Last Modified: February 26, 2025
Generating leads can be challenging for SaaS companies. To drive consistent growth, your company must focus on lead generation. Here are the top 13 Lead Generation Strategies for B2B SaaS companies to use this year. These lead generation strategies are best used to help SaaS companies attract, engage, and convert prospects into paying subscribers and, ultimately, build a sustainable pipeline and profitable B2B business.
Generating leads for B2B SaaS companies presents unique challenges compared to other industries. Unlike traditional businesses that rely on one-time purchases, SaaS companies operate on a subscription-based model, meaning they must continually attract, convert, and retain customers to sustain growth. Additionally, high competition and customer churn make a consistent, scalable lead generation strategy essential. The key to success lies in using data-driven prospecting, personalized outreach, and multi-channel engagement to nurture leads effectively.
Software as a Service (SaaS) companies are focused on providing digital solutions to their customers through apps and software. SaaS companies thrive on finding paying subscribers to their SaaS platform— usually a digital solution for some problem the business faces. Many models include a pay-as-you-go plan or month-to-month subscriptions. Others require customers to sign yearly contracts to retain the use of their software.
Typically, in a subscription-based model, customers pay an ongoing fee for access to their technology. In some cases, free versions are available for customers to gain first-hand experience with the technology and prove how it can work for their business. This approach allows SaaS companies to provide their customers with a low-risk, low-commitment way to try out their software before making a purchase decision.
Examples of SaaS applications include email and calendar apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook; customer relationship management software such as Salesforce and Hubspot; and project management tools like Trello or Monday.
Unlike traditional on-premise software, which requires manual installation and regular updates, SaaS applications are cloud-based, offering real-time updates and accessibility from anywhere. This flexibility makes SaaS solutions highly attractive to businesses looking for scalable and cost-effective digital tools. However, it also means that SaaS companies must constantly demonstrate value to customers to prevent churn.
Since SaaS revenue depends on recurring subscriptions, lead generation is not just about acquisition but also about retention and expansion. Successful SaaS businesses implement ongoing engagement strategies such as content marketing, product-led growth, and customer success initiatives to keep prospects engaged and drive long-term conversions.
B2B SaaS lead generation is the process of finding and engaging potential customers who may be interested in buying your SaaS products. It involves identifying, targeting, and nurturing leads to convert them into paying customers. Effective B2B SaaS lead generation requires a deep understanding of your target audience, their pain points, and the value your product can offer them. As the cost of acquiring customers through traditional marketing methods increases, businesses need to find more efficient and effective ways to reach their target market.
A key factor in B2B SaaS lead generation is understanding how potential customers make purchasing decisions. Unlike impulse purchases in B2C markets, B2B buyers follow a structured process involving research, comparison, and validation before committing. This is why SaaS companies must leverage multi-channel lead generation, combining strategies like:
To further enhance lead nurturing, SaaS companies can implement Account-Based Marketing (ABM)—a strategy that focuses on personalized outreach to high-value accounts. By aligning sales and marketing efforts, ABM helps SaaS businesses target decision-makers with hyper-relevant messaging, increasing the likelihood of conversion. Additionally, integrating inbound tactics like retargeting ads and behavioral-based email sequences can keep potential leads engaged, helping them to stay within the funnel even if they don’t convert immediately.
Implementing a mix of these approaches ensures that leads are nurtured at every stage of their buying journey, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
When you are communicating with your prospects, sellers can assess a person's likelihood of buying. It's accomplished by measuring where the lead is in the sales journey.
For example, during the awareness phase, prospects know exactly what product/service they need and are looking for. It’s about finding the best possible SaaS company to use. Any videos, blog posts, free trials, or case studies that you have accessible on your website can be used as magnets to drive a call with your prospect. It can be helpful to track what’s being viewed or downloaded and reach out to the prospect with a personalized message based on the materials they were looking at.
SaaS companies can optimize lead qualification by implementing lead-scoring models within their CRM. This approach assigns numerical values to leads based on engagement levels, firmographics, and intent signals. A lead who downloads multiple whitepapers, engages with emails, and visits the pricing page multiple times would be considered high-intent and prioritized for outreach. CRM automation tools like HubSpot and Salesforce can help track these interactions and trigger personalized follow-ups at the right time, ensuring that sales teams focus their efforts on the most promising prospects.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best lead generation strategy for B2B SaaS companies will depend on various factors. Because of that, it’s difficult to say with certainty which B2B lead generation tactics are the most effective. It’s mostly like you will combine these strategies to drive the leads you need for your SaaS company.
