What is Lead?

A lead is any person who indicates interest in a company’s product or service in some way, shape, or form.

Leads typically hear from a business or organization after opening communication (by submitting personal information for an offer, trial, or subscription) … instead of getting a random cold call from someone who purchased their contact information.

Let’s say you take an online survey to learn more about how to take care of your car. A day or so later, you receive an email from the auto company that created the survey about how they could help you take care of your car. This process would be far less intrusive than if they’d just called you out of the blue with no knowledge of whether you even care about car maintenance, right? This is what it’s like to be a lead.

And from a business perspective, the information the auto company collects about you from your survey responses helps them personalize that opening communication to address your existing problems — and not waste time calling leads who aren’t at all interested in auto services.

Leads are part of the broader lifecycle that consumers follow when they transition from visitor to customer. Not all leads are created equal (nor are they qualified the same). There are different types of leads based on how they are qualified and what lifecycle stage they’re in.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation describes the marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing a sales pipeline.

A potential customer in your target audience who is interested in purchasing the product or service you offer is referred to as a “lead” in the digital marketing world. Now, to capture this lead — meaning you make them take the first step in your sales cycle — marketing agencies see value in employing different marketing tactics otherwise known as lead generation marketing.

Let’s break it down a little more. To put it simply, leads are potential customers who are interested in your products and services. To capture these leads, we leverage many marketing tactics that will make the user sign up for something online by completing a form, contacting the business directly, or even walking into the store.