{"id":19632,"date":"2020-09-21T13:23:02","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T17:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insurance-canada.ca\/?p=67920"},"modified":"2020-09-21T13:23:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T17:23:02","slug":"the-difference-between-audience-and-prospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/09\/21\/the-difference-between-audience-and-prospect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference Between Audience and Prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>By Kevin Butler, VP \u2013 Marketing &amp; Strategy, Goose Digital <span>\u2014<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>I\u2019m often asked what the difference is between \u201caudience\u201d and \u201cprospect.\u201d While my answer might sound like I\u2019m splitting hairs, the distinction between the two is critical. In my mind, the difference defines engagement, department ownership, and the primary methods by which each should be marketed to. As such, it\u2019s a difference I take very seriously.<\/p>\n<h3>Definitions<\/h3>\n<p>So let\u2019s jump into it. Here\u2019s how I define each:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Audience<\/strong>: A contact or contacts you seek to engage but haven\u2019t yet. Your audience is typically comprised of target organizations or contacts that fit into your <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.datananas.com\/en\/ideal-customer-profile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">ideal customer profile<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prospect<\/strong>: A contact that has expressed interest in you (or your business); a contact you already have a level of engagement with, and one that has a degree of familiarity with what you have to offer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Going a step further, your Audience typically represents Demand Generation targets, people who are at the start of their journey with you, and are only just beginning to become familiar with your products or services. By contrast, Prospects are typically the result of Lead Generation tactics, specific contacts with a vested interest in what you have to offer. For a more in depth background on both, I\u2019ve written about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goosedigital.com\/what-is-inbound-marketing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Lead Gen and Demand Gen<\/a> in the past, essentially saying those are more modern names for Inbound and Outbound Marketing, respectively.<\/p>\n<h3>How to Handle Each<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019re following my perspective, you\u2019ll agree that it makes sense to treat (general) Audiences and (specific) Prospects differently. How and where the contact was acquired sets the stage for all future engagement tactics and helps you better nurture their level of interest. The key is therefore establishing which category your contact fits into.<\/p>\n<p>So where do we begin? Let\u2019s compare the initial sources for both:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Audience<\/strong> <em>(demand generation)<\/em>: External initiatives like emails and direct mail campaigns designed to drive engagement. These campaigns would be classified as one-to-many style interactions initiated by you or your organization. It\u2019s likely the audience member has little to no interest in your organization during this particular initiative but the process is undertaken to foster awareness and recognition.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prospects<\/strong> <em>(lead generation)<\/em>: Inbound\/website contact forms, asset downloads, and event registrations. One-to-One style interactions, primarily initiated by the prospect who is showing a level of interest in your organization.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Per the definitions above, your Audience would fall into the category of developing interest and engagement. Until enough interest can be generated, Audience members would remain solely under the ownership of Marketing. By contrast, Prospects are much further along in your sales funnel. At a bare minimum, Prospects represent a smaller pool of higher quality leads which Marketing can continue to engage and warm over time. However, Prospects have, by their very nature of engagement, demonstrated an established a level of interest in your organization and its offerings. As such, pending certain qualifiers, Prospects can and should be passed onto Sales for further nurturing and to begin a true sales cycle.<\/p>\n<p>Next time we\u2019ll walk through the roles and responsibilities of both Marketing and Sales with regards to your prospects and audience. If your organization is having these conversations and dialog, don\u2019t hesitate to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goosedigital.com\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">contact us<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"smallhead\"><b>About the Author<\/b><\/h4>\n<p>Kevin Butler is Vice President of Marketing and Strategy at Goose Digital. He is an experienced marketing leader with a solid track record of driving growth and increasing revenue for small and emerging tech companies. He believes marketing should be a strategic driver of any organization, understanding itself and offering, the market and landscape, its clients, and ultimately how to acquire new clients.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"smallhead\"><b>About Goose Digital<\/b><\/h4>\n<p>Goose Digital is Canada\u2019s leading marketing automation agency. We take organizations on a journey of digital transformation to optimize operations and drive faster return on marketing investment with proven digital strategies and expertise with cutting edge technologies such as Act-On, Salesforce Pardot &amp; Marketing Cloud, Marketo, and HubSpot. Our marketing automation experience helps organizations get to value faster while outpacing competitors with innovation and rapid execution. For more information, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goosedigital.com\/insurance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">www.goosedigital.com\/Insurance\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"referencetext\"><i>Source: Goose Digital<\/i><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurance-canada.ca\/2020\/09\/21\/goose-digital-difference-between-audience-prospect\/\">Read the original article at Insurance-Canada.ca <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kevin Butler, VP \u2013 Marketing &amp; Strategy, Goose Digital \u2014 I\u2019m often asked what the difference is between \u201caudience\u201d and \u201cprospect.\u201d While my answer might sound like I\u2019m splitting hairs, the distinction between&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}