Meaning & use
lead generation
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountablebusiness
The work of attracting people who might buy a product or service and collecting their contact details so a company can follow up.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: we invest in lead generation, not a lead generation.
Patterns
- lead generation for something
The agency specializes in lead generation for small software companies.
Our lead generation improved after we added a free guide to the website.
She leads the lead generation team, which runs webinars and email campaigns.
Common combinations
- online lead generation
- Online lead generation now accounts for most of our new clients.
- lead generation strategy
- The lead generation strategy relies on useful blog posts.
- B2B lead generation
- B2B lead generation often involves long sales cycles.
- lead generation form
- Keep the lead generation form short so more visitors finish it.
- drive lead generation
- Free trials helped drive lead generation last quarter.
Synonyms and how they differ
- prospecting
- It is the search for possible buyers, often by salespeople personally, while lead generation usually describes a broader marketing process.
- customer acquisition
- It covers the whole path to winning a customer, while lead generation stops at finding interested contacts.
- demand generation
- It aims to create interest in a brand generally, whereas lead generation focuses on capturing individual contacts.
Word family
Commonly confused: lead generation or lead (metal)?
lead generation vs lead (metal)
The metal is pronounced led and has nothing to do with sales; in lead generation the word sounds like leed.
Practice
The company ran a free webinar mainly for ___, to collect emails of people who might buy later.
Choose one answer.
Collecting contact details of possible buyers is lead generation. Customer service helps existing customers, so it is the tempting but wrong choice.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “lead generation”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.