What is a Lead?

For those who usually work with B2B sales the word “lead” is common and you often use it in your everyday language. What is precisely meant by a lead often differs and to avoid future confusion about the concept, we must sort out and explain what the term actually means and when it is best used.

Often Associated With Prospect

It is common to associate leads with the term prospect. These two may be similar to each other but they have different meanings. A prospect is a contact person or organization that matches the description of the ideal customer for your particular company. For example, a prospect can be a potential customer that your company expects to do business with and so a prospect there is an expected outcome or a likely customer. However, that does not mean that a prospect is integrated in the sales process or has a relationship with your company.

It is worth mentioning that there are many great tools to use when measuring and evaluating the incoming traffic to your website. A shining example of tools that can be useful when it comes to exploration is Albacross, which identifies which companies have been on your website.

What Is a Lead Then?

A simple description of a lead is a person who has interacted with an offer by showing interest in a product, service or your sales/ marketing material. That is, a person you have received contact information from and who is interested in your product or service.

A lead differs from a prospect because the company needs to identify the customer’s intention with your company and the potential of doing business. Leads can be the demographic information of new customers, therefore if you do a proper demographic analysis of your existing customers and leads, that can also help you map new prospects.

An effective way to reach new leads can be to buy lead lists from companies, however, it can be perceived as somewhat outdated, and therefore it is increasingly common to use a leadgen platform or marketing automation. A shining example of such a platform is LeadPilot and their smart lead-generating platform. This is a very effective AI that automates the first three steps in the sales process; targeting your ideal customers, prospects by finding the company and decision-maker with their email and putting them in an email sequence- completely automatic.

Growth Hack Tips!

We who have the luxury of working with B2B sales in 2022 have the advantage of living with fantastic technology, especially in lead generation. We are pretty spoiled with a number of different tools and AI platforms to assist us. Today, you can easily get more leads without raising a finger, by using artificial intelligence instead.

Generating and converting leads to loyal customers brings success within a company. By managing your leads in a systematic and structured way, you can both increase the number of leads you generate and also how many leads you convert.

Artificial intelligence is fantastic, but it can be a good idea to alternate the technical with face-to-face contacts also in the form of face-to-face interactions. An effective activity for generating leads through physical meetings is by attending expos, events, or other physical meetings, which you can read more about here.