Tag Archive for: Lead Management

Lead Liaison

8 Ways to Improve Sales Productivity With Lead Management Automation

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8 Ways to Improve Sales Productivity With Lead Management AutomationIs your B-to-B enterprise challenged to uncover ways to improve sales because of stiff competition? If so, here are 8 ways to improve sales productivity with lead management automation. Often, the solution is how well leads are managed from the point of acquisition to the point they are handed to your sales team. The way to improve sales productivity is also the answer to increased marketing and sales efficiency – lead management automation.

Within most traditional lead management programs, there are multiple factors that impact sales outcomes, such as outreach or lead qualification. The problem is that most of these factors take time to develop, implement, and evaluate. Even with all the automated functions available to B-to-B companies, there are still countless small, mid-size, and (yes) large enterprises that continue to acquire and manage leads manually. This leads to lost time, discarded leads, and inefficient sales practices.

Lead management automation provides several key functions that, when implemented properly,  can reduce sales cycles, increase close rates, and generate greater revenue. Here are 8 cornerstones of a strong lead management platform:

Sales Prospecting

Sales agents can search a database of over 200 million companies to find industry, company, and contact details. System users can target prospects by company, job title, or state. Additionally, agents can search your existing database for social and behavior profiles of your prospects.

Lead Generation

Identifying leads can be a difficult and time-consuming activity. Through an automated lead generation function, your sales team has an additional member – your website. Lead management automation supports your sales agents’ prospecting by tracking website visitors and delivering only interested prospects to your sales team.

Lead Nurturing

Most experienced sales professionals will tell you that 80% of leads are not ready to buy when they are first contacted. Companies can improve sales productivity through an automated process of consistent outreach and escalating messaging as leads advance through the sales pipeline.

Lead Qualification

It’s tough to close sales without reaching the right person with adequate buying signals. Leads can be easily qualified through a lead management automation solution that identifies whether a prospect is viable and appears ready to buy.

Sales Pipeline Management

One of the more effective ways to improve sales is to recognize where a lead is in the sales pipeline. Contacts that are approached too soon or too late result in failed sales attempts. Lead management automation provides a lead scoring matrix for sales to identify when a lead has become marketing-qualified and is ready for a sales call.

CRM Integration

Today’s sales force uses customer relationship management software to manage sales activities. To optimize your sales team’s ability to understand its prospects from first contact through sales support, a lead management automation platform integrates with existing CRM software.

Buy Signal Detection

When a prospect is ready to buy, there are often digital buy signals that indicate sales-readiness. Salespeople can be alerted when a signal is transmitted, such as opening a time-sensitive email message or submitting a web form.

Email Campaigns

With lead management automation, the return on email campaigns can be markedly improved. Users can create multiple email messages at one time then schedule delivery throughout a specified time period. Sales agents can focus follow up activities with only those that performed specific activities like opening the message or clicking through a link.

Despite the term “marketing automation” being often used to describe products that provide a digital lead management process, lead management automation is just as effective at improving sales productivity as it is at improving marketing practices.

Lead Liaison

Magic Quadrant for Lead Management

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What is Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Lead Management all about? Some high profile names such as Marketo, Eloqua, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.com were mentioned. Lead Liaison was not in the Magic Quadrant for Lead Management, but that’s easily to explain. We’re still a relatively young company and have yet to clear the $20M revenue threshold that’s required to be part of the report. The future looks incredibly bright though as we’re blazing our own trail of innovation in the marketing automation industry. If you don’t have a copy of the lead management report we can give you a quick summary.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Lead ManagementIn all honesty, 95% of the report is about vendor profiling. 12 companies are placed across four quadrants, called leaders, challengers, niche players and visionaries. I think it’s fair to say if Lead Liaison was added to the report we’d be in the visionaries category. The other 5% of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Lead Management covers a few areas we’re fond of. Namely market definition/description, market overview and primary characteristics of CRM lead management. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of those two segments of the report for those of you who want to skip the vendor spiel:

Market Definition:

  1. Lead management integrates business process and technology to close the loop between marketing and sales and to drive higher-value opportunities through demand creation, execution and opportunity management.

  2. The input to lead management processes is unqualified contacts and opportunities from various marketing sources.

  3. The output to lead management processes is qualified, scored, nurtured, augmented and prioritized selling opportunities handed off to direct or indirect sales channels for action and closure.

