Lead generation
Why it matters
Without a steady supply of leads, sales has nobody to talk to. Pipeline cannot be built from referrals and luck alone once a team wants to plan growth.
The number alone is misleading, though. Fifty leads from the wrong audience cost more time than ten from the right one. Quality is judged against the ideal customer profile, and lead scoring helps sort one from the other.
It also tells you where to spend. When every lead carries its source, you can compare channels by cost per customer won, and move budget away from the ones that fill the list but never close.
How to apply it
- Choose the audience first, then the offer that would interest them.
- Pick one or two channels and run them well before adding more.
- Track the whole path, from visit to lead to meeting to customer, and judge channels by customers won, not by leads collected.
- Agree with sales what counts as a good lead.
Demand generation comes earlier. It builds the awareness that makes people respond when lead generation asks for their details.
What it is
A lead is a person or company who has shown interest and given a way to be contacted. Lead generation is every activity that produces them: a guide downloaded in exchange for an email address, a demo request, a webinar sign-up, a reply to a cold email, a message through a contact form.
It is different from demand generation, which builds the awareness that makes people want to respond. Lead generation is the moment you ask for their details and they hand them over. Most B2B teams need both, and mixing them up leads to forms put in front of people who have never heard of you.
The output is only useful if it is measured to the end. A lead is a promise of a conversation, so lead generation is judged by the customers it eventually produces, not by the number of forms filled.
Common mistakes
- Counting every form fill as a success.
- Asking for too much information before giving any value.
- Sending leads to sales with no context about what the person did.
Common channels
- Content and search: articles and guides that attract people who are already looking for an answer.
- Gated offers: a template or report behind a form. See gated content and the related content upgrade.
- Paid ads: search and social campaigns that send people to a landing page.
- Outbound: cold email and direct messages to a chosen list.
- Referrals and partners: introductions from existing customers or other companies.
