Even if a business offers top-notch products or services, it will struggle if it's not able to reach and attract customers. Because of this, lead generation is a central to success for most businesses.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is the process of finding potential customers who may be interested in a product or service. Through lead generation, businesses are able to broaden their pools of potential customers and eventually make more sales.
How does lead generation work?
There are two main types of lead generation -- outbound and inbound.
Outbound lead generation involves reaching out to prospective customers directly. This may be done through mailings, email, phone calls, social media, and other forms of advertising and marketing.
By contrast, inbound lead generation involves getting prospective customers to reach out to you. If a potential customer visits a business's website or physical location seeking more information, that's inbound lead generation.
To pursue effective lead generation strategies, businesses first have to identify their overall target audience. From there, it's possible to break the target audience down into smaller groups and determine which lead generation strategies will be most effective for reaching and appealing to each category in the addressable market.
Why is lead generation important?
Efficient lead generation is important because it allows businesses to reach potential customers in a cost-effective fashion. In order for a company to grow, it needs to reach new customers or increase spending from those already using its products or services. Lead generation can be deciding factor in the success or failure of a business.
Accordingly, data that can be used to generate leads is very valuable, and advertising is a crucial concern for most businesses. Companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on sales and marketing initiatives in order to establish and build relationships with customers.
Marketing
Through the search service, businesses can pay to have their links promoted in search queries or try to foster inbound lead generation by hosting valuable information that attracts potential customers. By building profiles that include relevant user information, Google can estimate whether a person is a viable sales lead for a given product. The search engine is one of the world's most important tools and destinations for lead generation, and it plays a huge role in shaping the digital advertising industry and determining what content is seen and interacted with around the web.
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