Market Overview:

  1. Investments in CRM marketing automation and applications and services (including lead management) grew by more than 20% in 2011 and 2012. Gartner expects investment to continue to rise during the next several years. This means more and more companies recognize the importance of marketing automation and lead management in particular because it does three primary things as described below.

  2. Marketing automation and lead management increases enterprise growth, attracts and retains new customers and maximizes productivity of sales organizations.

  3. Factors driving the growth of marketing automation and lead management are the overall growth and success of the CRM markets and investment in digital marketing.

  4. Recent M&A and IPO activities underscore market interest in this sector (Marketo IPO, Eloqua bought by Oracle, Pardot bought by ExactTarget).

  5. B2B marketers are adopting marketing channels normally used for B2C marketing such as social media.

Three Primary Characteristics Define CRM Lead Management:

  1. Focus on business and marketing processes

  2. Focus on products or services that represent a sizable investment  (also known as “considered purchases”). Businesses selling high-value products or services tend to get a higher return on their investment.

  3. A handoff of qualified leads to a direct salesperson or an indirect sales team (value-added reseller or distributor), an inside sales team, or an automated channel.
Lead Liaison

Marketing Automation Improves Sales Pipeline Management

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Sales Pipeline ManagementFor most small to mid-size B2B companies staying competitive with the “big boys” is a day-to-day challenge. Solution pricing, available resources,  and operational costs must be constantly managed to remain viable. The most important business practice, sales, is often managed poorly so perfectly good sales leads slip through the cracks as a bare-bones staff tries to hit as many leads as possible to generate revenue and earn commissions. In fact, managing your sales pipeline efficiently may mean the difference between staying afloat and closing your doors.

The good news is: there is a sales pipeline management solution available which often makes financial sense to employ yet is overlooked as a cost-effective answer to lost leads. A marketing automation platform, such as our Lead Management Automation™ solution, can focus your sales agents and boost your close rate. However, putting a marketing automation system in place will only be effective if used properly. Here are five steps to improve your sales pipeline management practices by using an automated marketing program to boost sales effectiveness and enhance your lead management practices.

  1. Develop a lead profile based upon your existing customer base. Most salespeople are particular about the leads they will pursue. They want hot leads. The trouble is that most small to mid-size B2B enterprises are not set up to efficiently provide the most sales-ready leads to their sales agents. The first step is to define an optimal lead profile based on attributes and behaviors evident in your typical customer. This profile will represent the “low hanging fruit”. A marketing automation platform allows users to define the optimal sales prospect through lead scoring criteria; once a prospect (lead) achieves a specific score, any associated information can be easily shifted to a customer relationship management (CRM) program to be used when the sales department makes contact.
  2. Track the lead source once a prospect has entered the sales pipeline. Knowing how leads have come to your company is important in addressing their needs. Most B2B buyers spend time researching solutions prior to purchase. A lead management system that includes a marketing automation platform allows a sales agent to better connect with prospects by understanding what they are seeking and what marketing messages they have responded to.
  3. Distribute leads effectively (based upon lead scoring criteria) and quickly (based upon achieving a lead scoring threshold). Many times prospects are not ready to buy when B2B salespeople contact them. A marketing automation system provides a timing mechanism that, when used properly, will deliver the best leads at the appropriate time to the sales department.
  4. Nurture prospects when they are not ready to buy. As mentioned in #3, most leads aren’t ready to buy on first contact with your company. A marketing automation program will routinely deliver marketing messages and encourage prospect engagement to move leads through the sales pipeline until they are ready for a sales call. In this way, your sales agents are speaking with leads that have been introduced to your solutions, have been exposed to support materials (such as a white paper or webinar), and have been educated to the point where sales staff can now work on buying objections.
  5. Measure your company’s marketing effectiveness. A marketing automation program will provide analytics that reveal how effective your marketing messages have been in not only attracting leads but nurturing them (moving them through the sales pipeline) to the point of a sales contact. Although small to mid-size companies can develop their own systems for measuring sales effectiveness, the time and expense involved with such efforts can be wasted if an unproven and/or ineffective system is implemented.

There are more reasons to implement a marketing automation platform as a way to improve sales pipeline management. If you’d like to find out how our marketing automation solutions can boost your sales department’s effectiveness, contact a Lead Liaison representative for a free consultation.

