If your company is planning on diving into digital lead generation in 2022 you’ve got to be equipped. We’ve compiled these 35 must-know terms, some of which you may already be familiar with and others that will be brand new. Use this lexicon as a springboard to build your knowledge and expertise:
- A/B Testing: A/B testing (sometimes referred to as split testing) is a method used to compare two versions of a website landing page, app or other digital product – in fact any element that might impact digital performance.
- 2. BOFu: Bottom of the Funnel (BOFu) refers to that part of the sales funnel where sales qualified leads are ripe for the picking. If properly engaged through a strategic marketing funnel ( you’ve given the user the right information that addresses immediate bottlenecks) they will have a higher likelihood of resulting in a conversion (lead or purchase).
- Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who interact with one page of your website before leaving. A high bounce rate usually infers that users left quickly because the content on-site or the user experience was poor or did not address their needs. A low bounce rate typically measures a successful website visit as the user has spent time interacting with the said page.
- BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline (BANT) is a sales leads qualification method. This process helps you to determine if you are talking to the right person and if they are the best customer profile for your service or product offer.
- B2B: From a digital lead generation perspective, Business to Business (B2B) refers to the targeting of a professional audience within a company as opposed to a broad consumer audience. Once the audience has been identified, the marketing team will create a marketing funnel to engage and capture leads proactively.
- B2C: A digital lead generation campaign that targets a Business to Consumer (B2C) audience refers to a company that runs ad campaigns directly to a consumer based audience through a uniquely designed marketing funnel to attract this audience.
- CLV: CLV is a metric to determine the income potential a customer can generate throughout their lifespan as a paying client.
- Conversion Funnel: A conversion funnel refers to the conversion path of a potential customer in their sales journey (from TOFU to BOFU) in order for them to take action (i.e. buy, sign up, book a meeting).
- CPL: Cost Per Lead (CPL) is a marketing metric and pricing formula that measures the total advertising cost it takes to generate a qualified lead.
- CRM: Customer Relationship Management platforms like Hubspot and Salesforce are technology platforms used by sales and marketing teams to track and manage relationships with current customers and interactions with new prospects. It also gives companies the ability to analyze critical data for future marketing decision-making.
- CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization traditionally refers to the science of enhancing or “optimizing” a website or landing page in order to increase the number of conversions (pre-set goals like qualified leads or sales) based on user behavior. A CRO campaign usually includes a website audit, a/b, and multivariate testing, session recordings, polls, and beyond.
- CTA: In digital lead generation Call to Actions (CTAs) are used to drive users to take action on a landing page, website, app, email etc, often found in the form of a button. Common CTAs include Order Now, Subscribe, Download, Book Now, Call Now.
- CTR: Click-through rate: is a digital marketing metric that measures the ratio of clicks to impressions of an online ad or email campaign.
- Email Drip Campaign: Sometimes referred to as email sequencing or drip marketing, an email drip campaign is normally a top-of-funnel strategy packaged in a sequence of automated emails. The goal of these emails is to further and further engage and educate users until they take the desired action.
- Inbound Marketing: In digital lead generation, inbound marketing describes the nucleus of your organic activities. Using techniques designed to draw prospects to you because they find your content valuable (as opposed to outbound marketing which actively reaches out to prospects), tactics include SEO content, social marketing, how-to videos, conversational marketing, email drip campaigns and beyond.
- Interactive Quiz: An engaging, interactive method to capture lead information, an interactive quiz allows the user to take control of the quiz flow while attracting them to the best product or service on offer. An interactive quiz uses a series of questions to move users toward a specific product or service offer.
- Interactive Video (IV): Interactive video (IV) is the fusing of interaction and linear video. IV not only grabs user attention but guides educates and qualifies potential customers. Interactive video allows businesses to truly personalize every interaction they have with their customers, and collect critical data that they miss with traditional video.
- KPI: In digital lead generation, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)are the measurements of specific, critical goals in a digital marketing campaign. Key metrics can include Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), Number of leads, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and beyond.
- Landing Pages: The secret sauce in a successful lead generation campaign, optimized landing pages that speak to the needs of your unique target audience with a simple and clear call to action will be your best asset. The goal of the landing page is to collect as many qualified leads at a competitive cost per lead as possible.
- Lead Magnets: Given away as free or gated content, lead magnets are used as bait to reel in potential qualified leads. The key to creating successful lead magnets is to provide truly valuable content in the form of white papers, free trials, webinars hosted by experts, free consultations, and beyond.
