For you to understand the role of lead management software, I will give you an example that we can all relate to.
If you are a parent or a friend to one you know besides the joy of being the mother/father of the little kid, you know the process of raising a kid is not easy.
Well, one or two are manageable, but what would happen if you had dozens of kids who are all crying to get your undivided attention?
It would be easier to take two kids that you love the most and give them your attention, but that would hurt the rest – misaligning you from your mission of making all of them happy.
This is exactly the same thing that happens with growing enterprises when they begin receiving inquiries to leads they can’t handle.
They are unable to give all the leads quality attention, and just like the dozen babies, they are unsatisfied and begin scattering.
This is where Lead Management System comes in,
Lead Management is a method used to manage all the leads, equally and constantly.
However, this is the old definition of the process. With technology, the software does more than managing leads. It has a direct effect on sales by merging sales and marketing.
On this new light, Lead Management is best defined as follows;
The process of capturing all leads, tracking their behavior and activities, qualifying them, given them all attention to make them sales-ready and then the sales team takes over.
This may sound easy until leads start pouring in, but we will save you the headache and take you through the process of lead management.
1. Lead Capture Automation
During your marketing activities, you have been using different online platforms such as webinars, social media, email, paid ads, just to mention a few. Lead capture automation ensures that all the leads are automatically captured in the system. This makes sense because entering all the leads manually would take a lot of time.
Lead capture automation sees that each lead is entered into the system at the point of origin; hence there is no leakage of any sort.
Another aspect of the automation process is helping you know the leads that are earning you more revenue than others.
Besides the high-profit leads, you can also identify the leads draining your resources. The data is very crucial for business intelligence and marketing as they can use it to adjust their finances to increase their sales.
2. Lead Tracking
Once a lead enters your system, the website visitors’ profile automatically appears with their public information such as their job position, firm name, and social media details. This saves your team from searching for the data manually or enter the information manually.
The lead software also starts tracking the behavior and activities for the leads – the forms they are filling, the pages they are visiting, the time they are spending on your blog, etc.
In short, it gives you information on the lead that you wouldn’t otherwise have. Thanks to technology advancement, the lead software can also track chats and phone conversations. This are great sources of sales opportunities by converting visitors to potential customers.
3. Lead Distribution
A good manager knows the ability of all his/her sales team and hence knows the right person to assign a certain lead. However, this would take a very long time.
A good lead tracking software assigns the leads to the right sales team to avoid wasting time.
A lead distribution system will auto-assign the leads in any logic you set it
For example
Pass the Lead to the Malaysia Team if the location is Malaysia
Or
Pass the Lead to Nick if they are interested in Product C
In most cases, a company has an added advantage if they contact their lead first.
Remember if a lead filled an inquiry form in your firm, they have done the same for five other companies with similar services.
Lead distribution ensures that you reduce the response time and assign the lead to the most relevant individual. In return, the lead will enjoy a great experience in your site the whole time.
4. Lead Qualification
One of the best ways to qualify leads is through lead scoring. This is the point where you decide whether the leads are worth following up or not. The qualified leads are known as sales-ready leads.
Lead scoring ranks the leads based on the engagement with your firm and demographic information.
By assigning scores based on the leads’ behavior on your product and website, country, job title, engagement with your email – a sales team can quickly identify qualified and unqualified leads. This allows your sales rep to direct the energy in the effective leads.Here is an illustration of how lead scores may be given.
Lead A Lead B Lead C
CEO INTERN SALES HEAD
Score 8 Score 3 Score 5
Here the quality score of Lead A is higher than that of Lead B and Lead C. This is because according to the used criteria CEO as a job title has more power than that of a sales head and definitely that of an intern.
The quality score shows that the priority should be given to Lead A. The manager lead helps the sales team pursue the right leads at the right time.
Although we cannot fully replace human interaction with lead software for quality scoring, it helps to understand the intent and seriousness of a buyer. The management process leads you right into customers.
5. Lead Nurturing
One thing you should know as a business owner is that there is nothing like a dead lead. Even though a lead may not buy at the moment, they may be future potential buyers. This is why lead nurturing is vital in the process.
Some may not buy, but you can change their minds by giving them a pleasant experience in whatever they wanted from you.
This may be through a blog-post, an e-book, or some freebies to advocate your business.
In the process, you may understand why a lead is not interested in your products or services, which in turn allows you to get him/her interested. This type of leads makes the biggest part of your database – the maybe’s (those who are not interested immediately).
This category goes through the nurturing process and may come out the other side ready to be sold to.
The lead nurturing process involves sharing various contents with the leads that they might find interesting consistently.
The engagement can be through social media, SMSs, triggered emails (or drip emails) or email campaigns.
One Final Word
The business world is becoming more competitive every day. As a business owner, you have to be alert on all the sales and marketing strategies that could help you grab as many sales opportunities as possible.
Among the trending methods is the lead management process. The latter ensures that you give all your potential buyers undivided attention.
It also helps you in quickly identifying the most potential leads and following them up before your competitors, which increases the potential of them buying from you.
The lead management software also gives you the chance to nurture what you may have thought to be “dead leads” and turn them to potential clients.
Generally, lead management will boost the power of your sales team, which in turn will improve the overall performance of your firm.