Lead Liaison

Why Your Sales Pipeline Needs Marketing Automation

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Why Your Sales Pipeline Needs Marketing AutomationHave you thought about why your sales pipeline needs marketing automation? We came across an old post the other day that got us talking about marketing automation and the sales lead pipeline. One of Lead Liaison Revenue Performance Specialists commented that B2B lead management has been completely changed because of marketing automation. How, you ask?

1. Redefines Early Pipeline Stages

In the past, a B2B sales pipeline has typically included four primary stages: Inquiry, Lead, Opportunity, and Customer. Thanks to marketing automation sales managers can have a more well-defined view of activity leading up to a sales close. There are four newly recognized phases in today’s sales lead pipeline:  Prospecting, Awareness, Qualification, and Nurturing. These new stages have become recognized as important contributors to the sales cycle.

2. Provides Lead Scoring

B2B marketing automation provides measurements that score leads as they become more familiar with your solutions and company. The commonly quoted industry standard of 80% of first contact B2B leads are not ready to buy means that leads require deeper connections through consistent, progressively-staged messaging. During the lead nurturing process leads can be digitally scored  for sales-readiness within an MA system, which allows salespeople to focus on the hottest leads.

3. Gives Sales Agents Better Information

Sales agents have a greater understanding of sales prospects before they make contact because of the data collected through marketing automation. For example, activities such as webinar attendance and infographic views can be captured in a MA system and reveal how informed a lead is about your products. A savvy sales agent can incorporate that information into her sales approach with that lead. Often B2B prospects must be educated about business solutions. Moving leads through a sales pipeline using a marketing automation system also provides a focused product education process. Automated messaging helps lessen the educational responsibility for your salespeople.

4. Gets Marketers More Involved in the Game

In the past, marketers have had little accountability when it came to moving a prospect to a customer. With marketing automation, marketers now have more “skin in the game” when it comes to moving leads through the sales pipeline. The newly-added sales pipeline stages we mentioned earlier are, for the most part, marketing-related. Prospecting, creating awareness, and lead nurturing rely on digital messaging, social media and search engine strategies, and other marketing-related activities. And now management can see how effective digital marketing campaigns are at bringing in qualified leads through the use of an automated marketing system.

5. Provides Consistent Message Scheduling

Marketing automation uses staged release mechanisms to contact leads on a regular basis. Marketing campaigns used to rely on a lot of leg work to distribute messages; with MA that is no longer the case. From emails to blog posts to articles to press releases, digital marketing assets can be deployed at scheduled intervals using a streamlined process provided by a marketing automation system.

6. Allows Managers to Manage Better

With the incredible level of analytics an automated marketing system provides, marketing and sales directors can now analyze critical details about marketing activities. From page views to click-throughs, MA systems provide data and information that can be used to either improve good marketing campaigns or scrap ineffective ones. Some marketing automation systems require a sizeable investment and may not be appropriate for every company, but those that invest in a marketing automation system to manage their sales lead pipeline find their marketing and sales effectiveness improves. To learn more about how marketing automation can help your company contact a Lead Liaison representative.

Lead Liaison

Better Lead Management using Marketing Automation

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Better Lead Management using Marketing AutomationLead management drives business. Being able to gather, nurture, and direct leads is a fundamental aspect of every company’s success. Marketing automation has streamlined this process into a highly-effective machine that produces leads with a 50% higher conversion rate than traditional marketing. It provides better lead management using automated software combined with a personalized approach to target leads efficiently and effectively. Here’s how you can achieve better lead management using marketing automation.

Driven by Lead’s Online Activity

Marketing automation sources leads based on their online behavior and demographic profile. This gives marketers the ability to tap into a lead’s buying process to determine how they research and source their purchases. It is focused on the links they click on, the pages they visit, as well as the demographic characteristics that they volunteer during online registrations.

Measures Activity Using Lead Scoring

Online activity is measured using lead scoring criteria to determine which leads have the highest potential for conversion, resulting in better lead management. It gives higher priority to leads with recent activity and it degrades leads based on periods of inactivity. Lead scoring also attaches a value to each lead based on their professional information and the behavior they have exhibited on a website.

Gives Sales Only Qualified Leads

By comparing leads to an ideal customer profile using lead scoring, marketing can determine where each lead is at in their buying process and how likely they are to convert. Only qualified sales leads with the highest scores are passed onto the sales department, so their time is never wasted on leads that have a low potential for conversion.

