It’s only natural that many people will confuse lead prospecting with lead generation – they sound similar, exist in the same areas of business, and, ultimately, describe similar processes. But the differences between them still exist, and understanding them can help you take your business to the next level. That’s why this article highlights the differences between prospecting and lead gen.
Lead Prospecting = Finding Clients
Prospecting refers to any action that is meant to initiate new business opportunities by finding potential buyers and nurturing them. This is usually done by the sales team. Prospects are the people who were identified by the team as someone who is highly likely to become a customer based on their position, personal information, income, or whatever other parameters you agree on. Essentially, they match a set of predetermined characteristics – they fit the ICP.
This process is usually much shorter than lead generation since the main idea is to create interest among potential buyers who maybe don’t know about you and your company yet. It’s mostly a manual effort and done one-on-one by a sales rep.
Prospecting in the B2B space usually involves the following activities:
- Cold calling
- Cold emailing
- Social selling via direct messages (typically on LinkedIn)
In 2021, it was reported by 40% of salespeople that prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales process, but it can be made easier with tools such as LinkedIn. If you want to learn more about how to utilize it, check out this article!
Lead Generation = Converting Clients
The main difference between prospecting and lead gen is that lead gen is a more long-term process. It can be done by either the sales or the marketing team, but ideally, it will involve both of them. The goal is to build up awareness and engagement slowly and methodically so that the audience has your company in mind when they are ready to make a purchase.
Leads are the people who have already expressed interest in your company in some way. Usually, this means that they have left their contact information in exchange for something of value to them. For example, you can create downloadable documents that require the reader to leave their email in order to access it. Then, mailing lists can be created, and you can reach out to them with offers and more information.
Other examples of lead gen efforts include:
- Landing pages
- Pop-up forms
- PPC campaigns
- Free trials/demo services
Another lead gen approach that is rapidly growing in popularity is ABM, or account-based marketing. Although it has the term ‘marketing’ in it, certain companies prefer to have designated outreach teams to handle this for them. What this method includes is reaching out to your ICPs who are within the same target account but also personalizing each message.
There are different ways you can personalize this message. Here are a few examples.
- Address something from their personal life. If you’re sending messages on LinkedIn, you can congratulate them on the recent promotion they shared on their profile before jumping into the pitch.
- Adapt the tone. You can try and gauge how receptive to friendliness someone will be and adapt how professional you want your message to sound.
- Directly address the pain points. You can research which challenges they face based on their business and position and directly offer them a solution.
Although many put lead generation as their top priority, one of the most important things to remember is that it’s quality over quantity. Even if you have thousands of leads, they mean nothing if they’re not very likely to convert and become customers.
Conclusion
Both lead gen and prospecting have the same goal – to drive more sales. There are different approaches you can take within the two processes, and you should choose one based on your business and the input from your sales and marketing teams. Lead gen and prospecting are both necessary parts of business, so make sure they’re not being neglected.
Outreach takes time and effort. It’s understandable that anyone in a high position in a company may not have that time on hand, but that’s no reason to let sales opportunities slip by. NextPilots is a remote outreach team that will make sure that doesn’t happen! After the initial meeting and getting to know your business, we tailor our approach to your ICP and start getting you into more sales meetings.
Get more leads and prospects with ease – book a meeting today!