A lead management tool is an important part of almost any business. It's the series of steps you use to collect contact information from leads and customers. Essentially, you want to make it as easy as possible for your leads to become customers. The more organized your process is, the easier it will be to follow up leads and convert them into paying customers.

Set the Foundation

Set the stage for change by focusing on the people in the organization. Doing so will help you better deal with the resistance your staff may have when they’re faced with new challenges. You need to capture the current state of your funnel and understand the upcoming changes for the people and processes that may impact your organization’s lead flow.

Prepare for Change Management

Establishing a change management framework is crucial to achieving success in lead management. You need to motivate meaningful change by defining the scope of the intentions, problem, and coalition. So, before you think in terms of projects, it’s important to think in terms of people first.

Make sure to communicate the vision to all stakeholders, create urgency and a climate for change, and unify people around the vision.

Plan

Capture the current reality. You can validate the data and make sure it’s sound. Then, meet with all the key players involved in lead management to understand their job functions, who does what tasks, and how the work is done without technology.

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Build up your plan by determining the tasks, deadlines, and assignments by reviewing the current process. If you already have a CRM in place, take screenshots of the current activities and responsibilities and make sure this information is included in the planning document. By mapping the current process, you’ll be able to identify which problems need to be solved and how the CRM will help you improve the situation.

Design the Concept and Process of Demand

You need to get everyone involved on the same page and aligned with the same vision. You want to make sure you understand how the company generates leads and how they are processed and then mapped to the lead management process.

Give your team members a clear understanding of the lead generation process to better understand the new lead management system and the techniques implemented. Make sure you have a clear definition of a lead. Defining and understanding leads allows you to set clear parameters for determining which lead is a hot lead, a warm lead, or even a cold lead. Understanding the difference between the different types of leads will allow you to target your marketing efforts better.

Lead Routing

These are the reports that allow you to document the flow of a lead from the time they enter the funnel to the time they become a customer–or leave the funnel. This will help you determine where your process breaks down and what needs to change.

You’ll be able to determine which leads are getting stuck between touchpoints and fix the process to increase the likelihood of turning that lead into a customer.

In addition to sales tracking progress of a lead,while it travels through the sales cycle, you can incorporate lead routing reports to help with forecasting. If there’s a sudden drop in the number of leads entering a sales process, you can look at the lead routing reports to identify why.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of providing information to a lead at the right time to help them make the decision to buy. This is when you send out a marketing email blast, a newsletter, or make a cold call to a lead to let them know about a new product or service.

You need to understand how a customer considers a product or service. There are two types of procurement:

• Pre-purchase stage: the customer is researching the product, services, or company before they buy.
• Post-purchase stage: when the customer has already purchased the product and is still working to get everything configured, set up, or installed.

Lead nurturing helps you bridge the gap between both stages or even beyond, to the point where you’re delivering value to a customer with a product or service they already own.

Your success in lead management depends on your ability to capture and nurture leads—the more relevant and timely the information, the better.

Better Lead Management Today

Lead management is a viable tool that can be used to grow your business base. It’s the process of strategically managing the set of steps a lead goes through to get from the interest being generated to the purchase being made.

Lead management is a key driver for growing a business. With the correct tweaks and some hard work, it can be a key to your success.

OutReachly is a reputable lead management software that will help engage and convert prospects into leads. Get started now.