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Sales
Guides

Prospecting vs. Lead Generation

 Prospecting and lead generation work together to bring in new customers and drive revenue. Let’s dive into their strengths and how to make each better.

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The 6sense Team
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Prospects v lead gen

Home / Platform / Sales / Prospecting Tools / Prospecting vs Lead Generation

Chapters

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

What Is Prospecting?

Chapter 3

What Is Lead Generation?

Chapter 4

What’s the Difference Between Prospecting and Lead Generation?

Chapter 5

Combining Lead Generation and Sales Prospecting for One Goal: Revenue

Chapter 6

Boost Your Lead Generation and Prospecting Efforts

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Introduction

It’s common to confuse prospecting with lead generation. Both involve identifying potential customers and driving revenue.

What makes them different? The approach and the stage of the sales process.

Prospecting is all about finding potential customers who fit your target market. This could involve anything from cold calling to scouring LinkedIn for the right connections.

Lead generation, on the other hand, is about attracting and converting strangers into people interested in your product or service. For example, you can generate leads through content marketing, email campaigns, or webinars.

Let’s look at how you can optimize both processes (through a deep understanding of the challenges and benefits of each), and how AI can streamline your efforts.

Chapter 2

What Is Prospecting?

Prospecting is the active and intentional process of finding potential customers (prospects) who may be a good fit for a company’s product or service.

Prospecting is a proactive sales activity. The goal? To initiate contact, build rapport, and eventually convert these prospects into qualified leads or customers.

Here are some examples of traditional sales prospecting:

  • Cold calling. Reaching out to potential customers through phone calls, even if they haven’t expressed interest yet.
  • Email outreach. Sending personalized emails to people who fit your target market to start a conversation.
  • Social selling. Using platforms like LinkedIn to connect with and engage potential customers by sharing valuable content and starting discussions.
  • Networking events. Attending industry events, conferences, or trade shows to identify potential prospects in person.
  • Referrals. Asking existing customers or business contacts to refer others who might be a good fit for your product or service.

Without the right tools in place, however, traditional prospecting can result in:

  • Mistimed outreach: A seller might reach a buyer at the wrong time in their journey — either too early or too late
  • Wrong message: A buyer might be in the sweet spot for outreach, but if marketing or sales delivers the wrong message they won’t bite
  • Wrong person: The majority of the buying journey is done anonymously. Without the ability to peel back the curtain, prospecting can miss the mark.

Modern prospecting requires leveraging AI-powered insights that uncover where buyers are in their journey and what they care about.

Chapter 3

What Is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is a marketing-led effort focused on attracting and capturing potential customers’ interest through a variety of channels.

Lead generation is about nurturing curiosity and turning it into a tangible interest in your product or service. It’s how you capture the attention of people who may not be aware of your brand. It also helps you build a list of people who are already interested, making it easier to move them down the sales funnel.

The goal is to engage and capture contact information from potential leads that can eventually be nurtured into paying customers.

Here are some examples of lead generation:

  • Content marketing. Creating blog posts, ebooks, or videos that attract and educate potential customers.
  • Webinars and online events. Hosting informative sessions to engage an audience and collect contact details.
  • Paid ads. Running targeted ads on platforms like Google to drive traffic to landing pages where visitors can sign up.
  • Search engine optimization (SEO). Making sure your website appears at the top of search engine results for relevant keywords.
  • Social media campaigns. Running campaigns on social media platforms to generate engagement and direct users to lead-capture forms.

Traditional lead generation has operated on a quid-pro-quid basis. “Give us your contact information and receive [eBook, webinar, etc.]” However, that friction turns off potential buyers — only 3% of website visitors will fill out a form.

Modern lead generation requires modern solutions. Buyers don’t want to fill out a form, so why serve them one? Marketers need access to technology that can track buyer behavior (like visiting product pages or reading an in-depth whitepaper) without putting up speed bumps for that experience.

Chapter 4

What’s the Difference Between Prospecting and Lead Generation?

