If you think that there isn't any difference between both terms, then you are wrong. Marketers use the words in the same sense because they believe that both words have identical meanings. However, the terms lead generation and prospecting have different meanings. Learning about the difference between both could earn you the opportunity to improve your marketing strategies. Organizations that can't distinguish between them might spend more money and time without getting much out of it. Cost of marketing might increase, and the efficiency might decrease without the proper information about the process.
This article could help understand everything about these strategies and how organizations could improve their B2B and B2C marketing strategies. You will learn how prospecting is different from gathering leads. The strategies required and tools that could help improve the efficiency of marketing teams could be learned through this article. Read till the end to educate yourself better.
Confusion between Lead Generation and Prospecting
Businesses are often confused between lead gathering and prospecting because they consider both to be the same. However, they are not; there is a considerable difference between the two, and organizations need to learn this to perform better. Process is different, and the skills required for performing are also different, but the ultimate goal is same. Therefore people often get confused and consider them the same thing.
The goal is to gather clients and sell products and services. Companies use these strategies to gather clients and ultimately sell them products and services. However, the timing and the focus of lead generations and prospecting are different. Looking at them generally, there isn't any difference, but as one takes a close look and examines them deeply, one understands that both are pretty different. Let's learn more about them below:
Lead Generation
You can simply define it as a process of gathering clients and making a company's reputation. Organizations use this method to create awareness about their company and its product or services. They create a buzz in the market about the product to attract customers. Process is simple and easy but requires time and patience because it works very slow. Consider it as the tip of the iceberg in your sales funnel. The long process is made easy once you automate the whole process, saving time and expenses on marketing.
Understand better with an example, a business has some gaming-related commodities to sell. They produce and sell it directly through their website. The marketing team creates blogs on the website to promote the commodities and lead generation. They write blogs for gamers of all genres to attract and sell products and services. People in market start reading the blog and become regular followers; company then adds a lead magnet that requires audience to provide their contact information in exchange for the content. Some readers provide contact information in return for the content. You could gather leads through lead magnets, which can be a book, article or video. Emails provided by readers could be contacted through automated mailing and persuaded to become clients. Process is long and slow and requires patience at the end of seller because marketers cannot force people to become clients. The fundamental goal of this process is to make sure people know about the business and contact them to start a relationship.
You target more than one person at a time, contrary to prospecting. This method requires skills that could persuade several people with a single type of content. Automated emails, advertisements and blogs are used to gather clients
What are Leads?
As mentioned above, companies use different types of lead magnets to gain contact information of consumers in the market. The contact information gathered could be termed a lead. People show interest in the company's product; therefore, they provide their contact information through a contact number or email address. Marketers then utilize the such contact information to convert leads into clients.
Important thing to consider is that a lead isn't bound to become a client. Often people provide their information in exchange for content but never purchase a single product. Hence, all emails won't convert, and some people might be left behind in the sales funnel. As mentioned earlier, it is slow and lengthy process and requires patience. Marketers must contact thousands to gain clients; automating the process could make it easy and fast.
Best Strategies to Follow
Marketing departments base lead generation strategies upon the type of product and mindset of people in the market. Some strategies have universal output, meaning they could provide effective results in any situation. Marketers use inbound and outbound marketing strategies to spread word about their company. Following are some of the best methods to be utilized in lead gathering process:
AI
Artificial Intelligence has become the backbone of the modern world; using artificial intelligence in lead generation could help companies worldwide. AI chatbots could answer queries, provide them more information about the product, and promote new products to audiences.
Events
Organizations organize events to meet consumers, and they organize events that promote their products. Events, unlike past, can be organized even online. People take part in the events to learn about the products. Online events are better at gathering information because people use their emails to signup hence lead generation becomes easy.
Free Samples
Best method to gain information about the customers content is free samples. Free samples are often used to persuade prospects (it will be further discussed below). People in the market use their contact information to sign up and utilize the free sample. Free trials of online products are the primary source of lead capturing.