Offers Further Lead Nurturing for Leads that are Not Ready

Unqualified or cold leads are redirected back into the lead nurturing program until their engagement level increases. Lead nurturing offers potential consumers answer to their most frequently asked questions. It is personalized and relevant content that provides leads with free advice in an effort to build trust in a particular brand.

Creates Strong Relationship with Leads

Since leads are first profiled and then nurtured, marketing automation has the power to create a strong relationship with the lead prior to the purchasing being made. Effective lead nurturing will establish a company as being a trustworthy expert in their field. If the lead nurturing program is effective, leads will feel like they can rely on the free information provided by the business. This will also make them feel more confident in their decision to buy.

Lead management is a complex process that used to require a team of marketing professionals. It can now be efficiently managed using marketing automation software that is driven by potential lead’s online behavior and demographic profile. It generates more qualified leads and nurtures undecided leads until they are ready to make a decision. It also builds trust between lead and supplier. There is no doubt that better lead management can be achieved using marketing automation.

Lead Liaison

Lead Liaison Helps Marketers Measure Lead Management Effectiveness

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Allen, TX (PRWEB) March 5th, 2013 – Lead Liaison has released another free lead management tool, the Lead Management Grader (LMG), for business managers to rate the effectiveness of their sales and marketing activities. The company announced the release following a survey period which ended in February to help marketers measure lead management effectiveness.

The Lead Management Grader was released in response to customer requests for an easy way to gauge effectiveness of their sales and marketing practices. Lead Liaison’s product development team reviewed the lackluster and sometimes complicated tools available, and then created the Lead Management Grader to be simplistic yet comprehensive. As part of this announcement Lead Liaison is also offering a complementary review of lead management processes for qualifying businesses using the Lead Management Grader. The review will give businesses the proper “color” behind the process and give them the confidence to further assess their company’s operations.

The Lead Management Grader is a dynamic tool built with Microsoft Excel that provides 25 preconfigured scoring parameters. The parameters measure common practices within five distinct phases of lead management. Executives are able to input scoring values and adjust the relative weight for each scoring parameter.

The tool allows users to calculate the effectiveness of their lead management practices within each phase of lead management. Companies can easily and quickly grade how well their sales and marketing teams are doing in areas such as lead generation, lead distribution, and lead nurturing. The tool gives companies a way to self-assess their lead management process by determining what areas need improvement and which practices are well executed.

Values can be entered for parameters like passing only qualified leads to the sales department or segmenting CRM records into targeted lists. There are 50 fields which can be adjusted to accurately reflect company-specific measures and parameter weighting. Default values for rating and weight are preconfigured but users can adjust the values to reflect their company’s unique business analysis practices.

Company executives can analyze six facets of its lead management process: sales prospecting, lead generation, lead qualification, lead distribution, lead nurturing, and campaign ROI measurement.

Measurements for each facet are configured to determine a final grade. Scoring for each facet is then displayed graphically in brilliant colors that visually depict the relative strengths and weaknesses for every practice.

Lead Management Grader can be requested from the company’s website, http://www2.leadliaison.com/lead-management-grader/. It is available at no charge for existing customers and other interested parties. For more information contact Lead Liaison at 888 895 3237.

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Lead Liaison is an application development company that designs, develops, and sells cloud-based marketing and sales automation software. The company markets to small and medium-sized businesses worldwide, and focuses on creating the broadest and most user-friendly revenue generation software platform. Applications cover all phases of lead management automation including sales prospecting, lead generation, and marketing automation functions that directly influence revenue generation. It’s innovative and robust lead management platform combines unparalleled sales prospecting, lead capture, real-time lead tracking, lead qualification, lead distribution, database segmentation, lead nurturing and ROI reporting. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model delivers an effective user experience and integrated cloud computing capabilities.

Media Contacts:
Alex Brown
VP Corporate Communications
abrown(at)leadliaison(dot)com
888.89.53237 (LEADS)
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Lead Liaison

Mix Up Your Marketing and Invest in the Best Lead Management Solution

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Invest in the Best Lead Management SolutionMix up your marketing and be sure to invest in the best lead management software. Before we start talking about our ultimate goal – lead management solutions – let’s get into some background. Brad Miller at Search Engine Watch recently penned an article discussing how the future of SEO is based on today’s search marketing integration techniques. [1] Just the mention of another fancy web marketing term like search marketing integration can scare the daylights out of any humble company. But before you close the browser and say, “just starting my Adwords account was difficult enough…” stay with us.

