A Strategic Approach to Lead Management

Why do business leads need to be managed? A lead is not yet a customer. Doesn't it sound weird that you need to have a lead management process?

The thought of lead management, makes you wonder. Why do you need a lead management process? Will it really benefit your business to spend resources on lead management?

A different perspective might help. Your business has a number of leads. These leads are prospective customers. The big question is – what do you do with all the information pertaining to leads? Do you sit and wait, hoping that they will buy your product or services? Or should you make a call and close with a sale.

It becomes pretty obvious that sitting around and waiting is not the right choice. A competitor might highjack your leads in the meanwhile. Of the two choices, you obviously prefer to call and make a sale. But, some leads need a little time or nurturing before they are ready to buy.

Do Leads Need To Be Managed?

If you do not take care of your leads, someone else will manage to take them away.

Every business needs leads to work with. Gathering leads is a skill that a business develops and perfects with experience.

You might be wondering what lead management entails and how it can be carried out. Lead management starts with lead generation. Adopting a successful lead generation formula is the first step. This is followed by the predictive lead scoring technique using a lead qualification process. The leads are assigned the relevant functions and the final task is converting leads into sales.

Now let's look at each one of these processes in detail.

How To Generate Leads

There are many methods of lead generation. One of the most popular techniques is CRM website integration. The CRM automatically gathers lead information through your website.

There are numerous techniques which can be employed to attract leads to share their information. As easy as it may sound – lead generation doesn't happen by itself. Lead generation optimization involves some creative thought. You need to come up with some innovative strategies. Why should someone fill out a form on your website and give you all their personal information? The two most common reasons are:

• They want to buy your product

• They want to know more about your product

But this only constitutes a small percentage of the people who visit your website. Many people who are keen on your product may not fill out the website form and leave their information. A very neat and enticing trick is to offer something in return for the information. A discount coupon for a popular store or restaurant is attractive. Or a discount on the purchase of your product is another technique. A discount on your own product will gain genuine leads

Lead Scoring and Qualification

Every lead that your business has gathered is not necessarily a ready customer. How do you know which leads are ready? Which leads could turn out to be good potential customers and which ones are bad? Bad leads are those who are just passing their time by filling in the form. They wait for someone to call them and have a nice chat. But they have no intention of buying your product.

Predictive lead scoring is a useful strategy to categories leads. It is a technique used to identify which leads are ready to make a purchase and which ones need time. Each lead goes through a lead qualification process. A lead is given a score based on how it qualifies. Qualifications are determined based on a set of predefined criteria's. A predictive pattern is devised from the existing data and this is used to formulate a lead scoring model.

Strategic Lead Management

Leads which have been scored need to be assigned the appropriate function. Correct lead assignment is critical. Lead assignment is all about deciding what further action should be taken on a lead. A lead which is ready to convert should be assigned to the sales team. A lead, who is contemplating your product, needs careful nurturing. A lead who intends to buy in the future needs nurturing, in the form of regular communication and product updates.

Assigning the correct function is important. Nurturing a lead who is ready to buy your product may lead to a loss of a customer. The lead management process involves careful consideration before assigning a function to a lead. The accuracy of the lead scoring model has a ripple effect on the lead assignment process.

Optimum Lead Conversion

Converting leads into sales is the ultimate goal of a business. You are not going to nurture a lead just for fun. The intent behind lead generation is to convert the greatest number of leads into sales.

The lead scoring and lead assignment has a direct impact on the rate of lead conversion. Being able to identify potential leads is of great benefit to a business. At no point should we undermine the talent and ability of the sales team. It is their arduous effort which results in a successful sale.

Perfecting Your Lead Management Strategy

As we have seen lead management involves several steps. Each step is crucial for successful lead conversion. The final goal of every business is to derive the best value from its leads. A high rate of lead conversion results from a good lead management strategy.

Lead generation, lead scoring, lead assignment are processed which can be automated. The CRM can perform these functions without any manual intervention.

Conclusion

How can you customize your CRM application to manage leads? Customized CRM applications enable a business to adopt a strategic approach to lead management. At BluEnt we specialize in customizing your CRM application.

CRM customization includes automating tasks such as lead scoring and lead assignment. Lead scoring and assignment is performed based on a set of given criteria. These criteria can be modified whenever required. This allows your business the flexibility to keep up with the changing trends.

BluEnt provides you with solutions for lead management. The lead management strategy allows your business to leverage the technological benefit. Get in touch with us to discuss how we can optimize your business growth through lead management. We have solutions for small business as well as large businesses.

Maximum Value. Achieved.