What is a Lead and What is not Lead

As Digital Marketers we use the word so much. Get Leads, Convert Leads, This Lead, That Lead, and so on. However, what is a "lead" in the real sense?

That's what we are going to learn today

There are a lot of people out there in the real world who would want to buy your products and services. You are here with a product or service that you want to sell. How are you going to reach out to your potential customers?

A lead is called a lead because it leads to a sale.

A lead is a connecting link between you (your business) and your prospect who is out there in the real world.
A lead usually consists of the following 3 things:

• Name
• Email ID
• Phone Number

Sometimes the leads do not contain the names. Sometimes it is either the email ID or the phone number.
The Email ID or the phone number helps you reach out to your potential prospect and have a conversation with them so that you can tell them about your products and services.

• If you want to have a sales call, you need leads.
• If you want to invite people to a webinar, you need leads.
• If you want to invite people to an event, you need leads.

What are not leads?

When we are talking about what are leads, it also helps to talk about what are not leads.
A lot of people focus a lot on building their social media following. But they are not your leads.
All these are not leads:

• Facebook Fans
• Instagram Followers
• Twitter Followers
• YouTube Subscribers

You are having a connection in someone else's platform and that is not going to be helping if you want to sell something to them. Many times, you will not be able to get 100% reach (or even 30%) because they are the users of the platform and not your users. Hence you will not be able to reach out to them on demand.