“B2B LeadGen only works when marketing and sales work together.”

How can B2B lead generation be successful in a global industrial company? Katrin Jöst, Head of Corporate Marketing at TRUMPF, provides exciting insights into strategy, technology, and collaboration between marketing and sales in an interview.

Summary of the interview:

• B2B LeadGen: The biggest challenges and success factors
• Interview with Katrin Jöst: Her role at TRUMPF and the strategy for B2B lead generation
• B2B LeadGen: The three biggest challenges
• Proven strategies for overcoming B2B lead generation hurdles
• Which tools and platforms make TRUMPF a winner in B2B?
• From lead to customer: the critical process steps after successful lead generation
• B2B LeadGen in practice: How to make marketing and sales work together
• The most important B2B marketing trends

B2B LeadGen: The biggest challenges and success factors

Katrin, thank you for agreeing to talk to us about B2B lead generation in industrial and B2B environments. Thank you very much for joining us today.

To start with, please introduce yourself briefly and explain your role at TRUMPF and how the company operates in the field of B2B lead generation.

Katrin Jöst:
I am Head of Corporate Marketing at TRUMPF. We are a manufacturer of industrial lasers for industrial applications and machine tools, with 16,000 employees worldwide. I work in the holding company, which is why I am also involved in corporate marketing, and I have two main areas of focus: On the one hand, I work in the “train and rail” structure, which means I lay the infrastructure in terms of people, technology, and organization for the TRUMPF Group worldwide. Another new area is data, which is becoming increasingly important.

Secondly, I am responsible for operational marketing, operational lead management at our most important trade fairs in Germany, and for the Visual Media team.

I have a solid background in agencies, having worked at Ogilvy in Frankfurt and later at BBDO in Stuttgart. I also worked for TRUMPF there. The experience was so positive that I eventually decided to switch sides.

B2B lead generation is a key issue for many companies. In your opinion, what are the three biggest challenges in the B2B sector?

Katrin Jöst:
Firstly, the mindset. Customer-centric market development must be anchored in every mind, every sales manager and every subsidiary. We need to move away from technology push and toward market pull.

Secondly, common goals. Marketing and sales must pull together. We need common goals that we work toward and celebrate together.

Thirdly, data quality and an understanding of why it is valuable to maintain this quality in our everyday work. This is challenging, but essential.

In your experience, which B2B lead generation strategies have proven particularly effective in meeting these challenges?

Katrin Jöst:
Data quality is all about “data-to-value” use cases. Where does the sales force benefit specifically from clean data? Take trade shows, for example. If we only invite people who are already far down the funnel, it works very efficiently. We tested this successfully in Italy. There, the managing director said: Only those who are recorded as opportunities in the system will be invited. This led to a lot of activity in the CRM and the goals were achieved.

Then there’s the issue of planning. Without goals, there is no demand generation. I need the business and sales goals before I can think about strategies. Whether that means a sales push or a thought leadership conference depends on the goals.

Which technologies and platforms help B2B companies achieve their lead generation goals?

Katrin Jöst:
The heart of the system is CRM – in our case, C4C. All customer data must be maintained and available there. It is also important to know when what was purchased, which machines are in use, etc.

If I had to choose one technology, I would even choose a customer data platform over marketing automation. The 360-degree view of the customer is crucial. I need to know whether there are any service cases or whether another department is currently in contact. This then opens up opportunities for next-best-offer logic.

Automation helps us above all with scaling. Many subsidiaries have limited resources. Being able to run campaigns centrally takes a huge load off the local teams.

Once the tech stack is in place and the first B2B leads start coming into the CRM, what needs to happen next? Which processes are crucial for successfully converting leads into customers?

Katrin Jöst:
The process must be thought through from start to finish: from market to lead, from opportunity to order. Marketing has the task of taking as much work off the sales team as possible.

This can only be achieved through nurturing and pre-qualification. Marketing needs to ask different questions: What does the pipeline look like? How high is the new customer rate? Are there enough qualified leads?

The handover is a critical point. Service level agreements with sales are essential. We need to know: What does sales need to know about the lead to make a call or visit worthwhile?

B2B LeadGen in practice: How to make marketing and sales work together

For marketing and sales to work together, data must also flow back. Which processes have proven effective for this?

Katrin Jöst:
Transparency – and on an equal footing. We need to be able to trace where a lead comes from – e.g., which campaign. Then we can track the funnel: Is the lead assigned? How quickly does it move through the stages? What is the bounce rate?

It’s not acceptable to simply upload contact lists and then consider them leads. That damages acceptance. Sales has a right to quality, and marketing has a duty to deliver the right leads. At the same time, marketing needs feedback when leads don’t work so that we can learn and improve.

What trends do you currently see that B2B marketers should pay attention to in the coming months?

Katrin Jöst:
Three things are particularly important to me:

1. Segmentation and account-based marketing: We often have very clear target personas, for example in laser technology. ABM works very well in this area.
2. Content & storytelling: Even the best tool is useless without relevant content. You need scalable, localized content throughout the customer journey.
3. Artificial intelligence: We want to accelerate processes – e.g., in image processing, video adaptation, and language adaptation. That’s why we have established an AI hub at TRUMPF that bundles and drives these initiatives forward.

Thank you very much, Katrin. That was fascinating insight and a great conversation!