{"id":27283,"date":"2022-05-13T10:19:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T09:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=27283"},"modified":"2022-10-18T22:23:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T21:23:00","slug":"faq-what-is-lead-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/faq-what-is-lead-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"What is lead generation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/the-ultimate-marketing-technology-stack\/\"><b>Lead generation<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> uses marketing to generate interest for a company\u2019s products and services, turning a lead into a prospect and nurturing them down the marketing funnel. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Useful for brands both large and small \u2013 as well as for B2C and <\/span><b>B2B marketers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 leads are vital to a business\u2019 growth and sustainability, but many companies struggle with how to generate solid, actionable customer leads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-is-the-difference-between-a-lead-and-a-prospect\"><b>What is the difference between a lead and a prospect?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A prospect is a qualified lead and can be anyone in your target market. Once you determine a lead is interested in your brand, is willing to work with you, and is capable of making or influencing buying decisions, that lead has been qualified, moving forward in the pipeline to become a sales prospect.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-is-a-lead-generation-strategy\"><b>What is a lead generation strategy?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lead generation strategy is an intentionally designed, multi-faceted plan to stimulate customer interest. Essentially, it\u2019s a strategy that tells marketers how to generate leads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lot of companies incorporate advertising, social media, chatbots, newsletters, and email marketing into their lead generation strategies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;As today\u2019s customer is inundated with information, it\u2019s important to build relationships with your potential customers through compelling and value-driven content &#8220;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Website blogs are another way of attracting leads, as are online coupons, free trials and demos, as well as product giveaways.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As long as a user provides their contact information\u00a0 \u2013 such as an email address \u2013 in exchange for accessing that content or taking advantage of those incentives, these methods have fantastic lead generation potential.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As today\u2019s customer is inundated with information, it\u2019s important to build relationships with your potential customers through compelling and value-driven content.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-are-lead-generation-services\"><b>What are lead generation services?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some companies employ external lead generation services to capture leads. These services use a variety of methods for obtaining leads, passing on the best ones to their clients for further action.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-software-is-used-for-lead-generation\"><b>What software is used for lead generation?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are many software tools available to help generate leads.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In most cases these tools allow businesses to add pop-ups, chatbots, contact forms, and other attention grabbers to their websites that will encourage customers to share personal information, such as an email address or a phone number.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some software is savvy enough to identify potential customers even when they don\u2019t disclose any information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Captured leads are usually funneled from lead generation software tools into sales and marketing databases.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-is-involved-in-lead-management\"><b>What is involved in lead management?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead management encompasses everything a business does to get leads, qualify them, nurture them, and move them forward to the point of converting prospects into customers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The better you are at lead management, the better your <\/span><b>conversion rate <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"is-lead-generation-marketing-or-sales\"><b>Is lead generation marketing or sales?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, who is responsible for lead generation, the marketing team or the <\/span><b>sales team<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">? The answer the majority of time is both.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marketing campaigns aimed at brand exposure and <\/span><b>demand generation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> grow a company\u2019s prospect and lead pools.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marketing departments can sometimes qualify leads as prospects, which are then passed off to the sales team for further qualification and conversion. At the same time, good salespeople regularly comb through marketing databases for leads while finding ways of generating leads themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both groups, sales and marketing, should have a vested interest in lead generation and lead management.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What differentiates a lead from a prospect? Learn about lead generation strategies, tools, and see how marketing and sales both contribute to lead generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[1],"tags":[12724,25018,25026],"coauthors":[25017],"class_list":["post-27283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-faqs","tag-glossary","tag-lead-generation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.5 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What is Lead Generation? | Intercom - The Intercom Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What differentiates a lead from a prospect? 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