Lead management is a step-by-step process created to generate and handle new potential business clientele and convert sales leads to customers. It is merely the cycle of tracking and managing customer activity from start to close.
Generating high-quality leads is one of the highest business tasks for marketers. Looking at the lead management approach from the customer experience perspective proves vital for most companies to achieve a better conversion rate. Usually, according to Forrester, conversion rates on average for most marketing-qualified leads to customers is low.
It is becoming more apparent that working on a customer’s experience throughout their buying journey is more important than improving lead quality or quantity.
Personnel involved
Committed sales development reps. Someone who is linking and qualifying leads. Also, personnel who aim at achieving the highest conversion rates and efficiency cost per opportunity on leads.
Defined processes
Concentrate on lead qualification procedures before sending leads to the sales team.
The process to troubleshoot primary inquiries and remove those that do not qualify for your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Establish a sought agreement between marketing and sales on the meaning of a qualified lead. For example, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) outline sales tasks once they have a sales-ready lead.
Technology-Enabling
Market-driven tech tools to assist lead scoring focus more on the human touch rather than substituting it.
4 steps process to increase lead management conversion
Design a service level agreement (SLA) and universal lead definition (ULD) and try it
Marketers share a divergent view when it comes to ways of determining lead quality. It’s sometimes even imperative to ask the question: what do salespersons regard as a qualified lead?
To establish a Service Level Agreement, marketing and sales should get together on the following:
- Build a general lead definition to define sales-ready leads.
- List your guidelines for lead routing, i.e., product interest, territories, vertical focus, etc.
- Draw up your sales time to align with desired outcomes. It might be 4 hours,8 hours,24 hours,78 hours, etc., depending on your expectations.
- Afford support for sales management to assist and ensure the accountability of the sales team.
- Monitor and record your trial process on how leads go through from the beginning till the end.
You must put in mind that merely generating leads is not just your main task. It also entails you identifying the best leads your sales team should work with right away.
1.Filter leads based on a Universal Lead Definition (ULD).
This step requires you to filter and select leads regarding your universal lead definition. At this stage, it is essential to check that you had defined your lead qualification and follow-up process. This stage requires Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) with inside sales knowledge to assist in ascertaining when a lead could be selected for continuous testing.
2.Develop your pre-mature leads until they get to a “sales-ready” point.
Developing your lead or nurturing is the procedure of dialoguing consistently with eminent potential clients irrespective of their timing to do business. Lead development and enabling aims at solidifying relationships you create with clients even if they end up not making a purchase.
Many people often see the lead development phase as just automated email workflow in marketing. Conversely, it needs to be reimagined in a much broader term as getting across relevant, valuable, and helpful information to people using different channels.
3.Nurturing leads also includes offering content related to customer needs at any moment.
Enhance your lead routing process from Marketing to sales.
The routing of leads between marketing and sales is vital, although often under-looked. Some miscues often occur as a result of moving leads through the funnel. To ensure the routing and linking of marketing and sales go smoothly, you must document earlier processes agreed upon by sales and marketing.
Specific, clearly defined processes ought to be confirmed to ensure lead routing is on the right course: Make sure filtered leads are sales-ready before linking them.
Confirm you possess a well-defined, exact lead routing process.
4.Supervise lead changes.
Lead routing is essential because it also highlights progress made in assisting your sales team convert.
Close the cycle to trace and refine your approach.
Communication is consedered golden to measure the effectiveness of marketing and sales in an organization. Meetings need to be organized as often as possible to monitor progress made. It gives both the marketing and sales teams opportunity to work together, review, and amend errors.
Meetings provide teams with honest, hands-on-deck feedback from sales, which also assist in determining:
Whether the information provided by lead is vital and accurate. How sales-ready is your lead.
How perfectly do the marketing leads suit your ideal client persona.
Furthermore, meetings also help you track metrics such as; salesperson responsiveness, forecast revenue, and time to close, lead to revenue ratio (won/cost-per-close sale), etc.