Purchasing behavior has undergone a massive shift during the pandemic. Flashy advertisements are no longer convincing to discerning customers and aggressive sales pitches are looked down upon.

But one thing remains the same – lead generation. The benefits of lead generation are appreciated in both small and billion-dollar businesses alike because leads are the life and blood of any organization.

The more you focus on lead generation, the better it is for your business! Yes – all that cold calling doesn’t go to waste. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s try and understand how lead generation can boost your business growth –

Different Types of Leads

Before we look at the benefits lead generation contributes to your business, you must ensure that you have a comprehensive grasp on the different kinds of leads that you should be aiming to get. Here’s a little list that will help you.

1. Hot Lead

A hot lead is a lead that has a better profile of incurring benefits to the brand. By taking into account the budget, authority, need, and the time frame of the lead prospects, you can decipher which lead is a hot lead. Businesses do this regularly because ultimately, they want to invest in a lead that brings in as many benefits as possible – and that is a hot lead.

2. Cold Lead

Another common type of lead is cold lead. As the name suggests, cold leads require a lot of lead nurturing and effort in order for them to align with the business. However, this does not mean that cold leads are not a crucial component of your lead generation strategy. Many companies keep cold leads in the prospect list because you never know when you might end up needing them.

3. Warm Lead

A warm lead is somewhat a combination of a hot and a cold lead. As such, it does not qualify on all the criteria like hot leads but is not as displaced as a cold lead. In fact, warm leads can be converted with some effort.

4. Information Qualified Lead

Qualified leads are quite an important part of any marketing strategy. The first one that you need to keep in mind is an information-qualified lead. This lead is essentially a prospect that gets in touch with your business while randomly looking for one thing or the other. These prospects are also likely to willingly share contact information, which means it is easier for the brand to reach out to them in the future.

5. Sales-Ready Lead

Also known as SRL, sales-ready leads involve business and individual prospects reaching out to your brand themselves, hoping to get through to the sales team. Essentially, a sales-ready lead is a rare yet monumental miracle that all businesses hope for at one point or the other!

6. Marketing Qualified Lead

A marketing qualified lead, as the name suggests, is a prospect you gain solely through your marketing efforts. Whether it is a webinar, or blog posts, your MQLs come from an active marketing channel.

The difference between MQL and other kinds of leads is that these potential customers already know your business! They belong to your target markets and customer base and have therefore had the chance to interact with your brand in the past, which also makes it easier for you to convert them into actual sales. This is exactly why digital marketers are so focused on getting as many people to be a part of the brand journey online as possible.

7. Sales Qualified Lead

And the last kind of lead you need to concern yourself with is sales qualified lead. A qualified sales lead reaches the end stage of the sales funnel! At the end of the day, your goal should be to have as many SQLs onboard as possible.

And that’s it!

Now that we have a better idea of just how diverse the nature of lead generation itself can be, let’s look at the benefits it can bring to your business.

More Leads = More Profits

The math can’t be simpler. More leads equal more customers, which equals more profits. 55% of B2B marketers spend their budgets on lead generation precisely because of this reason.

By turning leads into customers, you are more likely to generate more sales. This can eventually result in greater profit margins.

Lead generation can be one of the faster ways to the expansion of your business and more profits.

But it’s not as simple as just getting leads. How you get your leads and what you do with them once you have them matters as well.

For example, a ‘warm’ lead will be more inclined towards doing business with you. And email marketing is one of the best ways to keep a lead warm.

A warm lead is one that has already contacted you requesting for some information and these first touches usually happen via emails and form-fills. These warm leads can be stored in your CRM and then shared with Sales via the CRM or a simple excel file.

The Biggest Benefit of Lead Generation Is Its Cost

Lead generation is one of the most cost-effective methods of direct marketing. It contributes to better ROI which leads to a much lower cost per lead as compared to more traditional methods like print, TV, or billboards.

You don’t get leads without advertising. B2B marketers spend a lot of time figuring out the most effective advertising method which gives the most bang for their buck. Online lead generation can be that option.

The cost of leads depends on the source. The easier it is to capture the leads from a source, the lower the price. This means that the cost of a lead is directly related to the difficulty in acquiring it.

On average, leads can be anywhere from $5 to $500 depending upon the source. But it’s also important to remember that higher quality leads lead to higher conversion rates.

And the quality of your lead can be dependent upon your channel strategy and how convincing your content is to the prospect.

Channel mix and relevant content creation are a beast that can be left in the capable hands of a team of experts. This team can either be in-house or even an expert agency.

Build Awareness That Lasts

At its core lead generation is an excellent brand awareness tool. You reach out to prospects with the hopes of converting them into a lead but even before that, you make them aware of your brand/product/service.

Your reputation is built on positive brand awareness. Lead generation educates and informs people about your brand thus increasing the scope of ‘word of mouth’.

Every prospect you touch and every message you put out with the intent of generating leads serves a dual purpose – the first to capture the prospects’ information into your CRM.

And second to make the prospect aware of your products and services. This awareness is largely driven by the content you share with the prospect.

A more impactful and higher quality piece of content like a research-based report or thought leadership paper will educate, inform, and build top-of-mind awareness as well.

The Foundation of a Solid Lead Generation System

You need to work on the following tactics to build a lead generation system that meets both your marketing and business goals –

Content Marketing as a Multiplier

Content marketing exponentially multiplies the benefits of lead generation. Creating valuable content based on buyer personas and then promoting it via the right channels makes the sales team’s job easier.

Content marketing helps sales gather leads that already have prior knowledge about your products. This can rapidly accelerate the lead generation process.

eBooks, infographics, case studies, white papers and blogs are a few basic pieces of content that any B2B marketer should invest in

Attract Leads With Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO helps with paid search, web design and content creation. It truly is the swiss army knife of lead generation.

The way people buy things has changed rapidly and SEO is one such tool that can help you get found exactly where your customers are looking.

Once that is done, build trust by delivering them content that educates and informs.

Expand Your Reach With Social Media Marketing

Social media is a place that any business cannot afford to ignore anymore. It ties together a lot of elements we just talked about like SEO and content marketing.

Building a brand, engagement and followership on social media is akin to building word of mouth and directing more traffic (and leads) to your website.

But social media is only as good as the content you create. Content is still king when it comes to connecting with your target audience.