Top Lead Generation Terms Defined For Home Service Businesses
With all the jargon in the marketing world, understanding the mechanics of online advertising and lead generation can be a difficult task. The constant improvement of technology and advertising techniques has continued to make it both more achievable and challenging for small businesses. The advancement and continued innovation of online marketing inevitably will lead to more complexity in understanding the landscape and keeping up with the language. As a result, new jargon and terms are created and existing terms are redefined. So, we decided to define the top lead generation terms with what they mean today, and what they mean specifically for home service businesses.
10 Key Lead Generation Terms Defined
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Lead Generation
Lead generation is the marketing process of cultivating potential customers’ interest in a business’s product in order to make a sale.
Lead generation could be anything from blog content, social media promotion, coupons, or email campaigns. Anything you create with the goal and potential to gain more customers is a form of generating leads. Some of these things you can do on your own, but some lead generation tactics are best done with professionals who have experience getting the results you’re looking for. In this case, there are lead generation services that can help you on your journey to grow your business!
A Conversion
A conversion is any action that results in getting a potential customer a step closer to buying your product or services. For online marketing for service businesses, this is typically a phone call or form submission from your website.
If a potential customer clicks on an ad that takes them to your website based on keywords that you’ve used and ends up calling your number for more information, that’s a conversion. A conversion could also be an email sign-up, online form completion, or a subscription.
A Lead
A lead is a contact or organization that shows interest in the product or service that a business is trying to sell. This interest is typically shown by providing their contact information.
For almost every business, one of the main marketing goals is to generate as many leads as possible in order to get new customers. There are many ways to generate leads at different stages of the buyer's journey, and from different online and offline marketing channels, that will ultimately determine if that lead will become an opportunity. In some cases, a Conversion means the same thing as a Lead. The difference between a Lead and a Prospect is that Leads have shown initial interest, but a Prospect hasn't necessarily shown interest in doing business with you.
A Qualified Lead
A qualified lead is a lead that has the potential of turning into a customer based on information the customer has provided, whether that’s through a form or a phone call, is a qualified lead.
Qualified leads are the most valuable leads in terms of actually growing your business. It’s best to partner with a lead generation firm that only charges for quality leads, like any other lead that will have zero potential in making a sale.
Shared Lead
Shared Leads are opportunities sent to multiple contractors. In effect, you are sharing the opportunity which means you will need to compete with those other businesses to win that opportunity.
These leads can be sold up to five times or more depending on the lead generation service provider. While shared leads are typically more affordable, they’re not always the best choice if your company is not in the position to compete with the other companies the lead is shared with. Shared leads are usually the best fit for companies that are more established and have a solid sales process with the ability to work those opportunities immediately.
Exclusive Lead
An exclusive lead is an opportunity that is sent to a single contractor.
When it comes to exclusive leads, you won’t have to compete with other companies or get into bidding wars over leads. These leads are typically more expensive than shared leads as they’re sold exclusively to you and at a higher quality.
Pay Per Call
Pay per call is an advertising strategy that provides quality phone calls to businesses that pay for each call they receive.
The number is meant to appear at the top of search engines either in an ad or a website that a potential customer clicks on when searching for specific services. The goal is to end up with as many quality leads as possible that the business has the ability to turn into real customers. But it’s important to understand that not all lead generation companies are created equal, some may charge for wrong numbers, spam, or resold leads from months ago. A reputable lead generation company will only charge for leads that have the true potential of turning into customers.
Pay Per Click(PPC)
Pay per click, also known as PPC, is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their online ads.
There are different types of PPC ads, but the most common is a Paid Search Ad. The goal of PPC advertising is to drive quality traffic to a website by having your ads show up for relevant search terms in search engines like Google and Bing. The challenge with PPC is that you are paying for traffic, but that traffic hasn't yet turned into a potential new customer, so you better be sure that your website is optimized to take that traffic and convert them into a lead.
Cost Per Lead(CPL)
Cost per lead (CPL) is the amount you decide to spend on a lead.
For best results, it is recommended to set your CPL as high as possible in order to get a higher performance rate and increase your chances of quality lead generation. A higher CPL allows advertisers to be more competitive with bidding and get your search results at the top of popular search engines.
Lead Management
Lead management involves both tracking and managing leads from the time they are generated as a contact to the time they turn into a customer.
Lead management is an important process of lead generation as it allows clients to review and track their lead conversions, detect spam calls or wrong numbers and mark them as invalid, and see what changes they can make in order to get more quality leads, like increasing their CPL. The more you’re able to track and analyze your leads, the more your lead generation efforts will improve and produce effective results.
After reviewing these key terms that rule the world of lead generation, you should be able to decide what strategies work best for your business needs and make the most of your lead generation journey!
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