LEAD MANAGEMENT AT SALES-LEAD-MANAGEMENT.COM

Lead Management at Sales-Lead-Management.com. In the beginning, someone raises a hand and says "Yes – tell me more." From that moment on, a company becomes engaged in one of the most critical functions that impacts sales success: lead management.

Lead Management is the process of rapidly and effectively creating, nurturing, distributing and analyzing leads. The ultimate goal? To increase the likelihood that a lead will convert to a qualified opportunity and then a new, satisfied customer.

Change is sweeping through marketing organizations everywhere. Expectations are rising – "give us more, better quality leads, more quickly" – while budgets and headcounts shrink. The mandate of doing more with less has never been more apparent, and pressure is increasing for marketing teams to draw a direct line drawn between their activities and the bottom line.

The good news for marketing professionals is that lead management technology, one of the key tools that demonstrates marketing value in the charts and stats that executives demand, is now widely available. It's no longer merely the 'Fortunate 500' who can afford to buy and implement this powerful capability, and have marketing teams that are intensely, quantitatively accountable.

As lead management strategies - and the processes and technologies that bring them to life - come within the reach of mid-sized and smaller businesses, the value proposition and timeliness of these tools is becoming irresistible to those marketers who need to prove their worth to their organization.

Traditionally, marketers have been 'idea' people, experimenting with creative ways to generate leads and create awareness. For some time, it was accepted that the benefit of marketing would be soft and qualitative in nature – "We know half of our marketing activities are useful – we just don't know which half." "We know marketing is necessary, we just don't know how good we are at it."

ROI-based reporting had long been an inexact science. But as our collective understanding and visibility improves, what we see is alarming. Gartner recently released studies suggesting that the vast majority of all sales leads – "more than 70% are never acted on because they do not reach the right person or organization at the right time". This is a sobering reality for marketers everywhere.

Accountability

Operational Accountability has Arrived The ultimate goal of any marketing department is to generate qualified leads for sales. Sales then converts leads into customers. The rate at which deals close is the final yardstick by which every marketing investment should be measured – but it's not easy. In the past, the ability to track the cause and effect of marketing campaigns has been elusive.

And the pressure is on. In a recent report, Boston-based research firm Aberdeen Group revealed that marketing departments are now being held to demonstrate the same level of quantitative value as other departments.

"The era of operational accountability has arrived," states the report. "Coupled with the maturation and growing effectiveness of marketing technologies, [a] focus on quantifiable performance promises to accelerate a measurable shift of an organization's marketing spend away from traditional media-based advertising processes and towards technology-centric, interactive marketing services."

Marketers are now judged by the same criteria as other line-of-business managers and executives. They are held accountable for their spending, their headcounts and their contribution.

The quantity of leads delivered by marketing initiatives is not the only criteria for measuring marketing value. The quality of leads is just as important, if not more important.

Rather than asking how many leads were generated, executives are asking for conversion rates, or what proportion of leads resulted in closed sales. Answering this question means analyzing the entire lead lifecycle – from how the lead was generated to how the lead was distributed to sales and what happened once it got there. Teams are accountable to show investment return and solid performance at every step, and over time, to show quantifiable improvement. As executives ask tough questions, lead management technology gives marketers the visibility and the answers they need to consistently show they're on the right track.

To implement a lead management strategy, marketing and sales must work closely together. For best results, a Lead Management Sales Software must bring together the right people, processes and information at various stages:

Identify hot leads and automatically route to direct sales or channel partners
Actively engage the remaining leads and nurture them through the pipeline to eventual sale
Track leads to closure and evaluate the ROI of marketing campaigns
Integrate the external channel including value added resellers (VARs), other resellers and strategic partners
Integrate offline qualification resources such as call centers

Defining Lead Management

For better or worse, sales success and the ability to demonstrate ROI is directly influenced by how effective marketing teams are at the following:

Lead Planning & Generation This stage consists of planning the entire campaign – determining lists, developing messaging, selecting the medium, setting the timing, planning the marketing project, then specifying lead qualification and - mechanism with Sales.
Qualify Leads In this stage, leads are qualified, scored and processed according to pre-determined criteria. Typical lead process points and 'flags' are defined, including qualification questions and process, - rules, lead scoring (specific definitions of A, B and C-level leads), components and duration of the sales cycle, how to deal with atypical or out-of-profile leads, and ownership of each stage of the process. Once lead qualification criteria are determined, they can be automated. For example, surveys can pose questions like, 'Does this prospect have a budget in place for a product like ours?" When this information is known, the lead can be passed to sales as a 'hot' lead requiring rapid follow-up, or a 'cold' lead requiring further nurturing and communication.
Distribute Leads Lead distribution is the process of getting leads to the right person at the right time. There are many distribution systems - according to territory, product, lead source, level of urgency, or new vs. existing customers. They can also be escalated if, for example, they have a short timeframe to make a decision, or a ready-approved budget, or if they have a particular urgency or a high value associated with them. With the right technology infrastructure, companies can automate the distribution of leads according to predetermined criteria. This removes the burden from support staff, and ensures that leads really do reach the right person at the right time.
Nurture Leads Lead nurturing allows companies to remain in touch with longer term leads until the lead is ready to be advanced into the sales cycle. When the lead is closer to making a purchase, it can be passed on to sales. Nurturing – the process of progressing a lead from an 'unqualified' to a 'qualified' state worthy of devoting your marketing resources – is an often neglected step in the lead management process.
Measure and Evaluate Programs The last stage of lead management is to close the loop on results. Post-campaign analysis and reporting is the key to demonstrating success, or perhaps identifying how a marketing approach could be improved. By going through a detailed planning process at the outset, teams are clear as to what is to be measured at each step, and have visibility into how similar campaigns have performed. When the ROI and cost-per-lead from each campaign is accurately reported, patterns can be identified which help marketing teams to do more often what is proven to work well.

Measuring Results

Step Five: Measure & Evaluate Programs - In a recent report, Gartner estimates that "enterprises routinely spend 10 percent to 30 percent of their revenue on marketing and sales activities, without being able to demonstrate a positive return on investment from those investments."

A lead management program provides a way for companies to measure and see that ROI – and learn what's working, and what isn't. Analysis feeds backs into planning for the next marketing campaign, and the whole cycle starts again – smarter.

With marketing automation, all of the data required to conduct that analysis is collected in real-time while campaigns are under way. Rather than relying on data that comes after the fact – or is highly subjective – management, sales, marketing, finance and call center operations can quickly see what is happening within marketing and sales cycle at any point in time – and feed back what they learn into strategic and business process improvements.

Conclusion

Companies that follow lead management best practices powered by marketing automation can expect to increase their return on every lead generated. By managing the process from the first stages of planning through the qualification, distribution and nurturing process, marketing teams gather meaningful data on what works, and what needs improvement. This continuous process of planning, execution and evaluation ensures that ROI is maximized on marketing activities and prospects are engaged right up to the purchase decision.

Implementing lead management best practices through marketing automation reduces the cost of marketing, fills the sales pipeline faster with better quality leads, and grows revenue. So every marketing organization can finally discover the real gold amongst their leads.