In simple marketing terms, lead generation is the initiation of customer interest or enquiry into the products or services of a business. Leads can be created for purposes such as email contact list building, online newsletter list acquisition or for marketing and sales. It is a process through which we convert an unknown but a potential customer or a prospect into a lead, i.e. someone who shares his or her personal information like name, email, and contact number that can be used to take the conversation forward for sales.
Now whether its B2B marketing or B2C lead generation, the goal is to target people who might be interested in our offerings. Noticeably, there are a few differences in each approach and its buying process that you must consider beforehand to create an effective lead generation strategy.
The key differences are-
1. Objective: B2B lead generation primarily aims to build a long-term relationship with prospects and stay on the top of their mind so that when they are ready to make a purchase, your brand is the first thing they think about. In B2C lead generation, the objective is to attract people who are ready to make purchasing decisions.
2. Target Audience: B2C lead generation has a wider audience outreach whereas a B2B lead generation company caters to a niche audience that comprises of executives sitting at the top management level to make purchase decisions for their business
3. Purchasing Power:The buying decision in B2C lead gen are in the hands of individual prospects one is targeting while in B2B lead generation, the purchasing power does not rest in a single individual’s hand. You must cater to multiple stakeholders within the company to close a sales deal.
4. Content Requirement: B2B buyers are usually very informative about their challenges since they do their research and consider multiple vendors in search for the most viable solution. So, a B2B marketing agency will require valuable personalized content like long-forms, case studies, whitepapers, and industry reports to win customer trust and build credibility. On the other hand, in B2C lead generation, you can always promote free resources; create unique and lucrative offerings for individual prospects to push them further down the sales funnel.