Sales lead
Encyclopedia
A sales lead, or Sales Lead, is the identification of a person or entity that has the interest and authority to purchase a product or service. This step represents the first stage of a sales process
Sales process
A sales process, also known as a sales tunnel or a sales funnel, is a systematic approach to selling a product or service. A growing body of published literature approaches the sales process from the point of view of an engineering discipline .Reasons for having a well thought-out sales process...

. The lead may have a corporation or business associated (a B2B
Business-to-business
Business-to-business describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer...

 lead) with the person(s). Sales leads are generic leads - i.e. a person signs up for a type of offer, instead of a particular company or brand. Sales leads come from either lead generation companies processes such as trade fair|trade shows, direct marketing, advertising, Internet marketing, spam, gimmicks, 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.

Some companies providing sales leads become the business's one source of leads by integrating outbound calling with email and postal campaigns to create a multi-touch lead. Related to the idea of multi-touch leads is the "Seven Contact to Sale Theory," which delivers leads that start with an outbound call, followed by an email and sometimes postal piece. By the time the lead purchaser gets the lead, the customer is familiar with their brand and has an opportunity to request additional information.

When buying internet leads from a marketing company there are a wide range of different products depending on how the leads are sold and the lead companies polices. Exclusive internet leads are sold to one company, but depending on the company may be sold again the next day as a shared lead or put into a cherry picking system. Shared leads are sold to multiple companies, each lead company has a different policy on the number of times sold as the more a lead is sold the less value/quality it becomes. Many leads are sold as aged, this means the lead is anywhere from 1day to over a year old although they are usually sold based on different such as 1-7, 30-60, 60–90 days old.

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.

In recent years, the industry has moved away from the "shared" sales leads system, where one lead is resold to different companies. Instead advertisers are increasingly deploying marketing lead programs. As opposed to sales leads, marketing leads are not generic and are generated for a particular brand (e.g. a mom signing up for a specific brand such as HUGGIES as opposed to "diapers").

Sales leads are typically generated for closing a sale. As a result, they are information heavy - a sales lead would contain not only the basic information of a person (such as First Name, Last Name, Email, etc.), but also more detailed information such as FICO Score, Household Income, etc. In complete contrast, marketing leads contain only the basic contact information of a person, such as Name, Email and Social Networking handle. Advertisers use the information contained in a marketing lead to build a long-term relationship with the consumer via email, Facebook, Twitter or a brand community site.

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
Conversion rate
In internet marketing, conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions based on subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators...

, a way to measure the effectiveness of a sales process, sales team, or sales person.

Lead sources

Leads or sales sources can be generated by many different marketing campaigns or can have many different sources. Leads can be generated through mailings (fax, paper and email), fairs and trade markets, phone (call centers), database marketing and websites.

Leads from websites are often called internet leads and are set apart from the other mentioned generating methods as internet applications can be submitted and send to the sales agent within minutes over the internet providing a chance to have a conversation with the lead while the sale is still fresh in their head. This is called a "real time" although each lead provider has a different definition of how long the time period is.

Another lead product is called a live transfer lead. These leads are generated in a variety of ways by different lead generation companies. The main difference is how the leads are generated. Customer initiated live call transfers are generated when a customer calls into a call center off of advertisements, educational blogs, landing pages,etc. The call center (domestic or foreign) depending on the company may screen the lead and gather information to provide the business as well as make sure they are both motivated and qualified. Another option is to generate them by a dialer that dials a set of phone numbers, plays a message to the individuals and then those individuals have the opportunity to press 1 to be connected to a live agent. Sometimes live lead transfers are sent to a call center agent who then qualifies the individual before sending to the sales agent.

Another way to generate leads could be referring to business intelligence/information portals like Database101, GoLeads(for North America), Kompass( for Europe) or Protel Associates Ltd. The advantage of using such services is that they allow you a single point of reference to search through industries for relevant companies and find out relevant key contacts. Most of such sources are paid though but they do offer instant results with minimum amount of effort.
Other channels of sales leads are Google adwords (covered under internet marketing), ads in trade publications/portals which increase website traffic. Membership in associations like Direct Marketing Association is also a viable option which advises and helps its members in generating leads.

Another type of strongly sought after leads are called "organic lead". These are often confused with internet leads because the generating source is internet. While they could be considered a form of internet lead, these leads are those prospects that surf to a website through an organic channel such as search engine or inbound link and later become a lead. These are very similar to walk-in clients in retail world. Because they are not generated, they are referred to as organic. High demand for these leads is primarily because they have higher conversion rate
Conversion rate
In internet marketing, conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions based on subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators...

.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK