Lead generation is nothing but procuring prospective customers, and anticipating an increase in lead generation, marketing team s are employing lead generating techniques. What the marketing teams don’t realize is that lead generation is not about quantity but about quality. Though many organizations have understood this and revamped their lead generation tactics, there are still several others who do not consider lead generation as essential for business growth. Hence, this article is an attempt to highlight the importance of lead generation in business development.
Sales and marketing teams have always worked as individual identities, without realizing that collaborating with each other was what would provide optimum results. There has been a change in the working pattern of these teams as there is a change in the observation of lead generation. The two teams join forces and widen customer base, which is the main intention. The marketing automation teams know which leads are qualified enough to be sent through the sales funnel, and which are the ones that need to be are ‘nurtured’.
Lead Nurturing
Lead Nurturing is the process of converting leads into ready sales prospects. It involves formulating policies to classify customers based on their positions in the buying cycle, cultivating interest in the product/service by sending suitable messages during the different stages of the buying cycle, tracking their website activities and interest levels and making them sales ready eventually.
Marketing Techniques used for Lead Generation
Inbound marketing and Outbound marketing, are the two techniques that are employed by marketers for generating leads.
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Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing or interruption marketing as it is also known, is when the marketers force themselves on prospects to generate leads. In the process, they may interrupt people who aren’t genuinely interested. This type of Marketing include ads, cold calling, tradeshows, direct mails, emails and so on.
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Inbound Marketing
Unlike outbound marketing, marketers do not interrupt prospects, but use tactics to draw their attention, in Inbound Marketing. It is also referred to as permission marketing. This includes blogs, E-Books, white papers, SEOs, SEMs, webinars, social media, viral marketing, videos, podcasts, and so on.
Unified Demand Generation
This concept, though fairly new, combines the best of both the inbound and outbound marketing techniques in an effort to maximize sales. Though outbound marketing is probably effective in generating leads, it has lost its sheen as people have found ways to block marketing messages using caller ids, spam filters and so on. Therefore, adopting an approach that leverages both lead generation techniques is more appropriate. This signifies that lead generation is an important aspect of the lead management process, and therefore its role in business development can never be disregarded.