Just as first responders save more lives, marketers and sales professionals who respond to the prospects first have very high probability of converting the leads to customers.

We all know that first responders such as fire service personnel, paramedics, police and doctors value the first hour after an emergency as ‘golden hour’. Actions taken in the golden hour saves countless lives and damage to the properties. Responding to a prospect who has raised his / her hand with an online registration or quote request is no different.

When a lead comes through your sales lead tracking and management software system, make sure that you respond in minutes, not in hours or days. Even if the product or service that you are selling has a long sales cycle, it is essential to reach out to the prospects at the shortest possible time lag. Note that an autoresponder (or drip email)  message sent by lead system is not a replacement for your personal telephone call or email message.

Also, it does not matter if you are selling to businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C). Remember that you are selling to people in either case. Decisions are made by human beings, not soul less corporations!

Here are the keys for increasing lead conversion:

• Respond to prospects in Minutes, not Hours or Days
• If the prospects are not yet ready for sale, nurture with resources such as:
  • • Whitepapers
    • eBooks, Presentations, etc.
    • Webinar recordings
    • Newsletters
    • Tutorial Videos
    • Case studies and success stories
• Stay in touch via phone calls and emails with the leads until they are ready to move to the next stage.
• Determine the frequency of touches and use appropriate contact methods

Establishing a process to monitor,  respond and track the inbound marketing leads is a critical requirement in your marketing and sales strategy. Don’t let another lead slip through the cracks by delaying your first response!

If you are a small and medium business owner or online marketer looking to increase leads and sales, you must be either using a sales lead capture, tracking and management system already or evaluating the lead solutions available in the market. When deploying a lead tracking and marketing automation system, make sure that your websites are integrated with the same in order to capture leads automatically.

Websites as Lead Generation Sources

We all know that internet is becoming the primary source of sales lead generation and prospects land on one or more websites to seek your products or services. if you are driving a ton of traffic to your websites and the prospects are brought to the landing pages, converting the visitors into leads and following up with them is critical for success. It does not matter whether you are in B2B or B2C marketplace, automating the lead capture is an essential step to expedite the lead follow-up processes.

Automating Lead Capture from Landing Pages

I have come across many small business clients who use our LeadPro247 lead management software system, but are yet to integrate their websites where leads are generated. Majority of the customers still capture the lead information on basic forms and email the data to one or more inside sales / marketing team members. They take up their own time and then enter the leads into the lead distribution, tracking and management system.

It is critical to automate the lead capture process by integrating the landing pages (or signup forms or registration forms) with the lead management system. Many consider this integration process a tedious and complex one.

Lead Capture Methods

The leads captured on the websites can be emailed and then entered manually into the system as mentioned earlier. Precious time is wasted in this process delaying the follow-up activity. Any manual entry leads to errors and inaccuracies. And some leads might slip through the cracks and never get into the lead management system!

The simplest and easy method of lead capture by embedding a small code provided by your lead tracking and management system into the landing page. If you do not have the in-house capability to embed the code into the sign-up form, take help from the lead management service provider. Most providers do this for a small fee as it does not take much time. If you are using third party web developers or consultants, some tend to discourage this practice and push back. Don’t fall for their pressure! If they cannot incorporate your request or do not know how to do it with little efforts, then it may be time to look for an alternate service provider!

The industry term used for lead capture specifications is lead posting instructions. There are slight variations in this lead push process. Check with your lead tracking system provider; they would be more than happy to provide you the details.

If you have multiple landing pages or websites, you can pass on the “lead source” from each page to the lead system. The lead source information would be useful in the lead followup process. For example, you can plan different drip email messages to leads collected from each source.

Lead tracking systems will also support capturing leads generated through multiple pages (i.e. sign up form split into multiple pages). Most service providers would be able to help you with custom services in such cases.

If you are lead generation company capturing leads to resell the same to one or more lead buyers, automating the lead capture is first step. You may refer to our blog for more information on lead generation capture and distribution software solutions.

Leverage the lead capture features of your lead tracking system and convert more prospects to customers. Happy selling!

Why use Lead Management best practices and tools? Real estate professionals should leverage the internet and social media for real estate lead generation and lead tracking and management software tools to nurture, engage, follow-up, and convert prospects to customers.

Here is the slide deck from the presentation made by Jonathan Nicholas for a leading real estate organization. He captures the gist of internet marketing for real estate agents and brokers in this short presentation.

Though this presentation is with reference to lead management for real estate professionals, real estate lead generation and internet marketing, these concepts can be used by any marketer / organization generating / buying internet leads such as Insurance agencies and Mortgage agents, brokers and loan officers.

Lead Response Management is the process of responding to and managing the inquiries / sales leads in a timely, consistent fashion. While choosing and deploying a Sales Lead Collection, Tracking and Management software system will help you in the process, this alone will not result in lead conversion. The business lead management software is just a tool in the hands of a marketer which helps to capture leads from internet and other sources, route to sales reps, provide real time alerts and management the sales process. Lead Management includes lead response management phase.

Lead Tracking and Management Processes

In the era of Internet Lead Generation and sky high expectations from the consumers and prospects, it is essential to equip yourselves with resources and lead management processes for achieving a great sales conversion rate. Here is set of great resources on lead response management and allied areas, including research studies from MIT and Kellogg.

http://www.leadresponsemanagement.org/research

If you are converting the leads for your business, then effective lead response management is a critical phase of your marketing and sales process.

If you are an internet lead generation company and distribute the captured leads to the buyers, it is essential to deliver the prospect information to the end buyers in real time using a lead collection and distribution software system as the delay in response will result in lost customers.

If you are a B2B organization, reaching your sales reps immediately and connecting with the prospects with least delay will help increase the lead conversion rates significantly. If your rep is the first person to contact the prospect, the chances of winning the deal is much higher assuming that you have suitable product to service the lead.

Lead Delivery

It is a fact that B2B sales reps are spread all over the geography and delivering the leads captured via the landing pages almost instantaneously is a critical requirement. This is generally achieved by email alerts and SMS text messages.

However pushing the message with lead information may not lead to the immediate prospect contact, as the sales reps have to proactively read the lead alert messages and dial the potential prospect. With the plethora of devices in hand, juggling of schedules and driving around town, it may not be easy for them to react immediately.

Lead Delivery via Voice

The reason why several large CRM system implementations ended in mere hype and no visible sales increases is well known. All of us know why the sales reps hate CRM systems! Well, these system increases their work load instead of helping them sell more and close more deals. At the same time, they would be glad to listen to their lead administrators and back office secretaries for the simple reason that they speak with them and provide relevant information!

If we can take a leaf out of this practice, and help the sales reps with voice delivery of prospect information received from the internet / marketing center, they would be glad to listen to the message and motivated to take action.

Lead Capture, Distribution and Tracking systems such as LeadPro247 leverages this fact and helps deliver the lead profile information to the sales force using highly advanced text to speech technology.

Voice Delivery Process

In the first step, the lead profile details collected from the sign-up forms, registration sites, and landing pages are converted to voice instructions using sophisticated text conversion algorithms.

Then the system automatically dials the sales rep’s cell phone and reads out the lead information when the picks up the phone.

The system can use round robin or specific lead assignment rules to choose the sale representative to dial out.

If a round robin process is used to make the automatic calls, the rep can choose to accept the lead or push it back to the queue, so that the lead delivery system can dial out to the next rep.

Auto Dialing the Prospect

When the sales rep accepts the lead information, the auto dialer built into the system can also automatically dial the prospect and connect to the next available rep.

This process significantly reduces the efforts on the part of the sales reps and helps them reach more prospects and sell to more customers.

Cost Benefit

Since an internet generated lead can cost from a few dollars to tens of dollars, the incremental voice delivery cost (around $1) is more than offset by increased prospect reach and sales conversion ratio. The voice delivery mechanism, generally provided as a value added service can also be leveraged by B2C customers.

Following sales lead tracking best practices using Lead Tracking Software solutions such as LeadPro247 significantly increases the chance of converting the Lead into a Sale. It is a known fact that over 70% of the prospects are never followed up in time. While employing a lead management software helps to reduce this rate to some extent, using the lead tracking best practices results in high lead conversion rates and increased prospect satisfaction.

Lead Tracking Process

Lead Tracking is nothing but the methodical way of following up with the prospects and recording the lead follow-up activities in the lead management database.

If the sales personnel are not in a position to log the follow-up actions and the results, especially in the case of small businesses, a lead administrator or lead coordinator can update the same in the central database. This practice helps the sale representative in getting an unified view of the lead during the next call or on site visit. Once the sales personnel realize the benefits of of centralized lead tracking, they will start following the process for their own betterment.

