Sales Lead
Sales leads
A sales lead is the identity of a person or entity
potentially interested in purchasing a product or service, and represents the
first stage of a sales process. The lead may have a corporation or business
associated (a B2B lead) with the person(s). Sales leads come from either
marketing lead generation processes such as trade shows, direct marketing,
advertising, Internet marketing or from sales person prospecting activities such
as cold calling. For a sales lead to qualify as a sales prospect, or
equivalently to move a lead from the process step sales lead to the process
sales prospect, qualification must be performed and evaluated. Typically this
involves identifying by direct interrogation the lead’s product applicability,
availability of funding, and time frame for purchase. This is also the entry
point of a sales tunnel, sales funnel or sales pipeline.
Once a qualified lead exists, additional
operations may be performed such as background research on the lead’s employer,
general market of the lead, contact information beyond that provided initially
or other information useful for contacting and evaluating a lead for elevation
to prospect, the next sales step.
If a sales lead eventually makes a purchase, this
is called conversion and a closed sale. The ratio of sales leads that convert is
often referred to as the conversion rate, a way to measure the effectiveness of
a sales process, sales team, or sales person.
Brand marketers also use online lead generation to
generate marketing leads. Marketing leads were introduced to the online lead
generation market in 2007. Till then, a large portion of the online lead
generation market was focused on generating sales leads.
Sales leads are generic leads that are generated
on the basis of demographic criteria such as FICO score, income, age, HHI, etc.
These leads are often resold to multiple advertisers. Sales leads are typically
followed up through phone calls by the sales force. They are commonly found in
the mortgage, insurance and finance industries.
Marketing leads are brand-specific leads generated
for a unique advertiser offer. In contrast to sales leads, marketing leads can
only be sold to to a unique advertiser. Marketing leads are generated for a
unique brand – Wells Fargo, Coca Cola, etc. Marketing leads are typically
generated for e-newsletter lists, email databases, member loyalty programs,
community sites or for vendor-specific sales efforts. Sales leads are generated
for a particular industry – e.g. Finance, Mortgage, etc.
The questions concerning sales leads are
these. Do you have to buy sales
leadsto run a successful business? How much money are you
willing to invest to buy leads?
What is the ROI on the leads that you will buy from a leads broker? Are
these leads actually hungry for your business proposal like all the leads
sellers tell you? How much money does it cost to buy leads? Are you
willing to buy sales leads, make cold phone calls to leads prospects and suffer
the rejection involved on a daily basis?
In answer to the above questions, the phrase is
simple.
Don’t Buy Leads, Buy Customers!
ItsGoodBusiness.net http://itsgoodbusiness.net
Butch Hamilton-SEO Master
seoserviceonline@veretekk.com
Filed under: Xelr8
