What is Lead Management & Why do you need it?

Leads, or potential customers, are the fuel for business growth. Since these potential customers have shown interest in your business, it is important to give them the attention they deserve. Therefore, businesses have to spend time and effort to nurture these potential customers. When we say nurture, we don’t just mean manage the leads. We mean tracking customer behavior, understanding their needs and engaging them until they make the decision to purchase. So, calling lead management as the process of managing potential customers does not do justice to the term.

No matter what domain your business operates in, managing and nurturing leads is vital for your business growth. However, this is easier said than done. When businesses begin to grow, they might find it tougher to manage leads and give proper attention to them. Hence, the process of lead management becomes complex as the business begins to grow. If you are a small or medium business that is thinking ‘My team can manage the leads via spreadsheets and databases, so I don’t need a lead management system’, we urge you to think again.

Most of today’s businesses have moved online and are generating leads from multiple online and offline sources. This makes simple lead management systems like spreadsheets and databases ineffective on the long run. When your business grows and generates more leads from various sources, spreadsheets and databases will not be able to accurately determine the lead quality, which will heavily impact your conversion rate. Still not convinced, let’s look at some specific benefits of using a lead management system.

Accelerated Lead Response

With the help of a lead management tool, you will be able to instantly feed leads generated from all sources. Some lead generation tools can also be integrated with various lead generators to make the lead capturing process smoother. This prevents lead leakage worries and helps you concentrate on responding to the leads as soon as possible. In the digital world, instant response is one of the best ways to increase customer satisfaction.

Simplified Lead Distribution

Lead distribution is an important process that will help you streamline your sales pipeline. However, lead distribution can also be a time consuming process if done by spreadsheet or database. When using a lead management software, businesses can seamlessly distribute the leads based on several criteria including but not limited to age, location, time and source. By instantly distributing the leads, the team can easily identify quality leads and dedicate more time and efforts towards attracting them. This is vital to increasing the customer base.

Lead Scoring

Businesses can also score the leads using different parameters after distributing them. By scoring or ranking the leads based on customer responsiveness (hot leads, cold leads and dead leads), businesses will be able to gauge the customer’s level of interest. This will save precious time for the sales team as they do not have to actively search for the best leads. Businesses can also stop investing efforts to probe dead leads who do not actively respond to any communications. With the help of lead scoring, businesses can instantly start engaging with the right leads and generate more sales. While most lead management systems have lead scoring capabilities, the methodology will be tough to emulate with offline lead management platforms.

Complete Lead Tracking

Losing potential leads is a cardinal sin in business management. When businesses track leads using spreadsheets and databases, they run the risk of losing the leads due to human error. This risk is almost eliminated when using a lead management system. Most lead management systems also allow businesses to track site visitors and help them gauge customer behavior, which makes sales communications much easier. By tracking lead activities, businesses can also jump in to help at any specific moment. Since most lead management systems also store generic lead information, businesses can easily reconnect with customers who revisit the site.

Lead Nurturing

As your business grows, you will understand that all leads cannot be easily converted into customers. By distributing and scoring leads, you will be able to identify those leads who are interested in your product or service. You can then send relevant content to educate or showcase your product/service to those leads and convert them into customers. With a strong lead management process, you will have more time to nurture your leads and eventually boost your sales.

We hope that these points helped you understand the importance of lead management. It is our opinion that lead management should be a vital part of your business strategy. By using a superior lead management software, you will be able to boost both your online and offline sales. So, don’t hesitate to use a lead management software.