Tracking Log

The sales lead tracking log will include the following components, among others:

• Lead Origination / Capture Info
• Lead Assignment Info
• Drip Emails sent to the prospect
• Lead Reassignment or Transfer to another sales rep, if any
• Demo Requests from prospects
• Onsite Visits
• Telephone calls made and received
• Call Back reminders
• Gist of Email communications
• Snail Mails sent
• Marketing Literature fulfillment, if any
• Samples delivered, if applicable
• Movement of Sales Tracking Stage

Visibility to all this tracking information will save considerable time for the sales personnel. The sales support staff (at the back office) can also alert the sales reps based on follow-up triggers.

While many marketers and businesses have started realizing the importance of contacting the prospect at the quickest possible time from the point of lead capture, further follow-up activities have not caught up as required. Deploying a suitable lead management system and adopting simple best practices for lead tracking is imperative in today’s internet centric marketing era.

Lead Nurturing is the process of developing leads and converting them to customers using long term marketing, engagement and follow-up strategies. With the wide use of Internet by the consumers and businesses to locate, research and purchase goods and services, Lead Nurturing has gained a much wider and critical importance among marketing professionals.

While most of the time the prospects need immediate response from the sellers, it is also true that many prospective buyers look for information right at the early stages of buying process. Hence keeping those future customers engaged, educated, gaining their confidence and finally converting the leads to customers is a key part of today’s marketing process. Lead Nurturing Software helps to nurture the internet leads using automated software systems and processes.

Lead Nurturing Software Tools

Leads generated from Internet and online media such as social networking sites and web 2.0 tools, who are not looking for immediate purchase, can be nurtured using lead nurturing software programs with built-in Autoresponder Services, event triggered sequential drip email marketing automation programs, and lead tracking systems.

The nurturing process takes various cues depending on your nature of business. For example, if the telephone contact information of the prospect is available, it can also be put through a contact center (not focused on sales but nurturing). If the physical address is available, even a traditional snail mail can be sent in a suitable time interval. However, these traditional nurturing methods are loosing relevance, as there is remote possibility of having contact information other then email addresses. Over 80% of leads generated on the internet, especially using social networking media sites, will have only email address as the contact information.

Many integrated Lead Management Software solutions such as LeadPro247 marketing automation suite, come with relevant lead nurturing tools. These are generally web based systems and easy to use. Typically the following components can be used to develop and nurture the leads:

• Auto Responder Service: This tool is nothing but Email Marketing Automation service with built-in drip email marketing broadcast feature. Drip email messages are automatically triggered by the system by predefined events such as times lines, bahavioral actions, and online activities.
• News Letters: Electronic newsletters are great nurturing tools for educating and engaging the prospective customers. Email marketing service will be used to design, deliver and track email newsletters with marketing information.
• Online Surveys: The biggest benefit of using online survey software is that you can read the prospects’ minds. This will provide an insight into the thoughts of the prospect and your services can be tuned accordingly.
• Lead Tracking: When you are nurturing a lead online, tracking the behavior is the most important aspect. Unless you know how they are behaving and what they are responding to your marketing communications, you can not deliver meaningful messages or take corrective actions. Again, the integrated Lead Tracking software such as LeadPro247 could be leveraged to track the email message opens, clicks, site visits, survey responses, and whitepaper / document downloads.

Usage, Relevancy and Frequency

While there are several tools and systems available for internet generated leads, it is the the user who decides when and how to use the features available. As an online marketing professional, you must choose the right business rules, timing and frequency for delivering nurturing messages. Using a lead nurturing software tool itself is a not a panacea for all ills! It depends on how you use it.

For example, sending too many email messages might trigger the prospect to unsubscribe from your email list. Similarly, if you do not mail frequently enough, they prospect might forget about their research and your relevany product / service and might report your email message as a SPAM or Unsubscribe from the list.

The messages have to be relevant to the prospect’s needs and requirements. Use the segmentation features available in your email marketing or autoresponder service to deliver right messages to the right target audience.

Review the nurturing programs and business rules settings on a regular basis and tweak and improve the same on a continuous basis. What is right and relevant today may not be relevant tomorrow, especially in the online world. If you are dealing with B2B sales leads, you may also employ lead ranking or scoring techniques to improve the lead nurturing and follow-up process.

Welcome to LeadManagementResources.Com! Our objective is to make this blog as a resource center for marketing professionals, small business owners, entrepreneurs and home based businesses. For anyone involved in business, marketing is the core of success and lead management a critical component of marketing.

Research studies and surveys show that over 70% of the leads are not followed up properly and allowed to slip through the cracks. Hence tracking and managing the leads and increasing the lead conversion rate should be the prime motive of  successful marketers.

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