Marketing Leads vs Business Leads: Which is the best cost-benefit option?

[liza89]

For a continuous flow of business, your sales department should prioritize a pipeline of business opportunities from multiple sources. In this sense , lead generation should be based on a multi-channel strategy: digital, in-person, remote, partner/referral network or direct and indirect presence at events.

It is understood that a lead is a contact interested in the products and services that a certain company sells and that represents a business opportunity, regardless of whether the marketing or sales team is working on it and the scoring/proximity to the business that can be made from this lead.


I'm Interested
Lead scoring? Distinguishing opportunities
To understand and develop a coherent response, it is necessary to distinguish between leads based on their nature, proximity to the business, and stage of awareness.

Firstly, a lead that converted by downloading information on your website (for example: filling out a form without leaving a phone number or specifically expressing a need/problem) but that did not demonstrate a specific interest or need, we typically call it an IQL : information qualified lead.

At the second level, we have the MQLs : these are phone number library potential customers who actively seek out your products or services and believe that your brand can help them, having demonstrated that they have a specific problem or need and, finally, request or accept direct support to learn more about the solution and, eventually, receive a proposal. These are opportunities close to the business, with an acceptable acquisition/generation cost, and which are permeable to the influence/commercial capacity of the teams and the added value/merits of your solution or service.


At the last level, we have SQL & SAL leads : potential clients who, as a result of market research and a clear need, are ready to receive commercial proposals, having a clear understanding of what they are looking for, and are therefore open to investment , whether or not they have an available budget. These are typically very difficult opportunities to find and highly volatile due to seasonality, the company's business cycle, and timing of contact, and are therefore not entirely controllable.


I'm Interested
Analyzing the best option
None of these leads, particularly MQL and SQL, exist without a substantial effort with branding actions, creating content, nurturing the aforementioned channels, generating trust in the brand and services, generating traffic to our blogs, websites, forms or others.

Therefore , it is essential that you constantly define the elements that distinguish you and the customers you want to reach , adapting each campaign and internal or external initiative, namely through:

Define the Buyer Persona , the representation of our ideal client: their position, professional goals, main problems and needs, demographics, etc.
Based on the above point, you must create content focused on the people you want to reach, generating real empathy and connection.
Deliver content and value: in the first phase, completely openly, in the following phases, asking for data in return: contacts, problems we can help with, etc.
Create a content delivery strategy, what do your potential customers need to generate value for your business?
Finally, use all communication elements to convert your visitors, and create relevance and authority for your company.