An overview of the individual phases of the lead management process:
Attracting prospective customers
Lead generation (also referred to as lead generation) means acquiring potential customers. The task of lead generation is to identify high quality leads and win them over for the company. The aim is to build up a large customer database with as much data as possible so that customers can be contacted later on. There are many ways to generate leads in online marketing. Classic lead generation, for example, occurs when you register for the company newsletter or register on a website for the first time. Incentives, such as discount vouchers, coupons, and competitions, are still popular methods of generating leads.
Caring for contacts
Lead nurturing is all about maintaining your contacts i.e. contact management. Once a lead has been successfully generated and the contact has been added to the database, the contact may still not be anywhere near to making a purchase – they need to be persuaded. This is the time to address potential customers with the right information and advertising at the right time. It is very important for the content to correspond to the respective point in the customer journey.
Lead nurturing takes places in every phase of the lead management process: when acquiring new customers, when keeping existing customers, and when winning back inactive contacts. The goal of lead nurturing is to provide more qualified leads and, above all, better qualified leads, which is why additional development of leads is important. In the end, companies expect shortened conversion processes, better conversion rates, and an optimal return on investment (ROI).
Analyzing leads
Lead scoring is when already qualified contacts are evaluated. This helps you to work out how high the chances of a successful transaction are. The quality of a contact or request is important for accessing how interesting a lead is for the particular sales target. Lead scoring usually takes place according to certain quality factors. What’s particularly important for a high lead score is how complete and up-to-date the profile is. But the response to the measures taken in lead nurturing is especially crucial.
Forwarding lead routing to interested parties
If a lead has reached a pre-defined threshold value during lead scoring, the lead is handed over to the sales department – this process is referred to as lead routing. Employees in sales need all relevant information and contact details of potential customers to adapt their sales strategy accordingly. They then initiate the measures previously decided upon so that they can successfully complete the buying process.