B2B demand
B2B lead generation: inbound, outbound, and partners
B2B lead generation is the work of creating conversations with people who can buy. The three durable sources are inbound (they find you), outbound (you find them), and partners (someone they already trust introduces you). Mix them on purpose. Do not count the same person three times.
Inbound: they were already looking
Search, comparison pages, community, and content that answers a job. Inbound is cheaper per conversation when demand exists and you can win the query. It is slow to start and easy to fake with gated ebooks nobody reads. The test is whether sales gets opportunities from people who can name a problem you solve. LinkedIn's marketing pages are one place to study how professional networks package inbound ads. They are not the whole inbound motion.
Inbound
They came to you
Outbound
You started the thread
Partner
Someone else introduced you
Outbound: you name the account first
Outbound starts with a list that matches the ICP, a reason to reach out now, and a path that stops when someone says no or goes quiet. Email, phone, and LinkedIn are channels, not strategies. Outbound fails when the list is a dump, the offer is "got 15 minutes?," and nobody owns replies. It works when the account was worth picking even if they never filled a form.
If LinkedIn is the outbound channel you actually run, Omentir is a workspace for that motion. Most B2B lead gen still mixes email, events, and partners around it.
Partners: borrowed trust
Agencies, complementary vendors, marketplaces, and customer referrals. Partner leads often close faster because the trust transfer already happened. They also come with politics: co-sell rules, overlap on accounts, and a referral fee. Write those rules before you celebrate a "free" channel. A partner who dumps unqualified forms into your CRM is inbound with extra steps.
Mixing without double counting
An account can see an ad, get an outbound note, and arrive via a partner intro. Pick one source for compensation and still record the assists. If marketing, SDRs, and partnerships each claim the same deal, you will over-hire. A weekly account review beats three dashboards that cannot agree.
Common questions
Which motion should a new team start with?
If people already search for the job you do, start inbound plus a tight outbound to named accounts. If nobody searches yet, outbound and partners will create the first conversations. Do not staff all three on day one.
Are webinar registrants leads?
They are people who showed interest in a topic. They become leads when they match the ICP and you have a next step they accepted. Counting every registrant as pipeline is how MQL goals get hit and sales stops taking meetings.
Related
Prefer markdown? B2B lead generation: inbound, outbound, and partners.md