Lead generation
Businesses create consumer interest and inquiry into products or services through a range of marketing tactics. These often include blog posts, advertisements, white papers, social media, events, and PR campaigns.

Customer inquiry and capture
Consumers of marketing respond with interest and their data is recorded. This creates a sales lead.

Filtering, grading, distribution, and contact
Leads are sorted by the validity of the request, prioritized based on likelihood of becoming a customer, and then dispersed to sales reps to be contacted. Depending on the size of your marketing program, a lot of work can go into defining how to accurately categorize and sort individual leads.

Lead nurturing
Leads are sorted by contacted or uncontacted and scheduled for follow-up processes. They may be put into drip-marketing campaigns, or followed-up with on the phone by a company rep.