Read time
4 min
Category
News
Created
11 Nov. 2022
Let's start by tackling the first part of the concept of lead generation, namely answering what are leads?
A lead is a contact person or organization that matches the description of the perfect customer for your company, i.e. a lead is a potential new customer. Basically, it is processed data that has been filtered and refined. The simplest description is a person for whom you have received contact details and for whom there is therefore the possibility of being converted into a customer. Read more about the definition and meaning of the word lead here!
Lead generation is the actual process of finding and contacting the right companies and decision makers with an offer they are interested in, where the goal is to successfully close a new deal. Lead generation is a big and important part of both B2B (business to business) marketing and sales.
Generating leads means collecting data and planning an outreach, you can either do that manually or use an AI tool that does this automatically. But whether it is done manually or automatically, it is done the same way. The data you collect is information about your potential customers, such as contact details, company details or their online behavior patterns. You use lead generation for two different purposes, depending on whether it is the sales team or the marketing team that needs to gain insights and draw conclusions from the data.
Focus on building a process around attracting the right leads. You do this by targeting every person who has shown your company some kind of interest, there is a greater chance that these people will actually convert.
Your priority when it comes to the concepts of leads and lead generation is also to understand how much your target audience means in the context. A common mistake can be to market your product or service to everyone and not target people who are in your target group and are therefore a match for you.
Examples of targeting too broad a mass can be campaigns where you have the option to set a target group. Here is a great opportunity to niche your campaigns by dividing the target audience and targeting the content of your ad. As a suggestion, you can choose to contact or show your ad to a sales manager and adapt the content to what a sales manager needs. A sales manager is not attracted by "5 tips to increase your brand awareness" but probably by "5 tips on how to get the sales team to close new deals".
Lead generation was primarily used for sales in the past, but more and more it also began to be used for marketing purposes. Today there are companies where only the marketing team uses lead generation and where sales instead focuses on processing already qualified leads and closing deals.
There are two different terms and thought processes when it comes to lead generation for marketing versus sales: These are called Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads, the abbreviations of these two names are MQL and SQL.
Lead generation is one of the most important cornerstones of your business for both sales and marketing but they do differ. It improves your sales process and you can consistently fill your pipeline with the right leads and close more and better deals thanks to building relationships with those most likely to buy. Sales managers and salespeople can save a lot of time by using a lead generation tool like LeadPilot as all the rough work is done automatically.
From a marketing perspective, lead generation is perfect for getting to know the target audience and the behavior patterns of your customers. It facilitates the daily work of creating the right content for digital channels such as social media, newsletters, etc. Which results in you increasing your brand awareness, but above all you strengthen your brand thanks to showing relevant content to the right people.
If you want to dive deeper into the subject, you can read about the definition, meaning and difference between MQL and SQL here.
In short, you reach more and better leads, which means better results and increased revenue.
Tired of cold calling? Us too. That's why we created LeadPilot, a platform that leverages up-to-date Swedish and Finnish company data to reach decision-makers at your potential customers. Instead of manually searching through business directories, you set your ideal customer criteria, such as size, geographical area, and industry. LeadPilot then finds and contacts new customers while you focus on other tasks. The platform even follows up on the conversation at precisely the right moment, ensuring no opportunities slip through the cracks.
Get started for free - we'll provide you with new contacts.
