What is Lead Management Process : 7 Strategies for B2B Marketing
What is the Lead Management Process?
Lead management process is the process of the company’s various levels of professionals from sales, marketing, accounting to administration.
It consists of several steps or activities that lead them to generate leads and convert them into opportunities. It is a step-by-step procedure for managers in a company with any size. There are two types of roles for this process: top level and middle level.
Top level people have direct access to a decision maker or a person with high purchasing authority. While middle managers have limited contact with decision makers but they still have the opportunity to close deals on deals. Originated by top level people who work closer to their own field such as marketing or sales.
Steps of Lead Management Process:
The concept of marketing automation has been around for decades, but it wasn’t until recently that marketers began to appreciate the sheer power and potential of this technology. By harnessing the Internet, marketers can automate certain tasks such as lead generation and web visitor tracking. Giving them more time and resources to focus on other areas of marketing that will help their companies generate revenue.
Many companies utilize lead generation as a new source of revenue. Marketing automation is a tool that uses the Internet to automate some aspects of marketing. It allows marketers to increase their efficiency by automating certain tasks and marketing campaign management and email marketing management. Thus resulting in more leads and more sales.
How Does Lead Generation Helps With Customer Management?
Lead generation is the process of producing leads for marketing activities such as generating customer lists and collecting data from them, which they can input into their database for further use. A good lead generation strategy must involve finding the best possible way to target your customers so that you can maximize your gain from this channel.
Demographics is very important when using lead generation strategies because demographics mirror your company’s target market. Demographic data is an excellent source of leads because companies can pinpoint which types of customers are most interested in their product. Demographic data is also important for web marketing automation. Since, it can help you determine which demographics are most interested in your web site.
There are three different channels that companies use to get their leads:
These channels consist of referrals, advertising and paid search. Advertising is one of the oldest lead generation techniques, but many companies still utilize it today because it is cheap and accessible to most companies. There are two possible ways to advertise; through online or offline methods.
Online advertising is when you place an ad on your company’s website with the help of another company such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. Offline advertising is when you advertise in a magazine, on a billboard, or on the radio.
Companies may also use referrals to generate leads. When the client has a good experience with your company they will tell their friends and colleagues about your company.
Paid search is when you pay for your ad to show up on the top of someone’s search results. This is very effective because many people look for products and services that they need on a daily basis using search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.com. Paid search can be very expensive depending on how competitive it is in your area however it can help generate high quality leads if used correctly.
Why is the Lead Management Process Important for Businesses?
A lead management process is used to define the steps involved in identifying, acquiring, nurturing, and converting leads. The lead management process should be integrated into the overall marketing strategy of your business.
Lead management process starts with generating qualified leads through organic search engine optimization to social media marketing campaigns. Once you’ve generated qualified traffic, it’s important to convert them into leads so they can be nurtured through your sales funnel.
Different types of content can be included in this phase such as webinars or case studies where the prospect receives free information from you about a product or service in exchange for their contact information.
Leads are primarily generated through your sales funnel, which consists of all the stages that lead to a successful sale. The sales process has five different types of actions, including the conversion/purchase stage, the nurture stage, secondary communication stages, and more.
10 Reasons Why Lead Generation Process is Important
1. It helps with managerial decisions-
The lead management process helps you decide how much resources should be allocated to various aspects of your business. Therefore, it contributes to managerial decisions like, when to launch new products or services, which market segments can be targeted at, and what kind of marketing campaign should be launched.
2. It helps with planning-
The act of planning before launching any marketing campaign makes it easier for you to create a plan that is well executed. This is because the planning process has helped you identify the goals and objectives of each stage in your sales funnel. It also helps in creating one cohesive sales funnel for all your activities so that they are all aligned to achieve the same goal
3. It facilitates good documentation-
The act of documenting your lead management process will help in providing evidence when it comes to litigation or compliance issues. This is because it will enable you to prove that your business has been following the laws and regulations set by the government.
4. It facilitates better decision making-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easy for you to make effective decisions that can help with growing your business. For example, it can help in deciding whether to purchase a particular piece of technology or not.
5. It helps you in improving your business process-
The lead management process will make it easier for you to figure out what is working well and what needs improvement. For example, if the conversion rates are low, then this means that more resources need to be allocated towards getting more traffic or developing better content.
6. It helps with flexibility-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easier for you to make changes when there are changes in the market conditions which affect your business. For example, you can just make small adjustments to the marketing mix if new technologies become available.
7. It facilitates better decision making-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easier for you to make decisions regarding the conversion rate of different sections in your sales funnel. This is because it will enable you to identify what are the segments that are performing well or poorly.
8. It helps with marketing-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easier for you to plan more effective marketing campaigns that can help convert more leads into customers. For example, you can use the knowledge gained from performing trend analysis to create marketing campaigns that target your audience better.
9. It facilitates better tracking-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easy for you to track how much progress has been made in achieving your business goals and objectives. This is because it will help in mapping out a plan or strategy that can be used to meet or exceed these goals and objectives.
10. It helps with managing costs and resources-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easier for you to manage and control costs and resources as well as their allocation among different marketing activities. For example, you can use the data about how much was spent on each activity to decide if the costs are in line with what you want to achieve.
11. It helps with making strategic decisions-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easy for you to make strategic decisions about your marketing plan’s focus and direction in the future. For example, if your sales funnel has different stages, then you can decide which stage should be given more focus in future by analyzing where each segment is in the sales funnel.
12. It facilitates quality control-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easier for you to ensure compliance with all the laws and regulations regarding marketing activities in your country. For example, if you are selling to small businesses, then you will need to comply with the laws and regulations set by the FTC.
