A Beginner’s Guide to Sales Lead Management & Process, Tools & Best Practices
Are you a sales professional? Do you know what it takes to successfully manage leads?
If boosting sales is your target, it is important to optimize sales lead management. Sales lead management is defined as the process of converting sales leads into sales opportunities. It is a system that sales teams use to ensure that their sales process operates smoothly and efficiently.
A sales lead management system organizes and segments leads according to the stage they are in. Moreover, it helps sales personnel build up momentum in their sales pipeline to ensure steady revenue growth.
A Guide to the Sales Lead Management Process
Let us take a look at the steps involved in the sales lead management process.
#1. Capturing Leads
The first and foremost step in the sales management process is capturing leads. During this stage, you need not worry about whether a lead is qualified or not. You can generate leads through marketing campaigns, lead magnets, or social media advertising.
#2. Tracking Leads
Once you have captured your leads, it is time to track them. While the first step was to gather all the basic information about your leads, it is now time to collect behavioral data. Through lead tracking, your marketing and sales teams can start creating strategies for conversion. Lead tracking can also help you understand how keen a customer would be to purchase your product or service.
Tracking of leads can be done through surveys, email marketing, or analyzing website visits.
#3. Scoring Leads
Lead scoring refers to determining the probability of lead conversion. In simple words, scoring leads helps you understand which leads are highly likely to convert and which ones aren’t. You can decide how to score your leads based on several parameters such as contact details, lead behavior, opportunity size, buying history, and so on.
#4. Distributing Leads
Once you have scored your leads, it is time to move to the next step, i.e., lead distribution. In this step, you can allocate leads to your sales team members, either at random or based on criteria such as age, location, company size, and so on. Your sales team can then start contacting the leads through different channels, known as lead nurturing.
#5. Nurturing Leads
The final step is the lead nurturing process. After you have assigned the leads across your sales team, it’s time to start contacting them. Lead nurturing needs not only be done through phone or email. You can also get in touch with prospective customers by conducting in-person meetings.
The main aim of lead nurturing is to develop and foster relationships with your leads. This can be done by trying to understand any issues they are facing and their expectations regarding your product or service. Moreover, through lead nurturing, you can inform customers on how your brand will help solve their issues, a guide to using your products, and any additional goods that would suit your clients’ needs.
Sales Lead Management Tools
Now that you are aware of what sales lead management is, here are some tools that will help you get high lead conversions.
#1. Email Metrics
Email metrics is a tool that provides you with information regarding the number of emails sent, subscription and unsubscription rates, and open and clickthrough rates.
#2. Pipeline Reports
Pipeline reports help provide information about your sales pipeline. They give a visual representation of the number of leads at each stage of the sales cycle, how fast they are moving, and the number of leads per team member.
#3. Calling Reports
With calling reports, you can get information on the number of calls made and received, what was discussed during the calls, and successful conversation numbers.
#4. Lead Source Metrics
Using lead source metrics, you can track where each lead came from, and track their conversion rates using sources and marketing campaigns.
#5. Activity Reports vs. Revenue Reports
Activity reports generate information about the nurturing activities performed by the sales team, while revenue reports provide details on the sales contributed by individual team members.
#6. Sales Closures
Sales closure implies the number of deals a single sales personnel is closing or committing to the sales pipeline.
Best Sales Lead Management Practices
Here is a list of the best practices for sales lead management.
#1. Define the Lead Management Process
One of the best practices under sales lead management is to define the lead management process. This ensures uniformity and efficiency in the sales process, as everyone has access to the same information. This also helps prevent miscommunication and poor customer service.
#2. Choose Omni-Channel
By choosing multiple channels to reach out to people, businesses can generate a large number of leads. Such channels can include email marketing, social media marketing, webinars, offline events, and pay-per-click advertising.
#3. Measure
While it is important to have all the data in place, you need to measure and define the metrics in order to utilize the information to your benefit. You can use lead management tools that will help you define the KPIs required to measure sales performance. This will help you create effective sales and marketing strategies.
Conclusion
Sales lead management helps you organize and segment your leads according to where they are in the pipeline. It provides all the information you need regarding lead generation and conversion, in one place. Be it a large or a small business, sales lead management helps them boost efficiency and revenue.
