As we cover Lead Generation and online marketing in this blog, We are puting together definitions for a few frequently used terms from relevant sources like Wikipedia that should be helpful to the someone
new to lead generation to understand and use the techniques.

Customer relationship management:

Consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments. Typical CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management

Lead generation (commonly abbreviated as lead-gen) :
Is a marketing term that refers to the creation or generation of prospective consumer interest or inquiry into a business' products or services. Leads can be generated for a variety of purposes - list building, e-newsletter list acquisition or for winning customers.A lead is a sign-up for an advertiser offer that includes contact information and in some cases, demographic information. There are two types of leads in the lead generation market: sales leads and marketing leads.Sales leads are generated on the basis of demographic criteria such as FICO score, income, age, HHI, etc. These leads are resold to multiple advertisers. Sales leads are typically followed up through phone calls by the sales force. Sales leads are commonly found in the mortgage, insurance and finance markets.Marketing leads are brand-specific leads generated for a unique advertiser offer. In direct contrast to sales leads, marketing leads are sold only once. Because transparency is a necessary requisite for generating marketing leads, marketing lead campaigns can be optimized by mapping leads to their sources.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_generation


Conversion optimization:
In internet marketing, conversion optimization is the science and art of creating an experience for a website visitor with the goal of converting the visitor into a customer.Conversion optimization was born out of the need of lead generation and ecommerce internet marketers to improve their website's results. As competition grew on the web during the early 2000's, Internet marketers had to become more measurable with their marketing tactics. They began experimenting with website design and content variations to determine the layouts, copy text, offers and images will improve their conversion rate. Many practitioners have contributed to the field, including Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, Anne Holland, Tim Ash, Jonathan Mendez and Chris Goward.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_optimization

Internet marketing:
Also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it not only refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems. Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sale.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_marketing