As competition in the SaaS space intensifies, companies are leveraging AI-powered tools to enhance lead generation. AI-driven chatbots engage visitors in real time, qualifying leads and answering common questions before routing them to sales reps. Additionally, predictive analytics can help identify which prospects are most likely to convert by analyzing behavioral data. SaaS businesses that integrate these intelligent solutions can streamline their lead generation efforts and increase efficiency.
Here are 13 strategies to generate B2B sales leads:
Creating targeted leads is a great way to push leads through your funnel. Lists are designed to quickly get your business out there by sending out incoming emails to potential customers. You should target your leads through company size, industry, location, revenue, funding, title, geography, and hundreds of other variables.
Websites like Crunchbase provide a comprehensive database of companies, investors, and funding information, making it a great resource for identifying high-growth companies that may be interested in your products or services. Storeleads is a tool that provides a list of eCommerce stores, allowing businesses to identify potential customers based on the products they sell and the platforms they use.
In addition to tools like Crunchbase and Storeleads, companies can utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Clearbit to further refine their targeting. These tools provide real-time firmographic and technographic data, helping SaaS businesses identify prospects who are most likely to convert.
If you don’t have the bandwidth to do this at scale, it could be helpful to outsource your target list needs to Key Outreach. We specialize in helping businesses connect with decision-makers at scale.
According to a study from SaaS company Oberlo, mobile devices are responsible for 60.97% of website traffic. With the use of smartphones at an all-time high, having an easily accessible SaaS website for users becomes advisable. SaaS Web-based mobile applications allow your audience to reach you on many devices. It also improves rankings on search engines. The higher rankings will help you increase organic visitors to your site. Increased organic traffic to your SaaS site means more inbound SaaS lead generation.
Beyond just responsiveness, SaaS companies should prioritize fast loading speeds, clear CTAs, and mobile-friendly checkout processes to reduce friction and improve user experience. Implementing Google's Core Web Vitals recommendations can also help improve SEO rankings and lead conversion rates.
Ensuring your website is mobile-responsive by prioritizing user experience (UX) design is crucial for conversions. A clean layout, fast loading speeds, and intuitive navigation reduce friction and encourage visitors to engage with your product. Additionally, optimizing for voice search can help capture leads searching for solutions via smart assistants like Siri or Google Assistant. Implementing structured data and natural language-based SEO can improve visibility for voice-based queries, further expanding your reach.
Attending webinars is a great way to drive new leads. Webinars and web conferences provide a forum for discussing a particular topic or industry. This is a great opportunity to network with B2B companies who could benefit from your SaaS service.
Webinars offer a chance to network with SaaS prospects and allow you to showcase your expertise and establish your brand as a thought leader in the SaaS industry. To maximize impact, consider co-hosting webinars with industry influencers or partners. This expands your reach and leverages trust-based marketing, where attendees are more likely to engage with a known, reputable brand.
Creating a client referral program is a great strategy for SaaS companies. 65% of B2Bs with a referral program believe that referrals are important to their company’s sales success.
If you have a great working relationship with your SaaS clients, ask if they have anyone in their network who could use your SaaS company's services. It can also be beneficial to promote your program to your network on Linkedin as well.
To maximize the effectiveness of referral programs, SaaS companies can introduce gamification elements such as tiered rewards or exclusive feature access. For example, a customer who refers one client might receive a small discount, while those who refer three or more could unlock premium features for free. Companies like Dropbox have successfully scaled through referral incentives, proving that a well-structured program can drive exponential growth.
Engaging interactive posts can be crucial in social media marketing for B2B SaaS companies. Companies can build relationships and generate leads by creating engaging content and building active engagement with potential customers on social media platforms. This strategy allows B2B SaaS companies to effectively promote their offerings, directing potential customers to their websites or encouraging them to request a demo. Interactive content such as quizzes, polls, and live Q&A sessions on LinkedIn can drive engagement while gathering valuable intent data on potential customers.
By focusing on engagement and interaction, B2B SaaS companies can drive growth and establish a strong presence on social media.
Grabbing your audience’s interest can be the toughest part of the lead-generation battle. Attention spans are declining, and competition is increasing. To reach your B2B prospects, you have to speak to them directly. This is where personalized videos come into play. Tools like Idomoo and Vidyard can connect to your CRM to help create videos that are tailored to each prospect, all in an automated way.
Beyond personalized sales outreach, SaaS companies can use custom demo videos that showcase features relevant to a specific prospect's industry or pain points. If your video is speaking directly to an issue your audience is having, they will be more likely to pay attention.
Content marketing is a traditional way to generate leads for B2B SaaS companies. Focus on SEO-driven content strategies by researching and targeting long-tail SaaS keywords that match the buyer's search intent. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can help identify high-converting keyword opportunities.
