When you're getting started with lead generation, you should familiarize yourself with a variety of basic terms. Here is a glossary of some basic lead generation and sales terms and definitions for your reference:
Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU): Prospects that are at the bottom of the sales funnel and nearing a purchase.
Budget, Authority, Need, and Time (BANT): A method for qualifying likely sales prospects. You want to talk to people who have the budget, authority, need, and time for your product or service.
B2B: Business-to-business.
B2C: Business-to-consumer.
Call-to-Action (CTA): Asking a lead to take an action. A CTA often takes the form of a digital image that encourages a lead to move closer towards making a purchase.
Click-through rate (CTR): A percentage of how many users actually click a link; a way of measuring the success of online or email sales campaigns.
CMS (content management system): A computer system that allows users to publish and edit content from a single interface.
Inbound marketing: A marketing strategy that earns the attention of customers, drawing them in to attract new business through content marketing, search engine optimization, social media, and more.
Lead generation: The marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing a sales pipeline.
Lead nurturing: The process of building relationships with qualified prospects, regardless of their readiness to buy.
Lead scoring: The technique of assigning leads a score based on points given to a lead's demographic attributes, behaviors, and web activity for the purpose of sending warm leads to sales.
Middle-of-funnel (MOFU): Prospects in the middle stages of the sales funnel.
Outbound marketing: The process of pushing your message out to customers through general advertising and other paid programs.
Pay-per-click (PPC): An Internet advertising model where advertisers pay every time their ad is clicked by a user.
Return on investment (ROI): The results gained for your dollars spent.
Sales and marketing alignment: Collaboration between the sales and marketing team for common definitions of what constitutes a good lead and closed-loop lead lifecycles.
Sales funnel: The progression that your company tracks while generating, qualifying, and closing leads throughout the sales and marketing lifecycle.
Service-level agreement: A part of a contract where a service is defined.
Top-of-funnel (TOFU): Prospects in the top or beginning stages of the sales funnel.