Sales Leads: Definition, How They Work and Tips to Get More

Sales leads are a fundamental element in the sales process. They help provide a pathway to potential customers and contribute to the overall success and growth of a business.

Software like Podium’s Lead Drive can help you generate more sales leads and manage them in one place. Using Podium Inbox, you’ll get a consolidated look at all leads from your website and other channels like Angie’s, Thumbtack, and Cargurus and be able to immediately and automatically respond to them to boost the chances of converting them into paying customers.

On that same note, Podium also has a new product just for you! Speed to lead is critical in today’s fast-paced market, and Podium offers an unparalleled advantage by ensuring businesses engage with leads within a couple of minutes—guaranteed. Podium’s conversational AI is outcome-driven – it doesn’t just respond to inbound leads it guides conversations toward a specific goal, such as a sale or booking. Unlike other AI systems that focus on providing correct responses, Podium aims to drive specific customer actions to grow your business.

In this post, we’ll explain what a sales lead is and what the major types are, then provide some proven strategies for generating them.

What is a sales lead?

A sales lead is an individual who may be interested in a product or service offered by a business. These potential customers may have expressed interest by taking an action that demonstrated a willingness to engage with the business, like visiting their website. Or they may not have expressed any interest. In that case, they may have been identified as a good fit for your business by a customer via a referral or by a salesperson.

This is the key difference between a sales lead and a prospect. A sales lead’s intent and interest have not yet been examined thoroughly enough to qualify as a prospect. A salesperson may engage with a sales lead and determine that they don’t need your product or service, don’t have the budget necessary to use it, or aren’t a good fit for another reason.

The process of acquiring and converting a sales lead takes several steps. Typically, qualifying or scoring leads is the first step. This involves analyzing each lead’s potential for conversion based on a series of predetermined characteristics or questions. placing them in the company’s sales pipeline. This may require the sales or marketing team to send direct marketing materials and emails or make outbound sales calls.

The next step is nurturing the lead through the sales funnel. Lead nurturing requires personalized follow-up communication. Sales or marketing can use email, texts, retargeting ads, case studies, and other channels and types of content to provide more information about the product or service, address any questions or concerns, and ultimately guide the lead toward making a purchase.

Now let’s take a look at the different types of sales leads and their key characteristics.

Types of Sales Leads

The classification of leads into different types helps sales and marketing teams prioritize their efforts and tailor their approaches based on their level of engagement and readiness to make a purchase. Below is an explanation of four types of sales leads.

1. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are leads that have been identified by the marketing team as having the potential to become customers based on certain criteria. These criteria may include demographic information, online behavior like website clicks, or engagement with marketing content.

MQLs may have interacted with the company’s content, such as downloading whitepapers, subscribing to newsletters, or attending webinars. While they’ve shown interest, they may require additional nurturing before being handed over to the sales team.

2. Warm Leads

Warm leads are generally considered to be in the middle of the sales funnel, indicating a moderate level of interest in a product or service. They are warmer than cold leads but not as hot as SQLs.

Warm leads may have engaged with the brand, shown some interest, or demonstrated intent, but they might not be fully ready to make a purchase. Nurturing warm leads involves providing additional information, addressing concerns, and guiding them toward the next stages of the sales process.

3. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) are leads that have passed the marketing qualification process and are deemed ready for direct sales engagement. These leads have typically shown a high level of interest, engaged with specific sales-related content or activities, and demonstrated a strong likelihood of becoming a customer in the near term.

SQLs often have specific attributes, such as a clear understanding of their needs, budget, and decision-making authority. They are considered further along in the buyer’s journey than MQLs and may have expressed explicit interest in a product or service.

4. Product Qualified Leads (PQLs)

Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) are leads that have experienced the value of a product or service through actual usage or trial. This type of lead is often associated with businesses that offer freemium models or trial periods for their products.

PQLs have firsthand experience with the product, indicating a high level of interest and engagement. The use of the product itself becomes a qualifying factor, and PQLs may be more likely to convert into paying customers due to their positive product experience.

6 Proven Sales Lead Generation Strategies

The strategies below are designed to help you attract, engage, and convert potential customers. Implementing them can help enhance your overall sales lead-generation efforts.

1. Establish a social media presence.

Social media can be a powerful inbound marketing channel for sales leads. You can reach and engage with sales leads by creating and sharing relevant content on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and interacting with your followers in the comments section and on their posts.

HubSpot is a great source of inspiration. They post multiple times a week on Instagram with content that’s relevant to their different personas and products and get lots of engagement from existing customers as well as potential sales leads as a result.

Below are some tips for using social media to generate leads:

• Regularly post content that showcases your products or services.
• Share industry insights.
• Engage with your audience through comments and direct messages.
• Utilize paid ads to target specific demographics and increase your reach.