The core difference between prospecting and lead generation is the approach and the stage in the sales process.

Direct Engagement vs. Attraction

Prospecting is all about direct engagement. If you’re a sales rep, that means you’re actively reaching out to potential customers.

For example, sending personalized emails to people you’ve identified as potential prospects, or connecting with decision-makers on LinkedIn.

Lead generation, on the other hand, is about attraction —  using tactics to get people interested in your product or service.

For example, you might run an ad campaign to draw attention or create engaging blog content that gets people to sign up for more information.

Sales vs. Marketing Responsibilities

Your sales team typically handles prospecting. They’re the ones doing the legwork, researching potential customers, and making outreach

Your marketing team drives lead generation. They create demand and generate inbound leads using various tactics.

Lead Qualification Process

Prospecting involves qualifying leads up front. Before reaching out, sellers do their homework. They research potential customers to make sure they’re a good fit. This means looking at things like company size, industry, and specific needs. The goal is to make sure they’re talking to the right people from the get-go.

A comprehensive sales intelligence platform will make prospecting easier by uncovering hidden insights about top accounts, revealing where sellers should spend their time and which buyers to prioritize.

Lead generation attracts a wider audience. The idea is to cast a broad net and qualify leads later through nurturing and scoring. Marketing teams use tools and strategies to track engagement and determine which leads are most likely to convert.

A revenue marketing platform can help the marketing team create personalized lead generation campaigns at a large scale. This will give each buyer a unique buying experience, which will make it easier to win their business.

Chapter 5

Combining Lead Generation & Sales Prospecting for One Goal: Revenue

Here’s the truth: prospecting and lead generation are two sides of the same coin. Prospecting is about going out and finding potential customers, while lead generation is about attracting them to you. Both are essential for a healthy pipeline.

Instead of taking the traditional approach of separating prospecting and lead generation, the two tactics should be working in lockstep.

Modern revenue teams should be working from the same playbook to ensure buyers are receiving a comprehensive, cohesive experience.

Prospecting IS Lead Generation and Vice Versa

Prospecting Enhances Lead Generation

Imagine you’ve got a list of leads from your latest marketing campaign. Proactive prospecting can help you focus on the high-intent prospects from that list. These people have shown the most interest in your product or service. By reaching out to them directly, you can improve the efficiency of your sales efforts and speed up the process.

For example, if your lead generation campaign identifies a group of potential customers who have downloaded a whitepaper or attended a webinar, your sales team can proactively contact them.

Lead Generation Fuels Prospecting

On the other hand, lead generation provides a consistent stream of potential leads for your sales team to engage with. Marketing efforts generate interest and capture data, which sales teams can use to prioritize and engage with leads based on their behavior and level of interest.

For instance, if your marketing team runs a successful email campaign that generates a lot of clicks and form submissions, your sales team can use this data to prioritize follow-ups. They can focus on the leads with the most engagement, making their prospecting efforts more effective.

Chapter 6

Boost Your Lead Generation and Prospecting Efforts

Your marketing and sales teams can create a seamless customer journey by working together. Lead generation warms up ‌leads, and sales prospecting turns that warmth into sales. It’s a win-win situation that can significantly boost your customer acquisition efforts.

How 6sense Can Help

6sense uses advanced tools that combine intent data, AI, and predictive analytics. This means you can identify and engage with both anonymous and known prospects like never before. 

Imagine knowing exactly who’s interested in your product and being able to reach out to them at just the right time.

With 6sense, you can also pinpoint high-potential leads and streamline your prospecting process. No more guesswork–just targeted, efficient outreach that maximizes your efforts.

Want to automate your lead qualification, prioritize high-value prospects, and create personalized outreach strategies that drive faster conversions?

Ready to see 6sense in action?

Book Your Demo
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The 6sense Team

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The 6sense Team
6sense helps B2B organizations achieve predictable revenue growth by putting the power of AI, big data, and machine learning behind every member of the revenue team.