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Sales & Retail vocabulary · Prospecting & Leads

Lead generation

Meaning in sales & retail, with examples

/ˈliːd dʒenəˌreɪʃən/nounCore term

In sales & retail, lead generation means: The work of finding and attracting new potential customers, through activities such as events, ads, content, cold outreach and referrals.

In Turkish: potansiyel müşteri bulma, müşteri adayı oluşturma

How it is used

Shared by sales and marketing teams and often shortened to lead gen. Marketing usually brings in inbound leads, while sales development reps do outbound lead generation. You run lead generation campaigns and measure the cost per lead.

Example sentences

  1. Trade fairs are still our best source of lead generation in the Middle East.

  2. The new rep spends mornings on lead generation and afternoons on calls.

Common collocations

  • lead generation campaign
  • outbound lead generation
  • lead gen
  • cost per lead
  • leadA person or company that may become a customer, for example someone who downloaded a brochure, called for information or was found through research.
  • cold callA phone call to a person or business that has had no earlier contact with you, made to introduce a product and start a sales conversation.
  • social sellingUsing social media, especially professional networks such as LinkedIn, to find prospects, build relationships and start sales conversations.
  • referralA new lead that comes from an existing customer or contact who recommends you, or the act of recommending someone in this way.
  • sales funnelA model that shows the stages buyers go through, from first hearing about a product to buying it, with fewer people at each stage, like the shape of a funnel.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Prospecting & Leads

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