Search marketing integration is about getting ranked higher in Google by ensuring all components of your digital marketing are optimized. By optimized, we mean the following:

  • Keyword-rich, descriptive content on your website
  • The same useful keyword-rich content across your social media platforms
  • Content that engages your audience and uses carefully-selected keywords in  every piece of content.If you’re responsible for the content it should be put together well, reflect your offering and feature your keywords.

Chances are, many small businesses have no plan in place for how to integrate great content and keyword-rich text into all their digital marketing efforts. Search marketing integration (SMI) is the future of digital marketing. Many small companies we talk to find broadening search marketing efforts, or even streamlining them can bring in a whole new class of leads.

The bottom line? Once you start, you’re going to have to figure out what lead management application you’ll use to keep track of all those leads and to understand their particulars. So why not develop your lead management solution while you’re diversifying your digital marketing?

What about Lead Management Solutions?

Getting your marketing efforts streamlined ensures lead management solutions will need to follow. If you’ve been working at marketing your business for a while, you know:

  • A lead from one social media site may behave differently and/or have different needs than a phone-in lead. Phone leads may have a more urgent need for services, for one thing.
  • Leads from similar sources may have different pains – and will therefore need to be handled differently.
  • If you have leads pouring in from different social media services, what kind of lead management application do you use to ensure follow-up happens in a timely manner?

Now that you know you’ll need to begin streamlining your total marketing efforts with search marketing integration, another opportunity presents itself –lead management.

Go through each channel of your marketing and come up with a search marketing integration plan for each. It can be as simple as inserting effective keywords into your social media profiles, or hiring a pro to help you manage your Adwords accounts for better branding.

While you’re at it, take a moment to consider how leads funnel in through each of your digital marketing funnels. Do you have any way of managing leads through social media vs. PPC? What about social media vs. offline marketing? If you aren’t sure, start recording some data about your clients into your lead management application to discover patterns in user behavior. Use these patterns to better analyze how you should approach follow-up with your leads.

Consider:

  • Needs/Pain – do users from social media tend to have a different need than phone-in users?
  • Urgency – what is the requested turnaround or willingness to buy from leads who funnel in from one area of your marketing vs. another?
  • Close rate – do you close leads from one funnel more than another? If so, are you using the same sales tactics for both?

Would a Lead Management Solution Help?

An intuitive application with customizable variables you can define yourself will allow you to keep track of some of the particulars of your leads. While you’re developing your internet marketing strategy, consider integrating lead management that truly works for your business and addresses the particular needs of your potential customers. Consider Lead Liaison’s lead management dashboard to help – from initial contact throughout the life of the lead.

Resources

1)   http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2239955/The-New-SEO-Search-Marketing-Integration


 

Lead Liaison

The Consequences of Poor Lead Management

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Consequences of Poor Lead ManagementInfographics are an easy, eye-catching way to discuss issues in today’s B2B environment. We recognize how helpful infographics can be in developing a lead management strategy. So we’ve produced a colorful, extensive lead management chart, which should help small to mid-size companies struggling with how they should manage their lead generation process. We call it, The Consequences of Poor Lead Management.

Often, infographics are built on statistics. Statistics provide reference points as to what industry players are doing and the results from their activities. That is why we’ve built this infographic on 10 major statistics that are referenced within the revenue generation industry.

The infographic breaks down the most quoted lead management statistics available:

  • % of buyers who research purchases online
  • % of marketing leads not passed to sales
  • % of leads that will never be followed up
  • % of sales teams with no process to re-qualify leads
  • Likelihood of leads converting if contacted within five minutes of a query
  • Average number of attempts required to make contact with a lead
  • % of marketing campaign respondents who are ready to buy immediately
  • Likelihood of lead qualification if contacted within one hour of a query
  • % of companies with no standardized sales and marketing processes
  • % of leads initially disqualified that buy within 12 months

The infographic flow chart displays ten consequences of poor lead management. Within each consequence there are extensions which highlight 2 to 17 effects of a poor lead management strategy. From every set of effects there is an outcome that results from each specific issue. This adds up to over 70 details about the consequences of poor lead management!

The infographic is intended to assist small to mid-size companies in addressing their lead management process. Lead Liaison executives hope that, by providing this information in an easy-to-follow format, the infographic can be used as a tool for boosting lead management effectiveness. By adressing the issues detailed in this free chart, companies can improve revenue generation.

The chart may be downloaded and printed so executives can easily reference the details. Check out the lead management infographic today and contact Lead Liaison for ways to improve your lead management process.

