Find, Engage, and Track: How To Optimize Lead Management and Engagement

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We know how it may feel to have a pipeline of potential prospects but cannot properly manage them to convert them into buying customers. Every business personnel agrees that marketing is best when lead management is optimized to achieve desired results. 

Top marketers are focused on revenue impact. Therefore, they always seek the quickest and most efficient means to achieve. With a good lead management framework, you can:

• Increase revenue and return customers
• Follow up with an interesting prospect faster
• Decrease cost of sales
• Know lead conversion metrics at the different levels from end to end
• Invest only in activities that generate real value for the business
• Have a complete alignment between sales and marketing
• Enhance the customer experience when they engage with your business

A pipeline full of leads is the first step to making sales and growing any business.

There are several ways you can get this done. But with so many tools and strategies available, it might get overwhelming. So, here is a defining guide to help you optimize your lead management and engagement process.

What Is Lead Management?

The systemic process whereby new or cold leads are qualified and nurtured into hot leads that are ready to buy is called Lead Management. In a standard sales process, leads come from different channels and are managed in a system or funnel. Then, they are engaged until they become sales-ready leads. 

Lead management entails capturing these leads while tracking every touchpoint of your business, like website traffic, paid ads, email, and social media engagement. These channels are monitored, harvesting potential leads and taking them through the entire sales process. 

Reports show that companies with a well-grounded lead management process have a 9% increased sales reps making quota compared to those without. Therefore, optimizing your lead management process will surely boost revenue for your business.

Of course, it is always necessary to analyze and improve your lead management system. The same process year in and year out will only get you the same results. If you are trying to break into new grounds, secure new customers or investors, you need to be asking these sorts of questions:

• How many leads from the previous month?
• How many leads were there within the same month the previous year?
• At what point are your leads falling out of the funnel? 
• At what point do you disqualify a lead?

You constantly need concise and analyzed data to meet and exceed your revenue and growth plans for your business.

How Can Lead Management Be Improved? 

As business professionals, we agree that proper lead management and engagement are important for every business. When it is optimized to tackle every unique challenge that may arise, the sales process becomes more effective. Follow these five steps to optimize your lead management process.

Your CRM Stages Should Reflect Your Sales Process

The first stage of lead management is ensuring your team has a process they follow diligently. So many companies have their lead management systems set up for success, but their sales team does not follow the process. They will rather follow their tactics and rely on their skills and experiences to close deals while barely updating the setup systems.  

To figure this out, have your reps walk you through the entire lead management process so you can ascertain if it is in line with laid down processes. If there are several differences, work with the team to create a new sales funnel that ensures the laid down processes are followed. 

Also, ensure the team feels connected with it. It should be a process that acknowledges their strengths.

Your sales systems should be clearly defined to enable the team to follow your lead management process. If this is not done right, the result will be a waste of time and resources. Remember, your CRM system is only as effective as the data imputed. Therefore, every data should be properly organized for accurate reporting and tracking.

Give More Attention To Your Lowest Converting Stages

When you have handled the first step right, identifying the parts of your lead management process that need improvement becomes easier. Most marketing CRMs and automation platforms provide statistics that show your conversion rate at every stage of the process. 

You can simply review the areas where people fall off the pipeline to increase your chances of closing and revenue. This is why lead management optimization is vital for growth in ROI. Ensure you do this often to measure the progress and efficiency of every stage of your lead management process. 

Customize Your Lead Nurturing Process

Lead nurturing is a way to ensure cold leads are being warmed up into prospects ready to have a potential sales conversation. Most companies fail to apply an effective lead nurturing process because they:

• Leave the entire nurturing process to be handled manually by the sales team. This does not give the desired results because not every lead is sales-ready.
• Or they have automated their nurturing process so much that every lead is treated equally. This will most likely produce the same result. When all leads are treated the same, your ability to detect leads at different funnel stages becomes limited. 

Your lead nurturing process requires a mix of both options to maximize your closing rate. Leads come from various channels and should be nurtured differently. For instance, leads that come from your “contact us” form can be handled distinctively by the sales team as these are leads who may be actively seeking out your product or service.

On the other hand, those who just engaged your content will need some extra nurturing. These leads should be put through an automated system that continually educates them about your brand and the solutions you provide. This will be an ongoing process, so you can filter these leads and focus on those who have the potential to buy. 

We advise you to define where all your leads are coming from and their buying phase. Also, you must decide for each group what kind of nurturing they need to get warmer. You can group them altogether if your resources are scarce and make a nurturing plan.

Highly Engaged Leads Should Be A Priority

To have a predictable sales pipeline, you must have a consistent and optimized lead management process. This does not mean every lead should go through the same process and be treated the same. You should modify your lead engagement according to their priority.

High-engaging leads have a higher chance of converting to paying customers. So, treating them as priority leads and with more personalization is best.

Here are the three metrics to evaluate to identify leads that have engaged the most

• Email opens
• Site visits
• Responsiveness

When these engaging leads are constantly nurtured, you improve your chances of closing them. It is essential to have a system that provides specific data. This helps you differentiate between a lead who engages highly but is not qualified for a sale and one who engages and is hot and ready to be closed. 

Data that can help you should answer questions like:

• How many times have they visited? 
• Where have they been on your site? 
• How responsive are they, etc.?

Also, for clarity, do not hesitate to ask qualifying questions and offer to help them with any inquiries regarding your product or service. This should give you a better understanding of who you should give utmost priority to.

Your Need To Have An Accountable Team

Tasks are inefficient if they are not duly assigned to anyone in particular. To create a transparent system and ensure your lead management process is followed to the letter, you have to assign every detailed task to a specific person(s). 

This way, each person can be accountable for their roles. In cases where a specific position is causing a setback, you know where and who is responsible. One easy way to keep track of lead management activities is through the management features your automation tool or CRM offers. 

This is why having top-notch, proficient lead management and CRM system is very important. It can help you qualify leads, accurately capture data and efficiently keep records. 

This way, you are sure of accurate reporting and data. This gives the sales team time to focus on what’s most important – selling and giving value. So, work towards building a controlled system to ensure all leads are followed up properly.

These are a few of the most effective tactics you may use to improve your lead management. Use these techniques to increase your lead management process’s efficiency and conversion rates.

Best Tools For Lead Management and Engagement

Aside from a proper understanding of your target audience, a good lead management system is attainable when you leverage a world-class CRM and automation solution. 

Many organizations find it difficult to properly implement every aspect of the lead management process we have discussed in this guide. It may be because it appears daunting or cumbersome, or they most likely do not have the right management software. 

They fail to realize that an optimized lead management system is the difference between a successful sales team and one that spends so much time and resources with little to no results. 

The secret to having a lead management system that guarantees a high conversion rate lies in the tools you employ. Most of the work is taken care of in optimized software with efficiency and accuracy. From tracking to reporting, analyzing, and qualifying, LeadBlocks helps fill up your CRM with quality leads and, of course, measures the correct data.

Are you unsure whether an automated system would benefit your lead management process? Give LeadBocks a try today. Our team of professionals will guide you through the setup process and bring you up to speed on how best to start getting the most out of your leads. 

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