Lead management is the ability to capture, respond, and manage
incoming leads. When spending so much time and money on creating the perfect
campaign, you want to make sure you have numerous best practices in place to manage your leads
throughout the entire lifecycle.
Unfortunately, many marketers don’t employ clearly defined lead management practices. And when you don’t have processes in place, you risk decreased ROI, a leaky sales funnel, and poor relationships with leads and customers.
Unfortunately, many marketers don’t employ clearly defined lead management practices. And when you don’t have processes in place, you risk decreased ROI, a leaky sales funnel, and poor relationships with leads and customers.
But done right, lead management creates more educated buyers,
helps you better understand their needs, and ultimately means more revenue. So
how do you do it? Take a look at these 5 tips for best practices in lead
management that you probably aren’t using.
1.Work directly with sales to determine when a lead is
“sales ready”.
In order to properly create a solid lead scoring framework, work
with your sales team to build criteria that determines the steps prospects
should take before they are ready for a sales call. Remember, that this needs
to be agreed upon by both sales and marketing to be effective.
2.Make sure to implement lead recycling practices.
Even though you have worked with sales to determine when a lead
is ready to be contacted, there will be instances where sales has concluded
that certain leads are not quite ready to engage, or sales has not followed up
with these leads. To avoid these leads falling into a black hole, you can
implement lead recycling practices to make sure that you have a follow up plan
in place. You should create a process based on two scenarios; leads will be
automatically recycled based on a set of business rules, and leads will be
manually recycled by sales if they are not deemed ready.
Once they get sent back to marketing you can base sales re-engagement on a business rule, such a lead scoring change, or sales can use its knowledge of the leads’ buying interests to indicate a time-frame in which the lead should be re-engaged.
Once they get sent back to marketing you can base sales re-engagement on a business rule, such a lead scoring change, or sales can use its knowledge of the leads’ buying interests to indicate a time-frame in which the lead should be re-engaged.
3. Score leads using implicit behavioral data.
Since your prospect is in control of the buying process, you
need to make sure you are monitoring their online activities to know when they
are ready to move to the next stage. Lead scoring determines where your buyer is in your funnel. Lead scoring should consider the prospect’s interest level
defined by their actions.
4.Track anonymous visitors and tie their data to new leads.
Simple code on your web pages helps you track prospects, both
anonymous and known. This helps tell you who is interested in your products. As
anonymous prospects complete forms on your website or landing pages, any
previous website visits can be automatically attributed to the new lead. This
is important to determine sales readiness of new leads, since you know the
entire history of the relationship with the prospect–including which campaign
helped them find you in the first place.
5. Progressively understand your prospect’s needs.
Just like dating, as you build a relationship with your
prospects, you should be learning more about their needs. Remember, every
campaign that a prospect responds to tells you about his or her interests.
Every link they click, and every piece of information they fill out on a form
tells you more about them.
And you can really be clever with your forms. Don’t ask your prospects to enter information you already know. Use progressive profiling and use the opportunity to find out something new. You can also use this information to target what sort of content may appeal to them in an email or lead nurturing campaign.
And you can really be clever with your forms. Don’t ask your prospects to enter information you already know. Use progressive profiling and use the opportunity to find out something new. You can also use this information to target what sort of content may appeal to them in an email or lead nurturing campaign.
By: Dayna Rothman
