Lead generation - how to generate qualified leads

Questions about leads and lead generation that concern many companies

• What do I do if someone comes to my website via organic search or PPC campaigns?
• How do I convert an interested website visitor into a paying customer?
• What role do email marketing and marketing automation play in lead generation?
• Are there differences between B2B lead generation and B2C lead generation?
• How much emphasis should I place on conversion rate optimisation of the landing page when generating leads?

Many companies really struggle with these questions, but luckily it doesn't have to be as complicated as we think!

In this article, I'll show you how to "get customers in the door".

Let's start with the basics.

What is a lead?

In short: a lead is a potential customer for a product or service.

More precisely:

• A lead is a potential customer who has contacted you because they are interested in your product or service, or
• someone who has registered on your website to find out more information about it and
• has sent you their contact details (name and email address) for this purpose.

Which leads us to the next question.

What types of leads are there?

Leads are categorised into different qualities that are directly related to the customer journey. The customer journey is divided into five stages, in which the three qualities of qualified leads are embedded.

• Lead generation
• MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
• SAL (Sales Accepted Lead)
• SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
• Conclusion of purchase

We'll talk about lead generation later, but now let's take a look at what a Marketing Qualified Lead, a Sales Accepted Lead and a Sales Qualified Lead are.

First of all, all leads fall into three categories: Prospects (Marketing Qualified Leads), Near-Customers (Sales Accepted Lead) and Customers (Sales Qualified Leads).

• Prospects are the people you know have the potential to become your customer.
• Near-customers are those who have already signalled their interest in purchasing your offer.
• Customers are those people who have either bought a product from you or are about to do so.

Regardless of the stage, all three have given you their contact information for further communication.

Let's take a closer look.

What is a marketing qualified lead?

A Marketing Qualified Lead is a lead that has expressed interest in your product or service but does not yet fully fulfil the criteria for a Sales Accepted Lead.

A marketing qualified lead is interested in your company and its products - this is an indication of their needs and willingness to learn more about them. This group of potential customers is essential and many companies invest heavily in acquiring these leads.

Marketing qualified leads can be aggregated, nurtured and managed by a marketing automation system that contains a database of all customer data.

At this point, the contact has expressed interest and is qualified for marketing communication.

The quality of these leads is still low in terms of willingness to buy, but communication is only just beginning and it is up to you as the provider to make more of it. This is the task of lead management and CRM (Customer Relationship Management). More about this later.

What is a sales accepted lead?

Sales Accepted Leads (SALs) are customers or prospects who have shown a stronger interest in your company, products or services than the average Marketing Qualified Lead.

SALs are considered Sales Accepted Leads because they have expressed an interest in purchasing products or services from you.

The quality of these leads in terms of willingness to buy is already considerable.

What is a Sales Qualified Lead?

A sales qualified lead is someone who fulfils all the requirements to make a purchase from you now. They've downloaded an e-book, watched a demo video, read some reviews, placed an order, filled out a contact form, signed up to your email list - you get the idea. These people are ready to buy.

Identifying potential customers early and turning them into sales qualified leads makes your job much easier later because they've already shown they're interested in what you have to offer. You know they like your message.

So when it's time for them to make a purchase (or when you approach them with another marketing campaign that offers something new) - their response rate will be much higher than it would have been otherwise.

They're also more likely to interact with you again (and spend money) because you're one of the companies that helped them solve a problem or achieve a specific goal.

And that's why Sales Qualified Leads are so important: These people want to do business.

The quality of these leads is particularly high.

Now that you know what leads are and which leads are important for your business, let's look at how these leads are generated.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is a process that generates leads or potential customers who show an interest in a company's product or service.

Lead generation in e-commerce is basically nothing more than the collection of contact data from interested parties via a landing page in order to then accompany them with targeted marketing on their customer journey through the key stages of MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), SAL (Sales Accepted Lead), SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) to the conclusion of the sale and beyond (upselling).

How can you generate leads?

To collect leads (contact data), you need 3 essential ingredients:

1. A lead magnet
2. a landing page with a contact form
3. Traffic that is directed to the landing page from various sources

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is the marketing term for a type of content that many companies offer as a free download to motivate users to provide their contact details and convert them into qualified leads. Lead magnets are essentially incentives for opt-in email subscriptions.

Examples of lead magnets are

• Downloads or giveaways (freebies) in the form of free content such as an e-book or PDF document with valuable tips, whitepapers, customer case studies, access to free webinars and video content, etc. This type of content should always contain the solution to a problem of the target group.
• Discount codes and vouchers designed to appeal to people before they have built up trust in a company.
• Free reports/surveys that contain market research or consumer insights relevant to the industry you're in.
• The announcement of an upcoming event.

I'm sure you have even more ideas for your products and offers. With these examples, I just wanted to give you an incentive to think about what kind of lead magnet you want to use to attract prospects.

What is the landing page?

I've already written in detail about the landing page in our article"What is a landing page + tips from a professional". So here are just the essentials:

The landing page is there to present your free content in such an enticing way that interested parties give up their data or contact details in return for receiving it and become a marketing qualified lead.

Ideally, it should be an independent element of your website. In other words, it should only be accessible from the traffic sources, but should not contain any further links.

The most important elements of a landing page:

• A headline with a strong benefit or promise
• A complementary subheadline, a clear statement that supports the headline or some enticing bullet points.
• A lead magnet
• A graphic representation of the offer, an appealing image or video
• A form for collecting the email address or contact details
• A crystal-clear call to action
• An eye-catching button
• Testimonials and other social proof elements

Ready to create a high-converting landing page?

Here are 5 more landing page best practices to keep in mind.

5 landing page best practices

So, that's it about the landing page.

