What Is Lead Management and How to Do It Right
Leads don’t care about your brand until they do.
Most of them haven’t even heard of your brand. Then they do, but it’s just another company to them.
Some of them look for information online, come across your blog, and like it. Their intent is met and they leave satisfied. They may or may not notice your brand.
Some learn that you provide solutions to their specific issues through research or reference.
After determining which of these prospects are worth pursuing, you need to convert them and make them care about your brand.
A proper lead management process helps you achieve that. And in this blog, we’re going to teach you how you can do it easily on your own.
What is lead management
Lead management includes all your strategies, measures, and actions to ensure your sales cycle runs smoothly. Starting with identifying a prospect, everything you need to do from capturing leads to retaining customers to close a deal efficiently falls under lead management.
Making a sale takes time. Most leads don’t place an order as soon as they hear of you. You need to groom and nurture them to convince your products are the right fit for their particular needs.
It requires paying attention to every lead at each stage of their buyer’s journey to make sure you don’t lose them on the way. However, paying attention to each lead individually can be tricky and time-consuming.
That’s why you need a proper and refined lead management system. It helps you take care of leads individually without taking care of them individually.
You segment leads and score them based on their readiness. Next, you deliver those segments to expert teams best suited to cater to their needs. Your teams then send them tailored content, product demos, respond to their queries, help them find a suitable deal, etc.
Optimizing your sales process this way to never lose a lead or miss a sale again is known as lead management. You need to continuously review and refine your approach and strategies to stay ahead of the competition and maintain steady growth.
How to manage leads the right way (step-by-step)
Learn how you can avoid bottlenecks in your sales process by implementing proper lead management. Here’s a step-by-step guide designed to help you manage your leads effortlessly and efficiently.
1. Capture leads
The first step in lead management is to capture leads. That’s a no-brainer, right?
Leads are basically those of your target audience or potential customers who have taken a desired action. This desired action can be any sort of interaction with your brand, like subscribing to the newsletter, requesting a demo, asking a question about your product, liking your social media post or page, etc.
This can be done through your brand’s active and strategic online presence on your website, social media platforms, etc. The following are some of the popular lead generation tactics:
Content marketing: Create valuable content for each stage of the buyer’s journey. Content includes blog posts, ebooks, tutorials, product demos, short and elaborate videos, podcasts, etc.
Conduct keyword research to learn what your audience is looking for, and optimize for search engines to appear in their search results. Publish content tailored to each stage of your buyer’s journey.
For example, some prospects do not know yet that they need your services, you have to educate them on the ways your products can help them.
Others are more mature, and know what they need. You need to show them how your products are the best in the market and why they should buy from you.
A trick to content creation is writing blogs first, and then repurposing them into other content. For lead generation through blogs, you must gain authority on a topic by maintaining relevancy, meeting search intent, and providing fresh perspectives and insight.
Calls-to-actions (CTA): Strategically place calls to actions on your webpages to guide potential customers from one step to another. Keep your cta buttons and copies creative, humorous, and persuasive.
Website forms: Use clear and concise forms to collect visitor information. Style them to match your brand image. Only ask the absolutely necessary questions in the forms. Make sure form filling is a delightful experience for your audience, and not boring.
Moreover, use security features on your forms, your visitors need to feel safe about sharing their private information.
Social media: Engage with your audience on social platforms for lead generation. Post regularly and consistently on channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Keep your audience updated on everything. Reply to their comments politely and timely.
Email marketing: Send targeted email campaigns for lead onboarding, nurturing and converting. Offer to send the blog summaries, and important updates via email to generate more leads.
Paid advertising: Use paid advertising campaigns (PPC, social media ads, etc.) to reach a wider audience. Boost the content and deals that are already performing well organically.
Host industry events: Network with potential customers and collect their contact information by organizing or attending industry events. Deliver valuable speeches at those events to communicate your skills and expertise. Present yourself as an industry leader in the community.
2. Qualify and segment captured leads
Once you’ve captured leads, it’s time to qualify and segment them. This involves assessing each lead’s likeliness and readiness to purchase and categorizing them based on factors like their industry, company size, budget, etc.
