lead

Pursuing and closing leads normally falls to the company's sales department. For example, a vendor will display their wares at an industry trade show, hoping to attract the attention of qualified buyers attending the exhibit. Each inquiry for more vendor information would be a "lead," which might subsequently be developed into a sale.

A company's lead generation efforts and its approach to dealing with leads can significantly impact its success in the marketplace. To that end, most organizations try to establish effective practices involving:

• lead generators: any marketing-related activity intended to publicize the availability of a vendor's product or service.
• lead nurturing: the practices that a company establishes for dealing with potential leads.
• lead scoring: processes or software designed to rank the importance of leads to the company.

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Do you have something to add to this definition? Let us know. Send your comments to techterms@whatis.com

More resources from around the web: - Wikipedia has an entry about lead generation. - Brian Carroll maintains a blog about issues related to B2B lead generation.

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