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The success of any business depends not only on its products but also on the number of customers it has. As it is difficult to maintain the same set of customers, the old customers that move away must be replaced with new ones. Hence, there should be a constant stream of new leads that become new customers for the companies. For generating this steady stream of leads, enterprises need to put in place effective B2B lead generation marketing campaigns. Wikipedia defines lead generation as “the generation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business.” The different marketing strategies and methods employed to generate leads can be categorized into inbound and outbound marketing. Outbound marketing refers to the activities used to draw the attention of the customers to the products or services. Hence, it is known as interruption marketing. In this form of marketing, marketers push the products or services on the customers without their permission. Outbound marketing methods includes print ads, TV ads, telemarketing, cold calling, press releases, tradeshows, direct mails, email marketing, banner ads, and so on. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is a marketing strategy that focuses on customers finding the products and services on their own. Social media marketing, blogging and content marketing, podcasts, white papers, ebooks, infographics, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising are some of the inbound marketing methods employed by the marketers ‘to earn’ people’s interest. Thus compared to outbound marketing, where marketers have to ‘beg their way in’, inbound marketers ‘earn their way in’. Lead generation is the first step of the sales process. Though lead generation is the process of creating sales leads that convert into sales for the company, it is not necessary that every lead generated turns into a sale. Every lead list comprises of hot as well as cold leads. Hot leads are those customers who have genuine interest in the product or service and who can be surely converted into sales. While, cold leads are those that the sales team has the least chance of closing. Hence, in lead generation, what matters is not quantity but quality of the leads. Marketers use lead generation for a variety of purposes including the development of brand awareness, teleprospecting , targeted contact list building, attendance at key prospect events, sales appointment setting to existing customers or new white space accounts. Thus, with B2B lead generation, enterprises acquire new revenue from existing or new customers. Read more about- sales lead generation
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marketing strategies, Lead generation, sales appointment setting, B2B lead generation, teleprospecting, sales lead generation,
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