Leads are business opportunities for your company; a lead is the starting point of any sales process. To understand the concept of a lead, we must recognize that for every product, there needs to be someone willing to buy it. The lead emerges as the materialization of the target audience concept for the product or service you offer.
The concept of a lead became extremely well-known with the rise of Content Marketing, but contrary to what some people think, the concept of a lead predates it and even Inbound Marketing; they have existed for a long time in active prospecting commercial strategies. A lead is any potential customer who shows interest in a company and, for some reason, leaves their contact information; in other words, they are a business opportunity.
What is Lead Generation?
There are numerous ways to obtain leads; we call lead generation the set of strategies for capturing them. We can divide lead generation into:
Active or Outbound Marketing Strategies for Lead Generation: Through contact lists of companies or even using BIG DATA, it is possible to obtain data about company names for segmentation and active commercial prospecting. In these cases, the lead is typically used by B2B market companies where it is unlikely that they will seek information about the product or be present on social media.
Passive or Inbound Marketing Strategies for Lead Generation: Leads can be generated through users searching for information, as is the case with Search Network Marketing, where either through ads or organic search, leads are mostly generated as top-of-funnel leads.
Leads vs. Visitors
Social networks are a success, and the best part is the ease of obtaining leads for a simple reason: profiles have identification and a good amount of important information for segmentation. The major players responsible for this are the tech giants, namely Google and Facebook, who, in their fierce competition for the largest market share, have increasingly concentrated social networks and thus integrated user data, which greatly aids digital marketing.
The big dilemma of lead generation is websites. They are your virtual billboard, and depending on how much value your brand adds to the market, it can have millions of visits and help you generate business, especially if it is attractive, responsive, and has relevant content. But what if, instead of just fattening your visitor statistics, you could contact them instead of waiting for them to find you? Don’t you think that would significantly increase your leads and consequently your business? I can assure you it would.
Even if the visitor is enchanted by your website, knows your product, and finds it the solution to their needs, there is still a gap between the choice and the actual act of purchase. A gap that could make them give up, and you can fill it by reaching out to them first. Human beings are driven by stimuli, and often all that is needed to close the sale is a nudge.
At this moment, the keyword is interaction.
Create tools within your website to encourage your customer to leave their information, especially their email.
In this case, one of the best ways to capture a lead is through landing pages, with attractive call-to-action buttons that encourage your visitors to access them in exchange for some offer. Pop-ups inviting them to subscribe to your newsletter can also be a good option.
What is Lead Nurturing?
Leads always have a degree of qualification and a moment of conversion in the discovery journey. Lead nurturing is the process through which we feed the lead with messages aimed at improving their understanding of the product and awakening their awareness of the need and solution offered by the product. How to do this is a topic for another article.
Will Every Lead Become a Customer?
Not necessarily. Turning a visitor into a lead is an important step, but what will convert them into customers is the relationship your company maintains with them.
It is of no use for your company to have an incredible marketing strategy that captures thousands of leads and provides appropriate content to nurture them if your sales team is not aligned with that plan and your product does not meet expectations.
You must deliver what was promised and work within your real possibilities.