Advertisement
Organization use paid advertisements to spread out the word about the companies. Some use social media, and some utilize mainstream media to promote their products; this brings people to their website and store, which provide their content information or purchase products from the companies influenced by the advertisements.
Blogs
Most companies use blogs online to gain attention of people in market. Organization upload content regarding their services, and they use lead magnets that require some contact information in the form of email or phone number to be exchanged. People provide information to gain content; hence companies gather prospects.
Influencers
Influences play an essential role in modern marketing; social media has become the most important part of life, as well as influencers. People follow influence online, influencing most of their daily decisions. They use their advice to purchase products. Organizations selling gaming products might contact influencers with gaming niches to promote their product, providing special discounts for their followers.
Prospecting
There is very little difference between prospecting and lead generation, but it could become the difference between winning and losing. Sellers must understand it properly to improve their selling. So, talking about persuading prospects, the sales department does the job, unlike the marketing department in lead capturing. Sales department is solely responsible for this process. Sales department uses the contact information present about the people to persuade and sell their commodities. However, companies use the contact information first to learn about the people who are actually interested in purchasing the product.
Once the consumers who are interested in purchasing are filtered, companies start to persuade them. Sales reps often create customer profiles to filter the customers and use a pattern to persuade consumers. Contrary to lead gathering, the customers can be unaware of the company. Contact information could be gathered from third parties, and customers are contacted and filtered for nurturing. Reps use different methods to persuade prospects by offering free trials and samples.
Following the above example, sales depart of the company is provided contact information to find B2B clients to purchase their commodities in large quantities. Sellers contact those prospects through emails or phone calls to learn about their interests. Job asl requires to learn if the contact has authority to make decision or not? Unlike former procedure, prospecting is more determined about selling the products to individual buyers.
What are prospects?
A person who has shown interest in purchasing the product or might have problem that could be solved by the commodity is called a prospect. The consumer might not know about the organization before being contacted but has a problem that could be resolved by the organization. Contrary to a lead, they have higher chances of conversion, and the conversion rate solely depends upon the persuasion of sellers. Lead is at very top of the sales funnel, and a prospect lies somewhere in the middle, even if they don't have any information about the organization.
Sales teams could nurture them with content and free trials. Personalized emails are used with content directly aimed at the consumers to nurture them. Nurturing material plays a significant role; one must first understand the problem faced by the possible client and use the reference to that problem in personalized content to nurture them. Prospecting is done with final aim of making the prospects a client.
Prospecting method
Prospecting is a pretty different deal compared to lead generation strategies. Often marketers place content and lead magnets in the market and wait for the people to come. The process is automated, and marketers don't have much responsibility for gathering client information. However, prospecting is pretty tough; process can't be automated, and each client needs separate time to convert people into buyers. The sales department must actively participate in nurturing people and selling products.
Qualifying Prospects
Qualifying is a complicated process where the sales department has to identify the people who have the potential to convert. The sales department creates an ideal customer profile with all the qualities required for a customer. Contacts available are then filtered based on the information available. The contacts are filtered, and people who fulfil the requirements of ideal customers are contacted. Before reaching out to the customers, the organization categorizes them based on their qualification level. Customers with high chances of conversion are placed high, and those with low chances of conversion are placed below. High category people are contacted first and then the rest.
Contacting Customers
Once qualified, the prospects are contacted, and companies use the contact information available to reach out. They inquire about their position regarding decision-making. Customers that hesitate are then nurtured through personalized content. The sales department shows them the benefits of the product being sold. Consumers are shown the benefits of using the product to solve their problems. Reps have to individually contact each person to persuade them for final sale.
Conclusion
Lead generation and prospecting are two different things; as discussed above, lead gathering means advertising the company and its services. Organizations used to put out the word about the company and gain contact information of the consumers. However, prospecting involves the process of qualifying those consumers on the bases of their chances of conversion. The sales department then nurtures clients to eventually close the deal. So, both have a clear difference, and it is essential to understand the difference between them to gain better results.