- Lead Nurturing: Most qualified leads do not convert on the first touchpoint. Lead nurturing is the formation and investment in building a relationship of trust and maintaining that trust with a potential customer by providing them with solutions that truly answer their needs.
- Lead Quality: It’s easy to produce a bucketful of leads but generating qualified leads is what defines a successful campaign as a highly qualified lead has a much higher success rate of converting into a lead. This process does not happen overnight but is tracked over a period of months and touchpoints, often in conjunction with your sales team to determine their closing potential.
- Live Chat: A popular customer support device, Live Chat can be a powerful lead capture tool as well. Similar to interactive video and polls, Live Chat can be built with a menu to customize the user experience. As well, there are Live Chat outsourcing services where teams are specifically trained to close leads effectively.
- Marketing Automation: Marketing automation platforms automate facets of your lead generation campaigns in order to streamline marketing workflows across a customer’s lifecycle. Popular tools like HubSpot and Salesforce provide features like email marketing, social posting, ad campaigns as well as highly accurate data to measure the barometer of your efforts.
- Message Match: One of the best methods to increase conversions on landing pages is through the use of “message match”. Message match refers to the practice of fine-tuning the landing page experience according to the context of the ad. The better the congruence between the ad and landing page (and search term, when relevant), the higher the likelihood of success.
- Mobile Optimization: 2022 marks the most mobile-first environment yet with more than half of all users doing business from their smartphones. Key to user experience in mobile campaigns, the lack of effective mobile optimization remains one of the marketing community’s biggest weaknesses. Ensure your entire marketing strategy from ads to website landing pages are optimized for a clean mobile experience adjusted to each device – otherwise, you are losing precious leads.
- Peep Laja: The world leader in conversion optimization, Peep changed the lead generation landscape through CXL, his CRO marketing destination for customer acquisition (our agency is a proud graduate of this program).
- Personalization: Customized content and messaging to segmented audiences increase conversion rates exponentially in comparison to its one size fits all counterpart. A customized conversion funnel speaks to the specific needs of your potential customers by answering their questions and anticipating their specific needs. Personalization begins with identifying your niche audiences, their behaviors online, and a/b testing tailored content, offers,s and CTAs.
- PPC: An ubiquitous term, pay per click (PPC) is a term that is necessary to include in our list as it remains the fuel behind most lead generation campaigns. From search-based Google ads that are built around keywords that drive user intent to campaigns within social channels like LinkedIn or Facebook that rely on layered targeting, PPC gets ads in front of the right audiences so that the lead generation process can begin.
- ROI: From a marketing perspective, ROI is the estimated return on investment based on the hard and soft costs of your campaign efforts. This includes measurements like Total Marketing Costs (TMC), Cost Per Lead (CPL), Average Gross Profit Margin, and other metrics.
- Scarcity: eCommerce websites have long used the psychological method of scarcity with headlines like “limited supply” or “hurry before they’re gone” to persuade potential customers to “buy now”. This tactic can be used successfully in digital lead generation as well through limited time and limited quantity offers with headlines like “filing deadline is April 18th” or “Only 100 early bird tickets left for the XYZ trade show, discount pricing ends soon”.
- Social Proof: Critical to influencing prospects, social proof (or proof-based marketing) is a psychological tool that builds trust as it promotes your company’s products or services from a credible outside source. This can be in the form of a testimonial, review, media mention, award, etc.), Integrated into Ad copy, landing page elements, and email blasts, social proof statistically increases lead capture by 34% generating 62% more in revenue.
- TOFu: Top of funnel (TOFu) is the starting point of a marketing campaign and describes the first touchpoint in the customer journey. New to your brand and offer, users at this stage are not ready to take buy or convert into a lead. Instead, they need to learn about your offerings and how your product or service may be weighed as a potential solution to an existing problem. As the user progresses through the funnel their engagement levels increase until they become customer-ready at the bottom of the funnel (BOFu).
- User Intent: The initial motivation a user has for conducting a Google search, user intent is what initially propels a website visit. An SEO-rich website or well-optimized ad campaign will successfully drive users to your website. Once a user has entered your website, your conversion funnel, including content, social proof and UVP must “message match” the intent of the user in order for your efforts to prove successful.
- UVP: A company’s unique value proposition (UVP) or USP, unique sales proposition, describes the compelling value of your product or service as it differentiates you from your competition. For example, if your offer is more value-rich and will provide a “better” “more streamlined” or “more cost-effective” solution to your prospect’s problem than what is currently on offer in other organizations, you are well-positioned to beat out the competition.
