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.

 

Leads are often confused with prospect

It is common to associate the definition of lead with the term prospect. These two may be similar to each other but they have different meanings. The simple explanation of a prospect is a person that has interacted with your business by showing interest for a product, service or marketing material. A concrete example would be a person that has signed up for your newsletter, filled out a form, or booked a meeting through your website. So it's mainly a person which you have contact information to that is interested in your products or services. 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 lead is defined as a person or organization that matches an ideal customer with a potential interest in a company's products or services. Leads are essentially processed data that has been filtered and refined. The simplest description is a person within your market segment for whom you have obtained contact information and therefore there is potential to convert them into a customer.

Most likely, you already have a relatively clear picture of what your target customers and market segments look like in your company, especially if you work in B2B sales. You may have compiled a list of different criteria that best fit the perfect customer. Of course, such a list can vary greatly from company to company, but the main purpose is to include details about demographics, company size, and geographic location.

No matter how much research you may have done on a company, a lead is always defined by one-way communication. Essentially, you may have already reached out to your customer without them responding, BUT don't worry - the first part of the sales funnel is and should always be the largest considering that leads do not always convert to a prospect, MQL or SQL.

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 hacking tips!

We who have the luxury of working with B2B sales in 2024 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.