Download this infographic.

Embed Our Infographic On Your Site!

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Why Is a Lead Management System Important?

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Why Is a Lead Management System ImportantAfter your marketing efforts generate a lead, what happens to it? According to recent reports, most marketing leads are never pursued. In fact, it’s estimated that 80% of leads generated through marketing get lost, discarded or ignored. That’s a lot of lost revenue. The most effective way to prevent leads from evaporating is to use a lead management system.

Why is having a lead management system important? There are two answers: 1) you’ve spent money and resources on marketing activities to capture a lead, so it’s important not to waste that effort; and 2) most leads don’t convert on the first impression, which means they need to be nurtured over time.

So, most organizations can benefit from implementing a lead management system. Some of the more important benefits include:

Lead Organization

An lead management system provides an organized method of classifying and scoring leads as they are captured. They can be organized in multiple ways – by geography, media channel, behavioral traits, engagement period and more. Without a lead management system, it can be challenging to coordinate distribution or maintain an appropriate exposure schedule.

Response time

Today’s consumer demands rapid response to an inquiry. Without a lead management system, requests to the most likely buyers might be delayed. If some leads don’t receive a response in one hour to one day, they have likely moved on to other options. Lead management allows a company to schedule automated responses – including requests made during peak hours and off hours – which allow companies to maintain contact with leads while requests are distributed to the appropriate departments.

Lead distribution

For companies with large sales territories, a lead management system provides an organized flow of leads to the sales force, either geographically or chronologically or by product line. This helps optimize the sales staff by distributing leads to appropriate salespeople in a timely fashion. The distribution process helps optimize the sales team’s efficiency – and reduces the risk of calling on dead ends.

Lead tracking   

With a lead management system a company is able to determine a lead’s position in the sales pipeline in real-time. When leads become more engaged they can be scheduled to receive more influential exposures, such as webinar invitations or free white papers. As they progress through marketing impressions, leads can be prioritized for sales engagements. Lead management often promotes accurate sales forecasting, which leads to better operations management.

Build and maintain a relationship

Many buyers are not prepared to purchase after only one or two contacts. A lead management system funnels leads through a process of multiple engagements, so buyers become more familiar with the company or products and more comfortable with the decision to buy. When a lead requests information, responds to free offers, clicks a link or views a page, those actions create a profile that can be analyzed then used as a guide during sales calls.

Lead Liaison

Understanding the Lead Management Process

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Understanding the Lead Management ProcessA lead is any person, organization or company that could become interested in your products who has not yet made a commitment to buy. Regardless of where you get your leads (trade show, purchased leads, online lead generation, or referrals), you will need a systematic way to receive and evaluate your leads. Your methodology should be consistent and efficiently formatted to expedite entry into your database and distribute it to your sales force. It is important to nurture your contacts more proactively and qualify leads faster, especially if you want to get ahead of your competitors.

The goal of an effective lead management process is to ensure that all sales opportunities are taken advantage of without dropping any qualified leads through cracks in the sales funnel. It will also improve the odds of turning potential leads into new customers. A good lead management process will plan and execute strategic campaigns and effectively measure your marketing ROI.

Did you know that more than half of your leads are not ready to buy after their first experience on your website? If you don’t sell them on your business in the first visit, you may not get them back again. You need to put a lot of work into attracting leads, but how you manage them after the conversion is what will determine if it was time well spent.

In business, time is money! Proper lead management will make your sales team more efficient and effective. Your sales force is paid to make sales and their time needs to be used wisely. It is important to ensure that your sales team is only working on the most qualified leads. Lead management will help you filter out the unqualified leads, so you better understand the buying cycle of those leads with the highest potential.

An effective lead management process helps target more specific customers, which is a more cost-efficient way to generate increased revenue. Inbound marketers put out a lot of new and relevant content on a regular basis. The secret to success comes from knowing exactly which content has attracted someone’s interest. Lead management enables you to identify which content and channels brought in your best, most qualified leads so you can focus your marketing activities and time on those.

A strong lead management system will also create a better experience for your prospects and leads. In a lead management system, content delivered to leads is targeted and tailored to their personal interests. In addition, because lead management documents the full history of their interactions with your company, your leads won’t have to spend as much time educating your sales team about their interests. Sales and marketing are already aligned and have an inside advantage into the customer. Lead management is more than just a software program. It is the secret to converting more sales leads into revenue.