The term "lead generation" is so broad that it creates all kinds of confusion! One really, really, important concept is "inbound" versus "outbound" (and yes, in leadgen there are few black and white cases, even here, but this differentiation helps). While speaking with Laura Merling today at Mashery, I started sketching out some ideas on how to compare leads that come to you versus leads that you have to go fetch.(Side note: does anyone have better terms than 'inbound v outbound'? Even these can be misleading.)
Inbound leads are, as it implies, leads that come to your company and into your website or 800#: usually through word-of-mouth and referrals, public relations, search engines or perhaps through marketing campaigns. Usually, a "Market Response" inside sales team reviews, qualifies and routes the leads to the correct salespeople. Excluding the educational inquiries (such as webinar registrations), these leads generally are already interested in what you have to offer, and are about to start a buying cycle.
Outbound leads are lead that you had to go dig up, whether through market development campaigns or a Cold Calling 2.0 or other "proactive" methods to let prospects who aren't already interested know who you are, what you do and why it should matter to them.
I realize I ain't no Picaso and I know the text is hard to read. Yet I think you can figure the important points out...and at least I had fun with this :)
Why is this important?
Here are a couple of things that should help clear some of the mistakes and confusion up in execution:
1) Differentiated sales leadgen roles: you need different roles for qualifying inbound leads ("Market Response") than Sales Development (sales prospecting). Inbound leads have an hours/days rhythm; outbound leads have a weeks/months rhythm. It's almost impossible for reps to juggle both functions well because of the different demands of the job. It's similar to asking quota-based salespeople to close both small business and enterprise deals.
2) Planning is very different for each, so plan them separately. The high-quality portion of inbound leads (word-of-mouth, referrals, some search engine leads) are mostly organic. Usually their pace leads grows steadily, bit by bit, and any big jumps or dips aren't sustainable. When they come in they come in quickly, with high close rates, but it's hard, or impossible, to grow the amount of them faster.
Outbound leads that close are like finding needles in haystacks - they're there, but they take a lot more effort, sales cycles are longer and close rates are lower. But - though this can take quite awhile - once you build your "needle finding machine" that can repeatably find the needles...generating outbound leads can be very predictable.
Don't be surprised if you start seeing more stick figure sketches in future posts!
