The difference between a lead and a prospect

what is the difference between a lead and a prospect?

A lead, or in other words, a potential customer on a journey. Lead generation is critical to the success and growth of your organization. Lead generation is usually the first step in the sales process. But who are you and what do you do as a lead?
As a lead, you go through two different phases and with that comes two different definitions:
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)

lead scoring

By assigning a lead score to each type of visitor conversion/interaction, it allows the marketing and sales team to see exactly where the visitor is in the customer journey. Based on this information, you can specify the content and resources used to get the visitor further down the funnel based on the lead's status.

Lead scoring is assigning points to the actions that leads perform. E.g. opening an e-mail from your follow-up, clicking on a link from the e-mail or visiting a certain page on your website. Lead scoring allows you to quickly see which leads have the most potential to become a prospect and customer. This optimizes the sales process by eliminating the need for the sales department to find out if the lead is "warm" enough.

The marketing team can "keep the lead warm" until they are actually ready to make a purchase. This is called lead nurturing.

the journey from MQL to SQL

An MQL does not automatically become an SQL. It's up to you to trigger this visitor and motivate them to take follow-up steps. Using lead nurturing, you introduce leads to your organization through an e-mail flow. In this process, you learn more and more about the lead, allowing you to serve him better and better. In the marketing automation platform you can then see exactly which emails and links are opened. The content can therefore be made more and more specific. You trigger the leads with relevant information about what they previously showed specific interest in. This way, you keep following up and warming up the leads until the lead is ready for the next step toward the purchase.

Once enough information has been gathered about the lead's interests and needs and the lead score is high enough, you can forward the lead to the sales department. The lead is then ready for the next step. Now it's the sales team's turn. They are now responsible for contacting the leads about the product or service in which interest has been expressed. At this point, a marketing qualified lead becomes a sales qualified lead.

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a lead that stands out from other leads based on certain actions. Unlike an MQL, an SQL is ready to be followed up by the sales team.

can a lead become a prospect?

Now that the definitions are clear, it is clear that the sales process differs by type. A lead is not yet in the same phase as a prospect. Therefore, you need to adjust your marketing activities for each phase and carefully map out where a person is in the funnel.

For starters, a lead needs to meet your criteria. You know better than anyone else when someone is interesting enough to include in your company's story. Do they fit with your company? Do the leads come from the desired industry? Do they have the right job title that makes them interesting to follow up and contact? These are questions you need to ask yourself to determine if the lead will be included in the funnel or not. If they do not meet your criteria, you can contact them endlessly but they are not actually qualified to purchase your services/products. Is the lead interesting enough? Then the follow-up can start!

Every lead has some challenges/pain points that make him or her interested in a company. You can capitalize on these by creating value so that the lead responds to your content. A response can be a click on a link, or a reaction to a contact moment with the sales team.
This is an example of how a lead can quickly respond to an email. This clarifies the situation, allowing you to target the lead even more specifically.

In short, using an email follow-up, you try to determine the lead's challenge and situation. You explain how your product/service can help. Then, when the lead responds to an e-mail, the lead becomes a prospect and it becomes a challenge for sales to close the deal.

from prospect to customer

When self-interaction has been sought by the lead and it now qualifies as a prospect, all alarm bells should go off in the sales team. This is because now the person is getting very close to buying. The sales team must now take over by personally interacting with the leads and prospects.

Do realize that not every lead automatically becomes a prospect and sometimes a person does not seek interaction at all. This does not necessarily mean that this person is not interesting to approach. With these leads, the need is often a little lower. It is wise to give them a little longer and provide them with some more inspiring content in the email follow-up.

A marketing qualified lead has only briefly identified himself or herself as someone who wants more information. Other than that, you don't really know anything about him or her yet. Through lead scoring in marketing automation, you can determine when the MQL becomes a SQL and prospect.

It is important for the sales team to know what the prospect's needs are so they can tailor a proposal.

lead generation

Now that you know what leads and prospects are, and have mapped out the potential customer's journey, we have now arrived at the most important first step: Lead generation. After all, interesting leads need to be collected before you can follow up with content. But how do you generate the desired number of leads? Proper lead management is critical to further shaping the sales funnel and generating revenue for your business.

It's important to determine the right strategy when bringing in leads and prospects. Of course you want to follow up with leads and prospects proactively, but a good balance is necessary. That's why it's important to make sure you're approaching the right person, the decision maker. Then you also know at what level you can approach that person. In addition to the level and the person, a clear strategy for the content and approach must be worked out. What do you want to tell the potential customer and how do you want to convince them to choose you.

The basis of good lead generation is providing value. Without value that is interesting to the target audience, you don't generate interest. Next comes the target audience. Without a good target group description, you won't get the leads you want. Are you sure you have the target audience completely mapped out?
Where is the target audience located and what kind of message do you want to convey to them. Choose the right channels and target your message directly to your audience. Now you need motivation and interest to interact with your company. What would be very interesting to your target audience for which they would leave their data. If they are enthusiastic enough they will leave data that will be of great value to you to continue lead generation. Now it's time to keep the leads warm and ready for the next conversion so they eventually become a prospect. And ultimately, of course, a satisfied customer.

automate this process with marketing automation

This entire process can be automated by deploying marketing automation. SharpSpring is the number one marketing automation software in the Netherlands. Schurq. was the first provider of this software in the Netherlands and has since been named a partner.

SharpSpring Marketing automation guides you through the customer journey of your leads. This allows you to convey exactly the right message to the right person at the right time. This encourages conversion and converting leads into customers. You can see exactly what your leads do on your website and where they click. You can give points to your leads based on the actions they perform. This way you can see exactly how a lead is getting warmer and warmer. SharpSpring automates your emails and offers dynamic content. This makes communication more personal.

You can read the full explanation of SharpSpring marketing automation here.
We hope that after this article you clearly know the difference between a lead and prospect. Most importantly, you should know that each is at a different stage of the sales process. Therefore, a specified approach and approach is needed. But with the right approach, strategy and with the help of marketing automation, you will generate more leads, which you will convert into prospects in no time.

Want to learn more about lead generation, sales funnels or are you interested in Marketing Automation?