What is “lead generation”?
Lead generation is the marketing and sales activity of identifying and engaging prospective customers — turning unknown audiences into qualified leads who can be progressed through the sales pipeline. Lead generation spans inbound (content marketing, SEO, paid ads driving form completions), outbound (cold email, calls, LinkedIn outreach), event marketing, and partnership-driven referrals.
Main lead generation channels
- Inbound: SEO content, gated assets (whitepapers, webinars), product-led signups, organic social.
- Paid: Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Meta Ads, programmatic display.
- Outbound: SDR cold email and call campaigns; targeted LinkedIn outreach.
- Events: conferences, meetups, webinars, partner-hosted events.
- Referral and partnership: introductions from customers, advisors, and channel partners.
Lead qualification framework
- MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead): showed enough interest to warrant sales contact.
- SQL (Sales Qualified Lead): sales has confirmed the lead meets ideal-customer-profile criteria and is worth pursuing.
- Opportunity: sales has progressed the lead into the active pipeline.
Türk B2B pazarında lead generation
Türk B2B pazarında inbound lead generation Türkçe SEO ve uzun-form içeriğin geri dönüşü görece zayıftır; karar vericiler hala referans, sektör konferansları ve doğrudan ağa güvenir. LinkedIn outbound Türk kurumsal alıcıda daha iyi performans gösterir. KVKK uyumu kritik — lead capture formlarının açık rıza ve aydınlatma metni gerektirir; yurtdışı CRM’lere veri aktarımı (HubSpot, Salesforce) için SCC ve DPA imzalanmalıdır.
Do: measure cost-per-qualified-lead per channel and reallocate quarterly; vanity metrics (raw leads) mislead.
Don’t: scale outbound before product-market fit — high lead volume without conversion just teaches the SDR team bad habits.