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We are living in the technological era surrounded by endless tools that help us simplify problems and tasks that otherwise would take a lot of effort. In the realm of sales, lead management tools are one such solution that helps accelerate and enhance the overall sales process. A lead management tool automates most of the tasks that sales reps would otherwise do manually. Additionally, it intelligently stores, organizes, and analyses lead-related data and offers useful insights for sales teams.
Through this post, we are going to highlight the importance of having a lead management tool and the steps to implement one in your sales team. If you are interested in boosting the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales efforts, then do read this post till the end.
Let’s begin!
Why do you Need a Lead Management Tool?
It is a common problem that hits almost every business – the struggle to generate leads that convert into real customers. Even after capturing a significant number of leads, only a few of them would respond back. Most businesses realize that it’s time to rethink about your lead management tactics, and that’s when you learn about lead management tools.
These tools can do so much for your overall sales process. Let’s understand how a lead management tool works to improve your sales.
Importance of Having a Lead Management Tool
Automatically Captures Leads
Quote - 50% of marketers consider lead generation a top priority in their marketing campaigns.
In the manual lead management, the sales reps have to manually check and enter data about potential leads that connect via various channels such as website forms, social media, and emails. However, lead management software makes the job super easy. It keeps tracking all the associated channels and maintains a list of leads that connect via these channels. In simple words, sales reps need not to find and maintain lead data manually; rather, the software performs this job for them.
Performs Lead Segmentation
Quote - Lead scoring is one of the top five features companies look for when buying a marketing automation platform.
The lead management software doesn’t operate by guesswork. Rather, it evaluates all the captured leads based on various aspects such as their location, interests, previous buying history, etc., and assigns them a numerical value. It assigns a high value to leads with more likelihood to get converted.
In the same way, leads with a lesser likelihood of getting converted are assigned a low value. This type of scoring is extremely useful for sales reps, as they can dedicate more efforts towards leads with more potential to become customers. It helps them save their efforts and time while increasing the chances of conversion. By the way, did you know that “74% of marketers say the biggest benefit of automation is saving time.”?
Nurture the Leads
Quote - According to Forbes, sales representatives spend 64.8% of their time on administrative work rather than making sales.
Once you have a lead into your sales pipeline, the very next thing you should do is start engaging them. But how do you do that? Well, lead management software is designed to perform this task too. There are many ways, including:
Quote - 80% of new leads do not convert to sales. Leads followed up within 5 minutes are 9x likely to be converted.
The autodialer feature of lead management software helps sales reps to connect with potential leads quite seamlessly. It adds to the efficiency and productivity of the sales reps, as they do not need to manually dial phone numbers. Rather, the software dials the phone numbers one by one from the list. Statistics reveal that, “An agent will be 60% more productive while utilizing a power dialer compared to the conventional methods of manual and database searches.”
Another significant feature of lead management software is the notifications. It helps sales reps stay top of the client follow-ups by updating and reminding through regular notifications.
This feature also helps sales reps to improve their interactions with potential customers. The recording feature records and stores all the client calls, which managers and reps can hear later. This way the quality of assistance provided to potential leads can be evaluated and areas of improvement can be identified.
Analytics and Reporting
A lead management tool is an excellent feature to improvise your sales strategy by leveraging its analytics and reporting features. This feature makes use of real-time and historical data of leads’ interaction with your products and services and provides useful insights into their behavior.
Till now, we have learned the different ways in which a lead management tool can help your business boost sales and ultimately revenue. Next, we are going to learn about the steps through which you can practically implement a lead management tool into your sales process.
Steps to Implement a Lead Management System into Your Sales Team
Quote - 65% of businesses don’t have a defined plan in place for communicating with clients.
Every business is different, and so are their needs. Before you onboard any solution, make it a thumb rule to identify your pain points. Your pain points are the challenges or issues that you face while operating your business. It will help you understand the real reasons why you need that solution.
In this case, determine the challenges faced by your sales team. Ask them whether they are able to track leads properly?. Or they might be facing issues with follow-ups or identifying high-quality leads. These issues are creating a hindrance for your team in doing their sales-related tasks properly.
Also, try to understand the purpose behind using a lead management app. What exactly do you want to achieve by using a lead management software? It could be increasing the productivity of your team, or getting more conversions, etc.
Once you learn about these issues and goals, do note them down.
Perform Research and Choose a Suitable Tool
With a clear thought about your objectives, you can now move forward to find the best tool that can help in managing potential leads.
