What are the factors that affect the growth of a business? Among many things, lead management seems to be a significant one. The reason is that with the right online lead management system, the company will be able to bring more customers, increase sales, and have a smoother lead generation strategy.
How do you set the lead management process so that it is effective? You need to back your online lead generation strategy with the proper lead management solutions.
Read on to learn more about the basics of online lead management and how to improve the lead management process.
Lead Management System Basics
Before all, the sales lead management aims to manage the captured leads and bring them to purchase the products or services. In this regard, you need to understand what the lead management process is about.
One can divide it into the following stages:
Identifying and capturing leads
The first phase of lead generation management contemplates identification and capturing the leads. You may launch a unique ad campaign, find emails by name, create a lead magnet, or do LinkedIn outreach to collect valuable data about the leads or reach out to them. It starts the inflow of leads into your system, where many things will depend on your lead generation strategies.
Tracking leads
Next, your system will need you to track the leads. In particular, on this level, the specialists usually focus on where the leads come from, at what stage of the sales cycle they are, and what they seek. Much research is done, including enrichment of data and looking for insights. Yes, at this point, you realize that manual management of the leads is hard enough, pushing you to automate processes and implement a CRM system.
Qualification and distribution of leads
After understanding the lead’s behavior, intentions, and source, it is time to qualify them. You need to define their score, and assessing the possibility of becoming a customer. There, such things as interest, urgency and your interaction with them are considered to determine the customers with the highest potential to buy the goods.
Notably, the lead gen specialists can do additional research here. Next, after the priority leads are defined, they are distributed to the sales teams for nurturing and communication with potential customers.
Nurturing leads
The next part of the lead management process is concerned with the provision of value to the leads, making them move from the middle stages of the lead generation funnel to the ultimate ones. Significantly, the lead generation tactics affect the point from where the nurturing will start.
At this stage, the sales communicate with prospects, present solutions, educate, share insights, and offer value to them. Thus, at this point, they use various content pieces and promotions to encourage the purchase.
Reconsideration of leads
Lastly, in the lead management process, the reconsideration of data is essential. Specific data should be deleted due to being irrelevant; the other information should be stored for later usage. For instance, you may want to close a deal and move a person for re-engagement in the future.
Or you can define the lead as irrelevant and delete their data from the CRM. The efficient leads management system requires you to clear the unnecessary data for greater control and order.
As a result, one can see that sales lead management may not be an easy process, implying multiple operations. In this regard, the business should consider using lead management tools at least at certain stages of the lead management process.
How to Manage Leads Effectively?
Now, as you see the complicated nature of the online lead management system, you can guess that its efficiency depends on how you operate on various levels. Also, it is important how you measure results. Notably, focus on marketing and sales performance as well as ROI.
Your main goal here is to make the operation run smoothly and have a balance. To achieve it, you should contribute to key stages and support it with the lead management tools. Yes, a Google Sheet can be your senior lead management software. Yet, it is not as effective as special tools.
On the other hand, much depends on how you capture leads, distribute them and engage with them.
The particular lead management tips will allow you to get out the best leads from the lead generation tactics you apply:
Define the buying persona accurately
Determining the buying persona from the beginning will save you efforts and time. Why? Having an ideal picture of the lead will allow you to target people more accurately, putting quality in the center.
What are the main things to consider here? You need to create a fictional or half-real profile based on the data you have on the current customers, the previous research, and your observations. Thus, pay special attention to demographics, their habits and behavior, and where they hang out. Do polls and ask people why they choose your product and how it solves their needs.
Also, if you are a B2B actor, consider their position and role, the size of their company, and the business goals they have at work, as you may want to target decision-makers.
A good buyer persona profile will allow you to pick suitable lead generation strategies and find an appealing approach to nurturing concerning the tone of voice, style, and offers.
Determine an effective lead-capturing process
When you have your buyer persona established, you are likely to be more quality leads at the stage of lead capturing. At this point, you should consider things: accuracy and value. You need to keep the information on the leads in order from the very beginning to be able to proceed on time.
If your lead capturing strategy works for one channel, you can use a universal standardized form to collect contact information on all of the leads. After it, you can enrich it. Yet, it brings more pressure to the later stage of the lead management process, where time can determine the success of a deal.
The alternative for you to apply refers to customized forms you are likely to use if you apply different lead generation methods. Have a separate form for those you capture with a lead magnet, targeting ads, or educational events.
They all have different importance for you, deriving from their interest in your product. For instance, those who come to you after a course or webinar may have more trust in your services. You can process the leads more quickly if you decide to segment them.
Do not let the hot leads go cold
Also, it is vital that you promptly answer your leads so that you have ongoing inflow within your online lead management system. Why? Hot leads are easier to convert. Thus, the sooner you answer, the higher the chance for you to maintain their high level of interest.
In this regard, you should use filters in the CRM that will show you the hot leads. Thus, prioritize moving those leads that answer to promotions up the sales cycle that your leads management process reflects.
Segment audience
Another crucial aspect of sales leads management is segmentation. You need to create a practical system that will allow you to group your audience. It will not only help you organize the leads but diversify your approaches to nurturing and personalization.
Thus, use tags, labels, lists, and groups to organize the leads. From there, it would be easier for salespeople to navigate the leads flow, qualify the leads and nurture them.
Back your actions with lead management automation
Picking the right CRM for lead management is extremely important. However, this lead management program is not the only tool you will likely use.
You can use the leads database software or enrichment tools to affect your lead management plan. They are crucial for capturing and tracking leads. At the same time, chatbots can leverage your capturing process, while email marketing software can allow you to personalize messages for closing deals and nurturing campaigns.
Work on a nurturing system
Also, make your lead management nurturing actions more lead-oriented. You need to create a system that provides automated responses and considers the available data. Also, do not forget about personalization at this stage. You can personalize your templates based on the enrichment data. Such software as Lemlist can help you with that.
Besides, you can create a specific content map that will match the pieces and material with the lead’s level of interest, status, role, or position. That can help you target different groups with specific content and provide more relevant information.
The relevancy and details are essential for building relations that increase the leads’ chances of becoming customers.
Support communication between marketers and sales
Try to encourage your marketing and sales to operate together and communicate effectively. One of the solutions for better operation is having a shared revenue goal. It will motivate both parties to do good work, focusing on fair reporting and the provision of accurate data.
Moreover, ensure that most processes are visible and people understand their roles. In this regard, the defined vision of the company’s lead management process is necessary. Thus, try to create shared workshops and meetings for both teams so that they can exchange ideas and issues and provide solutions.