13. It facilitates quality control-
The act of documenting your lead management process makes it easy for you to ensure that all the targets and objectives that have been set for your business are met. For example, if 50 leads should be collected on a daily basis and after a comparison with similar businesses show that yours is only collecting 40 leads per day, then this means there is scope for improvement in your lead management process.
14. It facilitates better goal setting-
The act of documenting your lead management process helps you develop a strategy with clear goals, which will enable you to achieve those goals.
Lead Management Process & Strategies
Lead management is a process, not a system. A system is defined as the set of tasks and management tools used to organize business activities. However, lead management can also be thought of as an individual’s approach to managing opportunities down the sales funnel from the network of contacts they have developed over time.
Lead managers are individuals who manage accounts further down in the funnel with greater amounts of information available about potential customers and accounts that require additional attention or expertise.
This post outlines 7 lead management strategies that you can implement into your current practice to take it to the next level in terms of driving revenue, improving customer satisfaction, and securing higher conversion rates for your high-quality leads.
4 Functions of Lead management:
1. Acquisition
Getting new leads in the door, or closing. Eliminating (or minimizing) the friction of obtaining contacts. Helping the buyer’s organization get to know you better over time. Building stronger relationships to create pay-off opportunities in the future. Increasing trust with your customers by consistently providing top-tier service and value over time.
2. Getting new leads in the door, or closing
Nurturing : Keeping in touch with leads, building relationships, and deepening their understanding of your company and product over time. Helping them by offering value in the form of education, training, or problem-solving help to increase their likelihood to use you when the time comes.
3. Keeping in touch with leads
Building relationships, and deepening their understanding of your company and product over time. Helping them by offering value in the form of education, training, or problem-solving help to increase their likelihood to use you when the time comes.
4. Managing quality control on a lead’s journey through your sales funnel from awareness to advocacy
Discovering leads best suited for the next stage in the relationship. Continuing to nurture them over time to bring about the close. Closing: Obtaining pay-off opportunities (financial or otherwise) after they’ve decided to purchase your product or service.
By either gaining their business outright or increasing their likelihood of doing business with you in the future by solving a problem they may have had for years. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business or a multi-million dollar enterprise.
There’s always room to improve, and lead management is an important aspect of onboarding customers and nurturing them along the way. If you don’t know where your leads are in the sales funnel, it’s nearly impossible to take care of them in an optimal manner. Many businesses fail because they don’t take the time to do this properly. That’s exactly what we’ll be talking about in this article: how to go from good to great with lead management!
Here are 7 must-know concepts for kick-starting your Lead Management Strategy:
1. Increase Lead Quality Leads are qualified when they exhibit specific behaviors.
These can include responding to email communications, visiting your website, downloading case studies, attending webinars, attending live events, replying to queries or ads in a timely fashion, or inquiring about the pricing of your product or service.
Qualified leads will also have a greater understanding of your company and product than unqualified leads do. Notice that “lead quality” doesn’t mean “high value” in terms of their ability to pay; determined by the behaviors exhibited by the lead.
Some organizations think that if someone has access to money (meaning an enterprise). They must be treated like any other lead even if they’re only interested in free information. It is true that some leads do require more attention than others, but every lead requires nurturing.
2. Manage Leads Regularly
Closely Lead management involves managing your team’s communication with leads in real-time. Rather than waiting for communication opportunities to arise passively over time (i.e., when the lead contacts you).
In many small businesses, closing a sale is the only time that their lead management process is performed – and it happens too late. You can’t manage what you don’t know, and it’s impossible to know what opportunities and tasks need attention unless you’re proactively managing your leads.
3. Helps with customer management too
Lead management should occur daily rather than once a week or once a month. The strategy behind this is simple: The more frequently your team communicates with your leads. The higher likelihood they will be to buy from you or refer someone to you.
And the more frequently you communicate with your leads, the better positioned you are to close business with them. You can automate communications by creating automated emails to prospects.
4. Engage with leads daily
Use a CRM system like Salesforce to keep track of customer details, including contact information, sales transactions, and other important data. Some CRMs can make sending personalized messages easy.
Here are some examples:
MailChimp : Automatically send email messages based on lead behaviors. Great for creating recurring messages, setting up account-level alerts for sales activities, and finding sales opponents.
HubSpot CRM : You can create customized emails that automatically appear in the inbox without having to circle back to the email. Add fields like company name, contact name, and contact email to create custom messages; this is especially useful for sales and service teams.
Hootsuite: Take advantage of fully customizable sales and marketing automation: Set up automated sequences like: “Let’s follow up on this lead together today” and “Check out this new blog post”.
5. Update everything frequently
You can publish blog posts, whitepapers, infographics, ebooks, videos, calculators, and testimonials to help motivate your prospects. Use social media to engage with prospects.
Share valuable content that will attract your target market’s attention. Make sure you’re using the right hashtags for maximum exposure.
6. Get all of your data together
No lead management system is complete if it doesn’t include the proper data points. What qualifies as a lead? Who are they from? How did they get in touch with you? These are some of the questions every company should be able to answer before embarking on a specific course for their lead management strategy. Lead intelligence can differ from company to company, but this initial step is universal.
7. Know your checklist
Every company can learn from one another, and building on those who came before you is crucial. Start with the following checklist. Do you want to spend your time managing your leads? With modern technology, making sure your inbox is as efficient as possible is not only possible but easy.
You can save hundreds of hours by finding a system that works for you. Plus you never having to worry about manually updating that list again. That way, all your energy can be directed towards growing your business. Instead of digging through spreadsheets and Quicken files for a new lead every day.
Conclusion
Many small business owners like to think that they can do without lead management. But the truth is, if you don’t manage your leads, you will never make money. Lead management is an important part of any business; it doesn’t matter how large or small the company is. If you have questions about this topic or need assistance in implementing these concepts, don’t hesitate to contact us here!
