Lead generation means attracting the attention of potential customers and gaining their interest in your product or service. It’s the first step in building relationships that will turn into business.

When people hear the phrase “lead generation,” it may seem nebulous or something out of their reach. However, there are straight forward ways to generate leads through marketing to grow their business.

In my last blog I wrote about the importance of sales and marketing working together and what a productive relationship would look like. In this article I discuss what your sales team needs from marketing to support their efforts. Keep in mind that effective sales support depends on a good working relationship between marketing and sales.

I’ve worked with Marketing and Sales departments that operated in silos to the detriment to the organization and their goals. When this happens the result is lackluster sales results and a lot of finger pointing. Sales teams don’t get the quality of leads they need. Without market and customer intelligence Marketing isn’t able to build effective campaigns.