By creating blog posts, infographics, eBooks, and other content relevant to your target market, you can attract visitors to your website and convince them to sign up for your email list or request a demo of your product. Digital content like eBooks can serve as lead magnets, attracting your leads to submit information like email addresses.
B2B SaaS companies can effectively generate leads by utilizing effective email marketing. By creating an email list and targeted email campaigns, potential customers can be consistently reminded of the company and ultimately be persuaded to visit your website or request a demo of your product when they are prepared to make a purchase.
Typically, it can be difficult to run targeted campaigns at scale, so it’s important to have large systems in place to send emails. Additionally, incorporating automated drip sequences that deliver valuable educational content over time and gradually move leads down the funnel can help guide them to convert.
Generating consistent weekly meetings can be difficult, so outsourcing these tasks to a sales development company like Key Outreach could help you tremendously.
Since cold emailing involves prospecting to audiences you’ve never contacted before, adding a touch of personalization can help you generate more leads. You’re aiming for more than just a click on the email. You want the recipient to reply. Cold emails, therefore, need to be persuasive, short, and relevant. Take time to learn about your prospects and see where you can find relevant to add to your email.
Open AI tools like ChatGPT and Copy.ai are great for writing personal emails or drawing inspiration for personalization ideas. Tools like Clay.run are great for finding information on your prospect to add to your emails. You can also leverage AI-driven email personalization tools such as Smartlead to craft hyper-personalized outreach at scale, increasing response rates.
Pay-Per-Click campaigns have been a SaaS lead-generation staple for well over a decade. Starting from Google Ads, this tactic expanded into LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, Facebook ThruPlay, and others.
Why should you keep using PPC to generate B2B SaaS leads? Because it’s highly targeted, you can reach a very specific B2B audience for SaaS companies. PPC also provides refreshingly fast results. SaaS Marketers can implement it almost instantly and see lead flow quickly. A/B testing is also a prime benefit, allowing you to determine what’s working and what isn’t quickly.
While having a strong CTA in your email copy is important, it’s even more important to test these multiple CTA’s to obtain better results. A/B testing CTA’s is widely adopted, with 60 percent of businesses conducting it on their landing pages and 77 percent on their websites. It is important to test not only button copy but also CTA placement, colors, and urgency-driven language (e.g., "Limited Spots Available!") to optimize conversions.
Utilizing tools like Crazy Egg or AB Tasty to A/B test CTA versions allows for continuous improvement. The key takeaway is never to stop testing and to always strive for better results
Prospecting tools can be extremely helpful in generating leads for businesses. These tools typically use data mining techniques to identify potential customers and gather their contact information. Two examples of such tools are Apollo.io and Seamless.ai.
Apollo.io allows users to search a database of over 200 million contacts and build targeted lists based on specific criteria, such as job title and company size. Seamless.ai, on the other hand, uses artificial intelligence to analyze data from multiple sources and generate highly accurate leads. Lusha and LeadIQ are additional tools that provide real-time prospect data, enabling sales teams to reach decision-makers faster and more accurately.
Using these tools allows businesses to save time and effort while still finding high-quality leads to fuel their sales efforts.
For a SaaS B2B company with a long sales cycle, lowering the price tag on your service can be an effective way to generate leads and increase sales. With a subscription-based model, businesses often look for solutions that can deliver ongoing value, so reducing the price can help make your solution more accessible and attractive to potential customers. If reducing price isn’t an option, offering free trials, freemium models, or performance-based pricing can increase conversions while demonstrating value upfront.
It's important to ensure that the pricing still allows you to achieve your business goals, such as customer acquisition and revenue growth, while providing a high-quality service to your customers.
B2B SaaS companies have numerous effective strategies for generating leads, including targeted outreach, optimizing your email marketing, making your website mobile-friendly, A/B testing your CTA’s, attending webinars, running PPC campaigns, and personalizing your cold emails. By utilizing these methods, companies can expand their reach, capture the attention of potential customers, and ultimately drive growth. With the right approach and execution, B2B SaaS companies can successfully generate quality leads and establish themselves as leaders in the SaaS industry.
Are you ready to take your B2B SaaS business to new heights? At Key Outreach, we specialize in delivering exceptional results regarding lead generation. We understand the effective strategies that B2B SaaS companies need, from targeted outreach to optimizing email marketing, mobile-friendly websites, A/B testing CTAs, webinar attendance, PPC campaigns, and personalized cold emails. With our expertise and tailored approach, we help companies expand their reach, captivate potential customers, and drive remarkable growth. Join hands with Key Outreach today and unleash the true potential of your B2B SaaS lead generation. Contact us now, and let's accelerate your success in the SaaS industry.
