A Lead is a business opportunity for a company

Leads in Marketing and Sales: from their generation to their analysis Find out what leads are in Marketing and Sales and learn about the advantages of generating leads for the success of your company. Leads are those people who have left their contact information on a website, in exchange for a material, thus representing a business opportunity. The generation of leads is the beginning of the Inbound Marketing strategy, with tactics to attract visitors and convert into leads. Lead management is an issue that is part of the reality of many Latin American companies, being an indispensable strategy for most of them. RD Station grew a lot with that strategy. In fact, our main form of growth was precisely through lead generation and management. No wonder: when combined with the various attraction techniques we constantly talk about here on the blog, well-managed lead management has the power to significantly amplify business results with digital marketing. This is because, especially when we talk about B2B Marketing, the buying process by the customer is not done impulsively. There is a well-known, and often long, cycle that goes through: purchase process - generate leads In all these stages, the prospect seeks a large amount of information, mainly through the Internet, so it is not difficult to conclude that the more your company helps guide them through the process, producing content and making offers of interest, the greater will be the chances that you choose at the end of the process. In addition, a good lead management program has other advantages: It allows you to attract and retain potential customers who are not yet at the right time to purchase, avoiding “all or nothing”; It reduces the friction in the funnel and, therefore, increases the number of concrete opportunities generated by the Marketing area; Shorten the sales cycle by educating and encouraging potential customers; Increase the efficiency and productivity of the sales team by offering more prepared leads at the right time; Increase customer retention after purchase, also through education and trust. Therefore, the mission of a lead management program is to identify the different stages that potential clients go through and align the appropriate information / knowledge to deliver them at each stage. But, before talking about lead management, we must define what a Lead is. Read on and learn all about Leads in this exclusive article on the subject! What is a Lead? A Lead is a business opportunity for a company. More specifically, a Lead is someone who has left their contact information (name, email, telephone, etc.) through our website in exchange for content or value offer (tool, free trial, request about product / service, etc). In other words, Lead is a contact that voluntarily becomes part of our database because he is interested in hearing more from us. This Lead is someone who has shown interest in a topic of your business and who would probably like to see more about your company, both in terms of knowledge and product / service offers. In the same way, it is someone who can be more easily approached by your sales team, when the time is right for such action. Observation: In other types of business the concept of Lead can take different forms. Example: A user registered in the trial version of a software, someone who calls the company directly to find more information, a subscriber to an ecommerce site, etc. Why is it important to generate leads instead of selling directly? For this, we are going to cite the book "The Ultimate Sales Machine", a reference in the sales area, written by Chet Holmes, in which a pattern is identified that is repeated in all markets or when customers buy. According to the author, only 3% of the public is actively looking for options to buy something and about 7% is hardly open to proposals, the remaining 90% is represented in the following pyramid: purchasing process How, then, to achieve a higher percentage of the pyramid and at the same time generate more credibility? That's where Stadium Pitch's large balcony comes in. Holmes invites readers to answer the following question: Imagine an entire stadium filled with your potential customers and you had the opportunity to speak to all of them for a few minutes. What would you say to them? Most people respond by presenting the track record or benefits of their product / service, that is, by making direct sales. The problem is, he just starts saying this and 90% of the pyramid gets up and goes.