Lead generation plays a very critical role in the online sales and marketing process since it is the route through which strangers initiate an interest in your business. Rather than you having to approach potential customers, they approach you by filling out a contact form or completing some other action your site.
With this approach (known as inbound marketing, as opposed to outbound marketing), the contact is organically started by the visitor, not by the business. As a result, the visitor is much more likely to want to purchase something from your company later on, since they have already demonstrated interest in what you do.
This world of inbound marketing, sales and lead generation has plenty of promise. However, it also has tons of jargon, which can be overwhelming to those unfamiliar with it. So before you jump in, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with a variety of basic terms:
- Lead: A lead is a person who has indicated interest in your company’s service or product.
- Lead generation: Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting prospects into leads.
- Call-to-Action (CTA): A CTA often takes the form of a digital image, button or message that encourages a lead to move closer towards making a purchase/download. Clicking on the CTA would take your visitor to a landing page.
- Landing Page: A landing page is a specific web page that a visitor lands on once they click on a CTA. This page normally captures information about the visitor through forms (including their name, phone number, email address, etc.) in exchange for an offer (something of value, such as a downloadable eBook or coupon). It is critical that the offer has enough ‘value’ to merit a visitor providing their personal information.
- Sales funnel: The sales funnel is the progression that your company makes while generating, qualifying and closing leads throughout the sales and marketing lifecycle. It typically begins with awareness of your brand and the solutions you offer, and ends with a sale.
- Return on investment (ROI): Return on investment refers to the results gained for your dollars spent. The formula to calculate ROI is (Gains – Cost) / Cost. For example, if you spent $100 on marketing (cost) which led to $500 worth of sales (gains), you would have an ROI of 400% – not bad at all!