Recently I was in a get together party arranged by DMA (Digital Marketing Aspirant) club in Cardiff. We were having some really interesting discussion and at one stage were talking at great lengths about using twitter and linkedin to generate leads. Throughout the conversation the word we must have used the most was ‘Leads’. At the end of the discussion one smart fella looked right up at us and said the entire discussion was brilliant but could you care to explain what ‘leads’ means? On hearing this we all rolled on the floor laughing, since it was as good as asking who is Neo after watching “Matrix”!
I decided to write this post to help save all those who don’t know what ‘leads’ means from embarrassment. In simple words leads are nothing but ‘sales leads’ meaning anything that leads to a sale. A lead can be an individual or business. Again to give more clarity “potential customer = sales lead “. If a company produces games for playstation 3 and you own that console, then you become a lead. If the company is successful in selling you the game then you turn into a sale. This is what people mean when they say “converting leads into sales”. For a real estate company a lead is “potential home buyer”. Similarly for advertising it’s “a company account” and for consultants the leads are nothing but the “potential clients”.
Traditionally, tradeshows and purchase of databases have been used to generate sales leads. However, in this new media era, blogging and social media is proving out to be an extremely powerful way for generating sales leads. Take for example you are a company producing hospital equipments. You may perhaps open a blog publishing topics around your product. For example you may write a post on low treatment failure rates by using advanced hospital machinery, top 10 hospitals in the neighborhood etc. The idea is to draw potential customers (leads) i.e. the hospitals, doctors etc to your site and selling them your equipments.
