A White Paper on LEAD MANAGEMENT

Transcription

1 A White Paper on LEAD MANAGEMENT MetaConcepts Pvt Ltd 507, D B Road, R S Puram,Coimbatore Phone : , Fax : , Website:

2 Manage Measure and mine leads from anywhere in the world Lead Management Lead Management is an exclusive solution to manage Leads, track their root, follow up the status and finally convert them to a Customer. Lead Management increases sales and improves Marketing effectiveness by streamlining lead management processes, automating many redundant, administrative tasks and improving management insight. Lead Manager can be integrated with existing Sales Force Automation tools allowing them to do what they do best - track opportunities - and marketing to concentrate on developing high quality leads. Specifically, Focus2sell Lead Manager enables marketers to: 1. Capture: Consolidate leads from multiple sources - tradeshows, lists, web requests, telephone inquiries, etc. - while attributing them to specific marketing activities and campaigns. 2. Qualify: Score, rank and categorize leads based on method of response and "readiness to buy" indicators. 3. Enhance: Augment lead information with transactional history, demographic and psycho graphic information. 4. Mature: Cultivate leads through a "chain" of marketing activities and campaigns to maintain awareness and result in a sale. 5. Assign and Notify: Automate the assignment and distribution of leads through all of your sales channels. Route all appropriate leads quickly. Establish business rules to ensure rapid follow-up and feedback. 6. Management & Reporting: Make better decisions about future marketing investments by tracking the volume and quality of leads. Create and distribute up-to-date reports on demand generating marketing activities. Determine the effectiveness of cultivating leads and gain better visibility into future sales.

3 The moment you identify a prospect as an opportunity, you need to prepare for clear, effective communication. The relationship built from this communication is what will put you a step ahead of your competitors. To get in the door of the prospect and to secure the best chance of closure, you must:?? Follow up quickly.?? Qualify thoroughly.?? Relay information accurately.?? Send only qualified leads to the sales organization - but, maintaining communication with longer-term opportunities. Strengthen Your Lead Management Process. In today's world of 1-to-1 marketing and "Internet time," your customers and prospects expect rapid and personalized follow-up to their inquiries. If you are not prepared to respond rapidly and effectively to their inquiries, how do you think this affects their trust in your capabilities? Is this the brand impression you want to make? Lead management is important not only from a customer perspective, but also because it represents a vital link between your marketing and sales organizations. Lead management is not simply the "passing off" of leads from marketing to sales. Rather, it is the process of moving a prospect along the sales cycle continuum from a state of "awareness" to a state of "loyal customer." For some companies, this process is short. For others, it takes many months and requires significant cooperation between marketing and sales through multiple contacts with a prospect. Fortunately, software technology now exists to automate many pieces of the lead management process. For instance, workflow "engines" can fulfill literature requests by sending electronic files to an address or generating a mail merge letter. Automation can speed up the process, personalize the lead follow-up, eliminate redundant data entry, and reduce the potential for human error. Furthermore, in large companies with multiple sales channels and product lines, complex lead routing rules can be established and implemented consistently and rapidly. To assess the lead management process in your company, you should know 1. How many leads your marketing organization generated last year? 2. The sales conversion rate of those leads? 3. How quickly are leads sent to the sales channels following an inquiry by a prospect or existing customer?

4 4. How much administrative time is spent processing and responding to leads? 5. Could some of this time and effort be saved through automation of the process? 6. Do you have a prospect/customer database that is accessible by marketing and sales employees? 7. Do you assign and prioritize leads based on information contained in the database? 8. Do you provide an easy way for sales representatives to update the database during the sales cycle? The key to successfully implementing lead management is to find the broken elements of the process and to seek to improve the process continuously. In the end, both sales and marketing will benefit. Sales will be able to show marketing where the "good" leads are coming from and marketing will be able to analyze its efforts and adjust investments in campaigns and promotional activities to generate higher quality leads for the sales channels. And perhaps the most important benefit - your customers walk away with a terrific impression of your brand! Steps to Distribute, track and reassign leads over the web 1. Add, update, delete, archive and reassign leads in real time. 2. Primary lead profile screen alerts the user to the real-time status of the lead and also provides contact information (including and URL hyperlinks), background data on the company (e.g. sales revenues, number of employees). This type of information can provide the background information necessary to tailor your sales and marketing activities to the lead's particular needs and interests. 3. The profile summary outlines the lead grade, lead value, lead source and lead assignments. 4. Assign leads to one or more users, including organizations, account managers, business partners and business partner representatives. 5. Update data on assigned leads, including lead value, forecasted percentage, close date and other information. 6. Enter notes and comments reflecting daily sales activities in Sales Update. Each journal entry is time-stamped. This information can be crucial in navigating future sales and marketing activities with the lead. 7. Set the number of business days given to sales reps and channel partners to either accept or reject opportunities and respond with a lead status update. 8. Instantly download and send leads from anywhere in the world.

5 Functions of Lead Management 1. Distribute, track and reassign leads in real time via the web 2. Manage multiple marketing campaigns 3. Import telemarketing scripts into searchable fields 4. Download customized mailing lists 5. Develop custom fields and forms 6. Directly import leads from web forms and web inquiries into your own database 7. Tailor access privileges to each individual user or user group 8. Perform market research analysis on key customers and prospects 9. Analyze ROI from marketing campaigns 10. Build and maintain a complex data mart 11. Download highly targeted mailing lists 12. Produce powerful call back, lead aging and forecast reports 13. Set notification for leads that are reassigned or need action 14. Quickly access personalized lead data 15. Host online event registration 16. Post comments and additional information about specific leads 17. Gather and analyze feedback on leads from field reps Benefits of Lead Management 1. Close the loop between sales and marketing functions 2. Simplify lead distribution with automatic reassignment and rules-based lead management 3. Expand and nurture your sales pipeline 4. Uncover unseen opportunities 5. Increase accountability throughout the sales process 6. Generate meaningful feedback on the effectiveness of marketing activities 7. Empower managers with advanced data mining and reporting capabilities 8. Target decision makers for seminars and direct mail 9. Measure and maximize ROI 10. Improve communication between sales and marketing teams 11. Refine marketing and sales decision support 12. Strengthen relationships with key business partners 13. Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty "The strongest argument for lead management in the workplace is that because it is both more productive and leads to higher-quality work, it saves money."