Manage Leads

If you work in marketing or sales, you know how important it is to keep close tabs on your potential buyers. Managing the leads generated by your team is all about gathering information related to who your prospects are, what they want, and what it will take to get them to commit to a buy. Other strategies, like using an effective customer relationship management tool to organize masses of info and responding to inquiries promptly, will help you track your leads and bring you one step closer to sealing the deal.

Steps

Identifying Your Strongest Leads

  1. Come up with a clear definition of a qualified lead. Not every lead is as promising as another. Before you pour time and energy into pursuing hopeless leads, develop a criteria for differentiating “qualified” leads, or those that are ready to be sent to the sales team, from prospects that need more persuading. This will ensure that your marketing and sales staff are on the same page.[1]
    • Your company’s definition of a qualified lead may differ from another’s depending on what you look for in a potential buyer. Generally, a lead is considered "qualified" when it's been nurtured enough to give the sales team a good chance of closing on it.
    • The majority of leads that find their way to sales reps are weak or premature and are never acted on. Ultimately, this is a waste of resources that you could be using to follow up on stronger ones.[2]
  2. Figure out where most of your leads are coming from. Keep track of your various sources and marketing campaigns to learn how potential buyers are finding out about you. Are most of your leads generated through referrals, for instance, or are they coming in directly through your website? If you know where your leads originate, you’ll be able to put more of your emphasis there.[3]
    • In the Internet age, more and more prospects are arriving through online sources, including company websites, targeted ad campaigns, and viral advertising via social media.
  3. Use web analytics to determine what your leads are looking for. When reviewing your company’s online traffic, take note of where your visitors are clicking. The content they’re viewing can provide clues about the solutions they’re seeking, which will help you devise specialized marketing strategies to win their favor.[4]
    • Pay attention to how interested parties are getting to your page, as well. If they’re being redirected from industry blogs or paid ads, for instance, you’ll know to step up your advertising efforts in these places.
    • Satisfied customers are more likely to talk about their experience with your company on their own website, blog, or social media page, which could lead to more referrals.
  4. Collect as much information as you can about your prospects. In order to successfully sell your product or service, you need to know who your likely buyer is. This will require you to do a little search on your prospects and use the info you turn up to put together a comprehensive profile. Make sure your profiles include details like what line of work they’re in, what their business model is like, who their customers are, and what kind of figures they average.[5]
    • Coax more marketable details out of your prospects by asking them directed questions like, “What features are most important to you in a product?" and "How soon are you looking to make your decision?"
    • You can build and review your prospect profiles using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool of your choosing.
    • By painting a more complete picture of your prospects, you’ll be able to tailor your sales approach to their specific wants and needs.
  5. Look at what your customers have in common. Single out the successful leads you’ve converted in the past and highlight the similarities between them. It could be that their decision to buy from you is influenced by one or two key factors, such as where they’re located or the size and resources of the company they work for.[6]
    • If you see a lot of interest from startups, for example, you might safely assume that they don't have as much to spend on pricey product packages and instead focus on things like special offers and free education tools.
    • Moving forward, you’ll want to treat prospects who share traits with your past or current customers as a priority. You’re more likely to have success converting these individuals.

Keeping up With Your Leads More Effectively

  1. Make use of a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) tool. CRMs are a type of industry software designed to help marketing and sales specialists build and organize lead profiles. With a CRM, you’ll have all the most important information right at your fingertips. This makes it possible to scan your database, reduce data entry time, and closely track lead qualification and conversion.[7]
    • Your CRM will also keep an eye on things like prospect engagement rates and web analytics data for you.
    • A few of the CRMs rated most highly by sales professionals include Apptivo CRM, Zoho CRM, Fresh Sales CRM, and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.[8]
  2. Score your leads to better understand their conversion potential. Scoring leads involves ranking prospects by their position in the sales process. As you start getting responses to online content, ads, and emails, separate your leads into categories indicating their level of interaction and interest. This will tell you how close they are to conversion.[9]
    • A simple number system is usually the simplest to assign and track. In a 100-point system, a lead with a score of 30 may still be in the early stages of nurturing, while one that has reached 90 is ready to be handed off to sales.
    • Many high-end CRMs come with helpful built-in lead-scoring tools.[10]
    • Having an idea of how far along a given lead is will make it easier to come up with an appropriate plan of action to get them sales-ready.
  3. Nurture your leads to get them ready for the sales team. Once you’ve scored your leads and know where they stand, you can begin thinking about how to push them toward a commitment. Take a multi-directional approach—extend promotional offers, make educational materials available on your website, and send out emails containing information that’s relevant to your prospects’ needs.[11]
    • The more ways you “touch” your leads, the more likely you are to get a response.[12]
    • Avoid carpet-bombing your prospects with email after email—this can leave a bad taste in their mouths and cause them to unsubscribe in a hurry.
  4. Follow up on your leads promptly. As soon as you’ve compiled a list of qualified leads, start making calls or forward them to the sales team right away. A hot lead can turn cold in no time at all.[13] If you leave a prospect waiting, they may lose interest or find someone else to do business with.[14]
    • Treat your high-scoring prospects like they’re already customers. Make it a point to touch base with them on a regular basis to answer whatever questions they might have and keep yourself in the forefront of their minds.
    • Studies have shown that your chances of closing are highest if you act on your leads immediately.[15]
  5. Track and measure your leads continually. Keep accurate, up-to-date records of your potential buyers’ demands, engagement level, and scoring status. Document this info in your CRM so you can go back and review it whenever you engage a similar prospect. Monitoring your leads is the best way to figure out how to get them ready for conversion and prevent them from backsliding and requiring further nurturing.[16]
    • Many companies make the mistake of focusing on sales performance alone, when zeroing in on what factors motivated those sales is just as crucial.
    • Measuring your leads will also help you evaluate your marketing and sales strategies figure out which parts of your lead management process are working and which aren’t.[17]

Tips

  • Remember, quality trumps quantity. If your leads haven’t been properly profiled, scored, and nurtured, no amount of marketing will convince them to buy.
  • Smart lead management means focusing your time and attention on the leads that are most likely to pay off and letting go of the less promising ones.
  • Be prepared to change and adapt your lead management practices according to the needs of your business. The strategies you rely on today may not be the ones that will work best in six months or a year.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.eyesonsales.com/content/article/7_keys_to_managing_sales_leads/
  2. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76930
  3. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76930
  4. ↑ https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28889/6-steps-to-implementing-an-effective-lead-management-process.aspx
  5. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76930
  6. ↑ http://www.eyesonsales.com/content/article/7_keys_to_managing_sales_leads/
  7. ↑ [v161821_b01]. 11 June 2021.
  8. ↑ https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367263,00.asp
  9. ↑ https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/hubspot-lead-scoring-best-practices
  10. ↑ https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28889/6-steps-to-implementing-an-effective-lead-management-process.aspx
  11. ↑ [v161821_b01]. 11 June 2021.
  12. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76930
  13. ↑ [v161821_b01]. 11 June 2021.
  14. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/76930
  15. ↑ https://blog.marketo.com/2011/06/how-does-lead-response-time-impact-sales.html
  16. ↑ [v161821_b01]. 11 June 2021.
  17. ↑ https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28889/6-steps-to-implementing-an-effective-lead-management-process.aspx
Retrieved from "https://kipkis.com/index.php?title=Manage_Leads&oldid=289218"