Leads are often described as the lifeblood of any business – be it large corporate behemoths or a startup that is trying to establish a name in the market.
Without leads, no business can survive. Leads are especially important for service-based businesses and those who are into retail and customer-facing enterprises.
By the term ‘Leads’, we mean information about a business prospect, who can convert at a later stage and become your customer.
Entire marketing activities and campaigns lead to the generation of leads, and the more leads a business gets, the better are the growth opportunities and potential.
Small businesses and MSMEs often ask us the importance and relevance of a Lead Management System for their small enterprise and should they implement it?
This article will share what exactly is the lead management system and explain the lead management process for any business. We will provide a glimpse into lead management in CRM, such as salesforce lead management and the fundamentals of an enquiry management system.
To start with, what is a lead management system?
Introduction To Lead Management System For Small Businesses
In layman terms, a lead management system is a process to generate, manage, nurture, and convert leads for your business.
It’s a comprehensive system and process for managing the entire lifecycle of leads: right from the point of generation to the last stage of conversion.
In fact, a typical lead generation system works in a loop: Once a conversion and sale happen from a lead, that information is not deleted but nurtured in a way to generate repeat sales and repeat orders.
Lead Management Process
There are four stages in a typical lead management process:
Lead Capturing
Lead Tracking/Qualification
Lead Distribution
Lead Nurturing
And repeat.
Now, there various lead management systems existing, and everyone has their Lead Management Process, but the basics boil down to these four critical stages of a lead management process.
Lead Capturing
In the 1st stage, leads are captured automatically or manually and entered into the lead management system. Leads can come in via marketing campaigns, websites, offline ads, paid on search engines, social media, etc.
Lead Tracking & Qualification
Tracking and qualifying leads is the most critical stage of the lead management process, and the success rate of any lead management system depends on the efficiency of this stage. In lead tracking and qualification, the business tracks and evaluates the leads and finds out which one is the most beneficial for the business.
To find any leads’ worth, it’s essential to understand their origin, history, and spending power. Which websites and pages within your website are they visiting, and which forms are they filling in. The behavior and the inclination of the leads are tracked, and qualifications are made based on that.
Based on this information, the leads are categorized and labeled and becomes sales-ready.
Lead Distribution
Based on the leads’ usefulness and efficiency, the information about the leads is distributed to various sales channels, call centers, and marketing teams to push them towards conversion.
Lead Nurturing
In this stage, either the lead has converted, or they are still in the indecision mode. In either of the cases, the leads are nurtured and engaged. This can be done by emails about new offers, a reminder about their products being added to a cart (in case of online business), etc.
Based on a regular timetable, the nurtured leads are again pushed into stage 2 of tracking and qualification, and more sales are generated.
As mentioned before, the entire lead management process is a loop.
Lead Management In CRM: Salesforce Lead Management
The lead management system can be either standalone or integrated with a CRM or Customer Relationship Management system, making the entire lead management process even more powerful.
This process of lead management in CRM can be seen, for example, in Saleforce.
Salesforce is one of the biggest CRM platforms in the world, with millions of users. In the Salesforce Lead Management process, the businesses can generate leads and then effectively create a dialogue and engagement with them.
This process leads to more sales.
The most significant advantage of integrating Lead Management in CRM is that you can track and qualify your leads better since you have the ammunition of CRM with you. And this leads to an optimal lead nurturing process and maximum sales.
Overview Of Enquiry Management System
Enquiry Management System is a sub-set of a typical lead management system, wherein all the leads coming in for enquiries and information are stored in a standalone software/tool.
This list is then worked upon by tracking, qualifying, and then distributed among sales channels for conversion.
Once in a time, Enquiry Management System was reasonably popular among customer-facing businesses such as hotels, travel agencies, educational institutions, etc., wherein customers dropped in physically for inquiries.
But with the digitalization of sales, and lead generation, Enquiry Management System has gradually embedded and converted into a more robust lead management system.
If you are aware of the vital lead management system features, then a standalone and independent enquiry management system is not required. The lead management process will take care of the inquiries and feed them into the lead tracking and qualification stage before distributing them for the final sales push.
Have more questions on the lead management system and the lead management process? Do you wish to know more about Lead Management System Features, and what exactly is lead management in CRM?
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