2. Create original content and research.

Content marketing is an effective way to attract and engage with potential customers. Creating original and valuable content can help establish your authority in the industry and make leads want to learn more about the topic, product, or company in general.

Below are some tips for using content marketing to generate leads:

• Develop blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, videos, or other content that addresses the pain points or questions of your target audience.
• Conduct original research or share industry insights to position your business as a thought leader.
• Distribute this content through various channels, including your website, social media, and email.

3. Optimize your website.

Your website is often the first point of contact for potential customers. Optimizing it ensures a seamless user experience and encourages visitors to take desired actions, such as filling out contact forms or making purchases.

Implementing web chat is one website optimization strategy that can increase engagement and convert visitors into leads. Web chat can not only be a great way to provide immediate assistance or answers to common questions to visitors—it can also persuade them to provide their contact information so you can follow up on an inquiry or provide a demo.

For example, with Podium Webchat, the conversation is immediately taken to text so it doesn’t end when customers leave your site and so that you automatically have their name and phone number.

Below are some tips for optimizing your website to generate leads:

• Ensure your website is user-friendly, mobile-responsive, and has clear calls to action.
• Optimize landing pages for specific products or services.
• Implement SEO best practices to improve visibility in search engine results.
• Use analytics tools to track user behavior and make data-driven improvements.

4. Reduce response times.

Quick response times are crucial in capturing and maintaining the interest of potential leads. A prompt and personalized response can set your business apart from competitors and increase the likelihood of conversion.

Using a tool like Podium can enable you to see every lead and customer conversation from every channel in a single, easy-to-use inbox. This makes it easy to respond to every chat, review, text, Facebook message, and phone call in less time.

Below are some tips for reducing response times to generate leads:

• Implement automation tools for lead tracking and set up instant response mechanisms for inquiries received through your website, social media, or other channels.
• Establish metrics for your sales and customer service teams to measure and improve their response times.

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5. Gather customer reviews and feedback.

Positive reviews and testimonials can build trust and credibility, which are essential for lead generation. Review software can help you quickly and easily generate reviews to feature on your website and sales and marketing collateral to nurture leads.

You may also gather customer feedback at different points of the customer journey to identify any pain points and improve the conversion path. A tool like Podium Feedback makes it easy to learn about your customers’ experience via private one-on-one text message surveys.

Below are some tips for gathering customer reviews and feedback to generate leads:

• Automatically send invites to customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, or industry-specific review sites.
• Showcase positive reviews on your website and in marketing materials.
• Use feedback forms to gather insights from customers about their experiences.

6. Create tailored SMS campaigns.

SMS campaigns can be a direct and personal way to reach potential leads. With Podium, you can launch text campaigns in less time by using templates and then customizing them to your unique customers.

For example, you may set up a workflow for website visitors who have left something in their cart to receive a text message with a discount code that encourages them to complete their purchase. This message can be personalized with the visitor’s name and/or the name of the product in their cart. Here’s an example from the energy gum brand Run Gum:

Below are some tips for using SMS marketing to generate leads:

• Obtain consent before sending SMS messages.
• Craft targeted and personalized messages based on customer preferences, behaviors, or previous interactions.
• Include a clear call to action and provide value in each message.
• Use SMS campaigns for promotions, event invitations, or personalized offers.

A CRM Software to Manage and Drive Sales Leads

An all-in-one solution like Podium can help you generate, manage, and convert sales leads faster and more easily.

Here are a few ways that Podium’s CRM helps small businesses improve sales lead generation:

• Better customer communication: With contact profiles, you can see all of your customer interactions and full conversation history from every channel in a single view—no more switching between dozens of tabs.
• Better organization: Organize your customers based on important attributes, and manage conversations or initiate payments all from one convenient tool.
• Better feedback management: Users can collect feedback from customers via surveys and track their Net Promoter Score (NPS) over time.
• Better personalization: With customer tags, you can send the right message to the right person every time. Tags allow you to personalize your campaigns more effectively and see better returns because of it.

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Sales Leads FAQs

Q: How do you get sales leads?

A: Getting sales leads involves a combination of marketing and sales activities to attract and identify potential customers. These might include content marketing, email marketing, target advertising, networking at industry events and conferences, and referrals.

Q: What is an example of a sales lead?

A: An example of a sales lead could be an individual who visits your company website, downloads a gated asset, subscribes to your newsletter, or comments on a social media post. This person may have shown interest in your products or services by taking these actions or been identified as a potential good fit by a customer or salesperson.

Q: What is a sales lead in a CRM?

A: In a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, a sales lead is a record that represents an individual or business that may become a customer. This record typically includes contact details, interaction history, and details about the lead’s behavior, such as website visits or responses to marketing campaigns. CRM systems help sales teams track and manage leads throughout the sales pipeline, from initial contact to conversion, and they play a crucial role in organizing, prioritizing, and analyzing lead-related data for effective sales strategies.