Now let's take care of the traffic. Because even the best landing page can't generate leads without traffic.

Traffic

Traffic can be driven to the landing page in different ways, with the main supplier in this case being PPC (pay per click) campaigns.

PPC campaigns can take place on different platforms. The platform that immediately springs to mind is Google.

With Google Ads (but also Bing Ads) you can place ads focussed on keywords. Google Ads traffic is already close to conversion, as the adverts are only shown when the search query matches.

Other options for running PPC ads are Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and LinkedIn Ads - although Facebook and Instagram are generally more suitable for B2C lead generation and LinkedIn is more suitable for B2B lead generation.

Further traffic sources

• Blog articles
• YouTube videos
• Social media postings
• Questions & answers portals
• Forums

Can I generate leads via email and newsletter marketing?

If you already have a "list" with data from companies (B2B) and consumers (B2C), you can use this for lead generation. Strictly speaking, the people whose data you have in your list are already leads, as they have given you the data in some way.

It is either already collected data, i.e. marketing qualified leads, or it is customer data, in which case it is at least sales accepted leads or already sales qualified leads, provided that consent to use it for marketing purposes has been confirmed by a double opt-in.

B2C lead generation vs. B2B lead generation

The generation of B2C leads differs from B2B lead generation on the one hand in the traffic source and on the other hand in the lead magnet. However, the boundaries cannot be clearly drawn.

While B2C leads are mainly acquired via Facebook and Instagram adverts and postings, B2B lead generation tends to take place on LinkedIn, industry platforms and forums.

While e-books, checklists, discount codes etc. are more suitable as lead magnets in the B2C sector, B2B lead generation tends to involve case studies, white papers, reports and surveys containing market research or consumer insights.

Another difference lies in the duration of lead generation. A B2C lead is usually generated more quickly. A B2B lead usually requires more persuasion, so B2B lead generation requires more effort and takes longer.

Email marketing and marketing automation

Once a lead has been acquired, the conversion to a customer begins. However, the path from lead to customer can be an arduous one, as not every lead automatically becomes a customer.

It usually takes many weeks and numerous newsletters and emails in which you have to provide solutions, tips and other valuable content before a lead places their trust in you and makes use of your service or products.

Until then, you need to enter into dialogue with the target group, the potential customers, patiently write emails and newsletters, discuss relevant topics, offer one or two solutions to the target group's problems and build and strengthen trust step by step.

To avoid having to write to every lead manually, the solution is marketing automation + lead management.

What is lead management?

Lead management, also known as lead nurturing, is the process by which companies address and qualify their potential customers and convert them into leads that are ready to buy.

Lead management begins with the identification and screening of potential prospects. Once a potential customer has been identified, they receive special treatment, such as being contacted more frequently or receiving additional incentives to buy a product or service.

This carefully crafted plan is called lead nurturing. It is designed to nurture promising prospects and provide them with information until they make a final decision to buy or not.

With today's emphasis on comprehensive information and a business relationship based on trust, prospects are gradually qualified as leads through small interactions before being passed on to a sales representative. This applies in particular to B2B leads.

The task of lead management is performed by a so-called lead manager.

What is a lead manager and what tasks do they fulfil?

A qualified lead manager is a person who manages the lead generation process.

They are responsible for generating qualified leads. This includes finding the best way to "approach" new potential customers for the company and finding the right time to do so.

He recognises at which stage of the customer journey a lead is and ensures that appropriate content is provided.

It's their job to make sure that every prospect feels cared for and that they have enough information about the company and its offering before they make a decision.

So, I think we've covered everything there is to know about leads and lead generation.

Let me finish by answering a few more questions on the subject.

Frequently asked questions about lead generation

What is a lead in CRM?

CMR stands for Customer Relationship Management. This involves establishing, maintaining and expanding the relationship between potential and existing customers and a company.

Leads that are in this process are referred to as leads in CRM.

As this is a time-consuming and financially intensive process, CRM is usually carried out in larger B2B companies.

Who generates leads?

Anyone who is interested in growing their company generates leads. In B2B companies, this task is performed by the lead manager.

Why do I need lead management?

The better you look after your leads, the greater the chance that they will become paying customers. Ideally, they will become regular customers who remain loyal to a company for a long time.

To ensure this, the entire process of lead generation and lead nurturing must be managed. It is up to the lead manager to decide which lead generation strategies to use or develop, as they are ultimately responsible for generating leads in such a way that qualified sales leads are created - i.e. leads that become customers.

How much is a lead worth?

I can't give you an exact answer to this question, but a lead can be worth its weight in gold. Only by systematically calculating the ROI of the lead can you answer this question. This means that you need to know how much revenue a lead generates and how long it takes for this to happen.

Where can you generate leads?

Leads are always generated on the website or landing page designed for this purpose. If the question refers to where you place the adverts to redirect people to this landing page, then I refer you to the "Traffic" chapter a little further up in this article.

What is lead qualification?

Lead qualification is a largely automated process that is used to convert "cold" leads - i.e. leads from sources such as the internet, trade fairs and exhibitions - into sales-qualified leads that can be processed by marketing or sales.

How do you qualify leads?

This process of qualifying leads can be done manually, but is usually automated, including email marketing tools and website tracking software.

When is a lead a qualified lead?

A lead is qualified when it fulfils certain criteria for a conversion. Various qualification metrics include page views, form submissions, feedback scores and more. For example, if someone has been on your website for 2 hours looking at all the products, then signs up for a newsletter, downloads product brochures and case studies, it stands to reason that they are a qualified lead.

Do you need help creating and optimising a landing page for lead generation? Then feel free to contact us. Write an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. call us on +43 1 353 2 353 or send us your enquiry using our contact form.