Effective lead generation vs marketing and sales alignment
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2025 6:26 am
According to MarketingProfs , companies with aligned sales and marketing departments can generate 208% more revenue from marketing.
The big lesson is that companies should not just think about generating leads. The focus should be on effective lead generation.
In turn, sales teams should share constant feedback with the marketing team about the quality of the leads they receive. This alignment can be made easier by taking the following steps:
Define an ideal lead : Based on your data, what types of leads approach you most often? There should be specific demographic, geographic, and behavioral characteristics common to your ideal customer profile ;
Have proper lead scoring in place : Leads should only progress to sales when they match your ideal customer profile. Additionally, it’s important that they take a specific sales action. Your teams can benin mobile database track this using tools like lead scoring and lead tracking.
Understanding the types of leads is essential in this process. Skip to the next topic to learn more.
Types of B2B leads
There are many types of B2B leads, but they basically fall into three categories:
1) Information Qualified Lead (IQL)
When a lead first converts, they typically provide their contact information in exchange for some kind of useful information. A strategy also known in the industry as rich material:
eBook,
Whitepaper,
Case Study,
Infographic, among others.
Typically, this lead is just beginning to research a solution to a problem. So they probably don’t know your company yet, nor how it can help with their pain point . That’s why at this stage they are classified as an Information Qualified Lead (IQL).
So the strategy here is to use a marketing automation platform to direct this IQL to a thank you page. There they will find a link to download the offer. Then they will receive a follow-up email with the same download link.
This way, the lead moves to a new stage in the sales funnel . A few days later, your company should send another email, with additional information related to what they downloaded. A few more emails of this type follow, similarly spaced out over time.
In each of these interactions triggered by the first download (thank you pages, emails, etc.), the IQL is also invited to learn more about how your company can help solve the problem related to the content they downloaded.
The big lesson is that companies should not just think about generating leads. The focus should be on effective lead generation.
In turn, sales teams should share constant feedback with the marketing team about the quality of the leads they receive. This alignment can be made easier by taking the following steps:
Define an ideal lead : Based on your data, what types of leads approach you most often? There should be specific demographic, geographic, and behavioral characteristics common to your ideal customer profile ;
Have proper lead scoring in place : Leads should only progress to sales when they match your ideal customer profile. Additionally, it’s important that they take a specific sales action. Your teams can benin mobile database track this using tools like lead scoring and lead tracking.
Understanding the types of leads is essential in this process. Skip to the next topic to learn more.
Types of B2B leads
There are many types of B2B leads, but they basically fall into three categories:
1) Information Qualified Lead (IQL)
When a lead first converts, they typically provide their contact information in exchange for some kind of useful information. A strategy also known in the industry as rich material:
eBook,
Whitepaper,
Case Study,
Infographic, among others.
Typically, this lead is just beginning to research a solution to a problem. So they probably don’t know your company yet, nor how it can help with their pain point . That’s why at this stage they are classified as an Information Qualified Lead (IQL).
So the strategy here is to use a marketing automation platform to direct this IQL to a thank you page. There they will find a link to download the offer. Then they will receive a follow-up email with the same download link.
This way, the lead moves to a new stage in the sales funnel . A few days later, your company should send another email, with additional information related to what they downloaded. A few more emails of this type follow, similarly spaced out over time.
In each of these interactions triggered by the first download (thank you pages, emails, etc.), the IQL is also invited to learn more about how your company can help solve the problem related to the content they downloaded.