated with enriched details like emails and phone numbers. Ensure data integrity across all systems used by your sales team.
- Augment leads with social signals: Enrich lead profiles with real-time social signals to personalize and optimize your outreach.
- Monitor activity of influencers/industry leaders: Set up a watchlist of influencers to see who they engage with, and who engages with them regularly, and identify if any profiles that match your ICP interact with them.
Benefits of AI lead generation
With the availability of advanced technologies such as AI, and access to AI lead generation tools such as Highperformr, B2B businesses will miss out on a massive opportunity to scale business growth if they don’t incorporate AI lead generation in their go-to-market strategy.
AI lead generation brings several benefits, enabling businesses to optimize their processes and achieve better results. Here’s a closer look at the key benefits of AI lead generation:
- Automate repetitive manual tasks - AI can take over time-consuming manual tasks such as data entry, enrichment, lead qualification, and can free up time for your team to focus on deep work and activities like building relationships.
- Increase the volume of leads generated - With AI, you can scale your lead generation efforts without a proportional increase in resources, helping you target a larger pool of potential customers.
- Prioritize leads for spearfishing - AI lead generation not just brings you a large number of relevant leads, but also helps prioritize them based on signals such as LinkedIn activity, recent event participation, etc. You’ll be able to get real-time data about the leads, and spearfish leads using social signals and buyer intent data. This allows sales teams to focus their efforts on high-priority prospects, improving efficiency and conversion rates.
- Expand the volume of outreach - AI lead generation and sales automation tools enable SDRs to engage with more leads through personalized, unique outreach strategies. This would mean better response rates and improve chances of conversion.
- Unlock new channels for lead generation - AI can go beyond the traditional data sources and identify leads from several channels such as social media and employee advocacy.
- Generate relevant leads - AI helps identify leads that are more aligned with your ideal customer profile (ICP), which helps improve the likelihood of a positive response during outreach.
- Improve lead enrichment with better insights - By focusing on AI lead generation, businesses will be able to significantly improve lead enrichment as well, as platforms such as Highperformr can provide signals and up-to-date information about each prospect. This deeper understanding results in more precise outreach.
- Enrich leads in real time - If you’re using an AI-native lead generation platform like Highperformr, you will be able to get real-time data about your leads. This capability to ensure that lead information is fresh and relevant is particularly valuable as it helps reach out to the right lead at the right time and close the deal without delay.
- Better response rates - With enriched and relevant lead data that you get from AI lead generation, you’re able to craft personalized outreach messages that resonate with your audience. Personalized outreach not only improves response rates but also nurtures stronger relationships with the leads.
- Reduce costs - By automating processes and reducing the need for manual intervention, AI lead generation can lower the overall cost of acquiring new leads.
- Enable scalability for growing businesses - AI systems can handle increased lead generation volumes as businesses grow, ensuring that scaling up operations doesn’t compromise efficiency or lead quality.
- Improve cross-channel lead generation - AI lead generation would mean integrating multiple channels such as email, social media, and websites, ensuring a cohesive approach to lead generation.
Key challenges and solutions in AI-powered lead generation
While AI lead generation brings several benefits that can improve efficiency, it is not without flaws. Here are some challenges you need to be wary of, and what you need to do to avoid getting hit by the shortcomings of AI lead generation:
The evolving nature of AI
Challenge - AI in itself is quite nascent. The technology is evolving every day, impacting the foundation on which AI products are built. As a result, AI lead generation tools are also constantly changing in terms of the way they operate, the requirements they have, and the output they generate.
Solution - Build flexibility into your lead generation workflows. Prepare for iterations by selecting tools that provide regular updates and reliable support. Also, be sure to maintain backup workflows to ensure your operations continue smoothly during transitions.
Overdependence on AI
Challenge: While it is important to use AI to automate repetitive tasks and help humans improve their efficiency, relying on it for critical tasks and decision-making is risky. AI lacks the creativity, judgment, and nuanced understanding that humans bring.
Solution: Use AI as an enabler, not a replacement. Use AI-native tools for repetitive tasks, but ensure that humans are still at the center of tasks that require strategic thinking and creativity.
Lack of familiarity
Challenge: Introducing AI in critical processes like lead generation can meet resistance from teams unfamiliar with the technology. Without proper understanding, employees may hesitate to use AI tools or underutilize their potential.
Solution: Invest in detailed change management and take the time to train and onboard teams to use AI tools. Be sure to establish how AI tools make work easier and wouldn’t mean AI will replace humans.
Potential disruption to existing workflows
Challenge: Replacing traditional processes with AI lead generation will definitnely mean established workflows will change. This however shouldn’t lead to important activities slipping through the cracks or cause inefficiencies and confusion as a result of new technology.
Solution: Rather than making a drastic complete change, ensure that the transition to AI lead generation is gradual and does not impact overall efficiency during the change process.
The best AI lead generation software
Your AI lead generation software must include modules or features that help with identifying leads, building lists, enriching the contacts, prioritizing outreach based on intent data and signals, and assisting with personalized outreach. There are tools to help with each of these tasks, and AI-native platforms like Highperformr where you can manage this entire GTM workflow.
List building software
These are AI lead generation tools that help with identifying leads and building lead lists that can then be filtered and categorized for different purposes. These products usually compile leads from third-party sources and give you basic contact details such as email ids or phone numbers.
Highperformr, Apollo, ZoomInfo, Lusha, Cognism are some examples of data enrichment tools, although Highperformr provides a lot more than just basic enrichment of leads curated from third-party sources. Highperformr also helps you identify and find ICP leads and enrich them with first-party data and signals that will help personalize outreach.
Lead enrichment tools
These products, also referred to as data enrichment tools, give you additional data about your leads - such as direct phone numbers, verified email addresses, firmographic data, company data, etc.
Highperformr, Clearbit, Uplead, ZoomInfo, Lead411 are examples of lead enrichment tools and they help you enrich your existing leads. Highperformr enriches your leads with not just contact information but also buying intent signals and social signals that enable you to prioritize your leads and spearfish leads. You will be able to understand your leads better and craft better conversation starters, and see improved response rates.
Outreach tools
These tools help automate the outreach process and by helping you craft and schedule emails to be sent to prospects. These could be bulk emails or a series of emails that are scheduled through drip campaigns across various touchpoints.
MailChimp, Hubspot, and Smartlead are some tools you can use to create and schedule emails. Highperformr also provides free tools to generate email drafts. You can use the AI tools to create simple, personalized email drafts and schedule them for distribution through other email marketing tools.
Lead nurturing platforms
Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship with prospects before making a sales pitch. It’s about understanding their needs while helping them learn more about you and your product. Social media, especially platforms like LinkedIn, is an ideal space for this. It’s where your leads spend time discussing work and learning, making it the perfect place to provide value and earn their trust.
By consistently sharing valuable content, engaging with their posts, and fostering a community, you can establish credibility and stay top of mind. This makes it easier to pitch your product when the time is right. Since your prospects are already familiar with your brand, its capabilities, and your value, they’re more likely to convert when they’re ready to make a purchase.
Highperformr has been built to make this process easy. Highperformr enables social selling, and empowers every SDR to create social posts using the Social Media AI Agent, schedule posts, identify audiences who engage with you, and nurture relationships with your ICP.
Other tools that help with lead nurturing include Hubspot, MailChimp, Smartlead as they enable you to schedule email campaigns for lead nurturing.
Intent data providers
The AI lead generation process goes beyond simply identifying leads—it enriches them with intent data and signals, helping you prioritize leads for outreach. Intent data provides insights into a lead’s demonstrated interest in buying a product similar to yours.
Many tools today track website visitors and online activities to infer a visitor’s buying intent based on their behavior, such as clicks and page views. Platforms like Highperformr, Bombora, Albacross, and Hotjar specialize in providing intent data and signals.
Highperformr stands out by offering first-party social signals. These include intent insights from a person’s social media activity, such as the keywords in their posts, their participation in relevant conversations, or information about B2B events and tradeshows they are attending.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems
The final phase of the AI lead generation process is pushing leads into the CRM and updating the CRM system with enriched leads.
Highperformr is a modern social CRM that enables you to build lead lists and enrich leads with social signals and first-party data. Highperformr plugs seamlessly into other CRM tools.
The CRM space is quite crowded with dozens of players addressing different CRM needs; some of the more commonly-used, popular products are Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and ZohoCRM.
Scale your AI lead generation with Highperformr
As you have probably noticed already, Highperformr is the best AI lead generation tool you can use for your business. Highperformr is AI-native, and is built to help you identify leads and enrich them using AI, making outbound sales more effective. To learn how you can use Highperformr for your AI lead generation, schedule a demo with our AI lead generation specialist today!
