Automated Lead Management Now A Main Stream Activity for SMBs
With Internet as a major medium for sourcing of sales leads, Automated Lead Management and Tracking has become a mainstream process for small and medium businesses. In the past, most companies used to track the leads with manually intensive processes and tools such as Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, Outlook or other locally installed contact management software.
Why Lead Management?
When the volume of leads are low, business owners and salespeople can easily keep track of the leads without automation. Also, cost of generating leads was also relatively low. For example, Yellow pages, Newspapers and Local Radio are the common staple of small business advertising.
Now that the consumer market has undergone tremendous changes, traditional advertising and marketing methods are fast losing the importance.
Small businesses and professional service providers such as contractors, realtors / real estate agents, mortgage brokers, insurance service providers, franchisees, spas, dentists and others are switching to digital marketing and advertising. Buying internet leads is a common practice among them.
Internet and Social Media as Lead Sources
Large volume of sales leads originate from Internet Search Engines such as Google and Bing, either directly through their own websites or through third party, independent lead generation and distribution companies. Social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogs are driving more consumers to the internet to research and purchase products and services online. These online leads cost significant amount of money; if the prospects are not managed, followed up and tracked promptly lot of money can be lost in short period of time.
Automated Lead Management Process
Automation of Lead Management (also known as Inquiry Management) starts with capturing of the leads directly from the website forms (aka landing pages) or lead distribution and posting systems used by lead sellers.
Once the leads are captured in the system, the leads are to be assigned to the sales reps based on the pre-defined distribution rules. Lead Management Systems such as LeadPro247 automates the lead routing process using a variety of rules such as sales territory (geography – county, state, zip code), product or service, etc.
The lead management system can also send automated emails to the prospective customer with introduction / welcome information, product details and the sales agent contact information.
In addition, the system will also send lead email alerts to the field sales reps intimating that a prospect in their area has shown interest in one of their services or products. The sales reps can immediately call up the prospect, even while on the road.
If there is an inside sales team, email lead alerts will go to them automatically. Based on the alerts they could qualify the leads and then inform the respective sales rep accordingly. This process helps prioritizing the sales leads and plan the follow-up activities.
Followup activities by the inside sales coordinators as well as the field sales reps can be updated in the system with brief notes. A suitable sales stage can be assigned to each lead for future follow up. Reminders could be setup along with follow up tasks.
The business owner / sales manager / administrator can view the entire sequence of activities from their computer systems in real time. The lead tracking and management system also includes comprehensive lead tracking and summary reports in the analytics module. For example, leads can be summarized and viewed by Lead Source / by Sales Rep / by Product, etc.
Each prospect’s profile, right from capture to the current stage, can be viewed in one place with all the activities such as email messages sent, followup tasks and notes, telephone calls and personal visits.
When a sale is closed or a prospect is lost, the status can be updated for proper filing and future reference. During the sales process, one or more email messages can be sent to the prospect via event triggered drip email campaigns. This is part of lead engagement and nurturing process.
Online Surveys can also be used to engage the prospects and get feedback during and completion of the sales process.
Lead Management as a Web Based Software
Most lead management services are available as a web based software unlike the traditional server or PC based solutions. Hence the system can be configured in a few hours for a specific business. Using a web based lead management system is much easier than the traditional software. Above all, there is no need for any upfront investment as the fees will be paid as a reasonable monthly subscription.