The very first step to find an appropriate lead management tool is to research the available options. As soon as you enter the market, you will encounter hundreds of them. At first, it may be overwhelming to see so many options, but you can start by simply shortlisting the ones that offer the features you require.
Then, from this list, move towards comparing the pricing of each of these tools. Keep the ones that match around your budget. Also, check user reviews and testimonials to have a better understanding about the reliability and usability of the software. You may also contact current user companies to know more about the quality of service. Choose the one that best fits your criteria.
Once decided, purchase the software and get the access rights from the vendor.
On-board the Tool
It’s time to create user accounts and introduce your team with this software. You may consider providing comprehensive training sessions to your team. Through these sessions, they will be able to learn about how to use the tool effectively. Help them explore different features and functionalities of the software. You may demonstrate some practical examples to help them gain a better understanding.
Integrate with Other Business Tools
Disparate systems can create information silos and lead to confusion. It is important that the lead management tool work in coherence with other business systems that you already use. Therefore, integrate it with your CRM i.e. Customer Relationship Management system. Also, if you are using marketing automation software, then consider syncing both systems as well. With all the systems interconnected, the chances of errors and miscommunication get significantly reduced.
Customize and Configure the Software
Now that you have introduced the software with your teams and integrated it with other systems, it is time to bring it to real use. For that, you need to customize the lead management tool by tailoring its settings to align with your specific sales processes.
You can link the software with all the channels from where you get your leads. In addition, define the criteria on which the software will perform lead segmentation or scoring. Further, you can also start setting up automated tasks such as email campaigns. Did you know that “email campaigns are one of the most effective lead generation strategies.”?
This way, you can set up the software to work the way your business requires.
Capture, Qualify and Nurture
From this step, you will start collecting and nurturing leads. The lead management tool will capture leads from various channels that you have linked to it. For example, if a potential customer connects for an inquiry via social media, then the lead management tool will capture it and store all the associated information.
After capturing, it will analyze all the available information about the lead and assign it a score or tag based on criteria predefined by you. For example, a lead who inquires about the features and pricing of a specific product is more likely to convert than someone who only asks about its functionality. The former would be given more priority than the latter.
Then, to keep the leads engaged throughout and push them forward in the sales funnel, you need to nurture them with tailored content and timely follow-ups. The lead management tool can be set up to perform these tasks and simplify the job for you. Did you know that “75% of consumers said they like it when brands personalize their messaging and offerings.”?
Monitor the Performance
Once your sales processes and workflows are running like a well-oiled machine, you must analyze the data and monitor the performance of your sales efforts. Some KPIs i.e. Key Performance Indicators to measure, are lead conversion rates, sales cycle length, and customer satisfaction.
The analytics feature of the lead management software can give you detailed insights about the past and ongoing trends. Along with this, you can identify areas for improvement to optimize your sales process. Did you know that, “63% of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations.”?
By following the above-mentioned steps, you can seamlessly implement a lead management tool that certainly drives business growth.
Which Companies can Benefit From a Lead Management Tool?
A lead management tool can be an invaluable asset for a wide range of companies serving different industries. Let’s understand by exploring the role of lead management software in some specific types of businesses that can significantly benefit from implementing such a tool:
B2B Companies
Quote - 44% of B2B marketers said they use technology-driven processes like marketing automation scoring to qualify leads (Activate, 2021).
Technology companies, professional service firms, and manufacturing companies can use lead management tools to track potential clients, manage sales pipelines, manage customer relationships, and improve the efficiency of their sales.
E-commerce Businesses
Online retailers and subscription-based companies can use sales lead management software to capture leads from their websites, track sales performance, and reduce churn.
Real Estate Firms
Both residential and commercial real estate agencies can use lead management software to track their potential tenants and streamline their sales processes.
Non-profit Organizations
Fundraising organizations can leverage lead management software to track potential donors, manage fundraising campaigns, and build relationships.
Small Companies
Solopreneurs and companies with a small employee count can utilize lead management software to boost their efficiency and sales processes.
Key Takeaway!
Generating more quality leads is a priority goal for 79% of marketers worldwide. Also, some of the most common marketing challenges faced by organizations are lack of internal resources (36%), poor alignment between marketing and sales (35%), developing target account personas (31%), and predicting which account will purchase (31%).
A lead capture tool is certainly an ideal solution to solve all these challenges and problems that sales and marketing personnel face worldwide. Let’s not wait anymore; implement the right lead management in your sales team today to achieve the desired business success.