Determine where a lead is in the lead generation funnel based on their need, affordability, and engagement with your brand. After segmentation, hand them over to the marketing and sales teams for further nurturing.
3. Nurture qualified leads
This is the time to share tailored content and resources with the leads. Send educational content in their newsletter. Send introductory content to marketing qualified leads and personalized product demos to sales-qualified leads, etc.
Some of your leads may be busy when they come across your website, and not get enough time for further engagement. Use cookies to track your leads’ browser information and show them personalized ads later on YouTube, social media channels, etc.
4. Implement lead scoring
Lead scoring is a very important step in lead management. You give points to leads based on their behavior, demographics, firmographics, etc.
Assign positive and negative values to the lead scoring factors. After assessing all the factors, and adding points accordingly, the more a lead scores, the more ready he/she is to purchase. This helps you prioritize leads and focus your efforts on the most promising opportunities.
5. Distribute leads
Distribute the most qualified leads to the appropriate sales representatives or teams based on their area of expertise. This ensures that leads get the proper guidance and follow-ups they need. Have your teams resolve any final doubts the leads may have. Make sure the leads are well informed so their making becomes effortless.
6. Convert!
Finally, it’s time to convert them into customers. This involves closing deals, upselling, and cross-selling. Be sure to inform them of the terms and conditions of your agreement for a smoother conversation.
7. Analyze & improve your strategy
This step is in place to refine your lead management process. Closely study and research your sales cycle, dealings, results, and feedbacks to find any gaps in your lead management process and improve your tactics.
Use data to track the key conversion metrics, return on investment (ROI), sales cycle, etc. Based on your analysis, make adjustments to your strategy to optimize performance.
Do A/B testing to find out what works better, integrate new strategies in small scales and analyze how they perform.
5 tactics for efficient lead management process
Even with all the basics, it’ll cost you time to manage leads manually. That’s why you need tactics and tools in place. They will free up your time so you can focus on the more important parts of your business (like refining your products and services), while parts of your lead management process complete on its own.
1. Streamline your workflow
An organized workflow is essential for efficient lead management. Use a CRM tool to centralize all your lead information and automate repetitive tasks like sending email sequences.
Use AI-powered project management tools to automate your repetitive tasks, take meeting notes, prepare drafts, etc.
This will help your team save time so they can improve productivity by focusing on more strategic activities.
2. Don’t keep leads waiting
Time is of the essence when it comes to communicating with your leads. Respond to their queries promptly and follow up regularly. They might be in a hurry, and your delay can take them to seek their solution elsewhere. A quick response can significantly increase your chances of converting a lead.
3. Promote referral marketing
Encourage satisfied customers to refer their friends and family. Referral marketing can be a powerful way to generate qualified and ready-to-buy leads. People are more likely to trust reviews from someone they know than the owner of a product. Offer incentives to both the referrer and the referred to multiply referrals.
4. Get help from the right tools
Invest in lead management software to streamline your process and gain valuable insights. These tools can help you track leads, automate tasks, and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Research the market to find the right fit for your company based on company size, budget, features, UI, learning curve, etc.
5. Ensure effective communication between your teams
It’s not a good look for your brand if leads get repetitive messages from your marketing and sales teams. Ensure seamless communication between your teams to avoid that. Use a shared CRM system to keep everyone updated on lead progress. Regular meetings can also help clear confusion and draw well-defined boundaries.
Key takeaway
Effective lead management helps businesses improve sales efficiency, increase revenue, and build stronger customer relationships. All these things lead to business growth, multiplied ROI, and recognition of your brand as the lead in the industry.
Never lose a lead again! Follow our guide for a seamless lead management process and integrate the tips and strategies for further efficiency.
Remember that the most important part is delivering the best products and amazing customer service. Genuine best products paired with these tactics will ensure that you never miss a sale again.
Let us know what you think of our lead management process, and share your insights and ideas in the comment section!
Sarika writes for Fluent Forms and loves to offer insights into small businesses. She’s curious and enjoys discussing ideas, interests, and perspectives. In her free time, she’s either marvelling at architectural beauties or trying different cuisines.
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