The term “Lead” is defined as a potential customer interested in a particular product/service of a company with whom he or she has made contact by releasing data and information, often in exchange for a resource or insight to download.
The Lead, unlike the prospect, can no longer be considered a generic contact but, in fact, has great value because, he or she already knows the company and is certainly more likely to be ringed up later with targeted follow-up activities.
When referring to the concept of “Lead,” it is interesting to find out how, often, different business areas may interpret it, providing slightly different meanings.
While for the marketing department, a lead is a contact who has filled out a form on the site or called into the company, providing valid contact information, for the sales department such a contact is often not considered a lead because he or she has shown only vague interest.
Simple contact or qualified contact? It is evident how important it is for the sales department of a company, in order to optimize, in terms of performance, its activities, to work only with qualified leads (MQL – Marketing Qualified Leads).
Here then is where the marketing department steps in in order to deploy effective lead nurturing strategies aimed precisely at qualifying the contact.
From the contact registered on the site or recorded as a result of a telephone inquiry, it is then transformed into “warm” leads ready to be recontacted by the sales department and thus be transformed into a customer.
In this process of qualifying the collected contact, a marketing automation strategy can play a crucial role by enabling not only the personalization of different marketing activities, but effective management of the contact and its qualification process.
