Growth Fusion

According to the latest Gartner Marketscope for CRM Lead Management report,  30% of Global 2000 companies that focus on improving lead management processes will increase revenue 5% to 10% by 2015. For enterprises and SMBs, this can enable significant top line growth and will be achieved through better qualification, prioritization, distribution, augmentation, allocation, tracking, and closing of leads from multiple lead-generation sources.

The pressing need to maximize your company’s productivity by using every available option, mandates using lead management processes on customer information to make improved sales. Gartner survey indicates integration of systems such as lead management software to these customer databases, including the CRM systems which most companies use, to improve the sales conversion ratios compared to manual error-prone processes. And with social media marketing being integrated into these lead management software, the result is only going to get better and not confined anymore to conversions from e-mail marketing and website landing page optimizations only.

The whole lead management process is simple yet highly productive if properly nurtured and prioritized as a serious contender to grow your incomes. A rightly implemented lead management process can help you capture raw leads from multiple sources such as email campaigns, website registrations, telemarketing campaigns, social media marketing, tradeshows, and other multi-channel marketing initiatives. All these leads are then nurtured and passed over to the right sales people.

Lead management process

According to the Gartner Report, the process of generating leads using lead management software may be summarized as below:

• Accept leads generated from a multi-channel lead generation system or campaign such as websites, customer calls, contact centers, e-mail marketing, third-party databases/lists, social networking/social CRM sites, or mobile marketing campaign
• Store all lead information in a lead management or CRM database resident in the lead management application
• Retain, access, use and analyze all related information required for the processing of the lead, from conception to closure, and the ability to integrate with stand-alone CRM or SFA applications
• Append missing or additional information
• Create a lead qualification process, including the ability to process the lead through a minimum of three qualification steps
• Automatically and dynamically score a lead, based on at least three lead qualification criteria, and to route that lead to the next appropriate lead management process, based on the score.
• Create multiple lead qualification and scoring processes, based on different criteria
• Execute multiple lead qualifications and scoring processes simultaneously and synchronously
• Automatically and dynamically assign a lead to a direct sales channel, indirect sales channel based on lead qualification, lead scoring, campaign criteria, lead management metrics or analytics, or lead routing metrics
• Track data related to when the lead was assigned (e.g., date, channel or salesperson, and relevant lead information) to the sales channel
• Be notified, based on data or application integration with an integrated or third-party CRM or SFA application, of the closing of a lead
• Store all the information in an internal or external database or data repository

That looks far from a simple straight-headed process for getting your prospects to turn into customers. It takes some effort from you to get the whole cycle working efficiently. Some of major software vendors offering such solutions include: Eloqua, Marketbright, Marketo, Microsoft (Microsoft Dynamics CRM), Oracle (Siebel Marketing), Pardot, SAP (SAP CRM), and Unica.

The two key aspects

There are two aspects that make for a successful lead management system that accelerates top line growth:

• A cutting-edge lead management system that is integrated into your CRM
• A strong marketing team or consulting resource who can effectively leverage the lead management system and drive revenues.

Here are some other aspects that can help drive revenues:

can earmark the following resources and effort that you may require to make your incomes grow:

• You need marketing resources with deep understanding of the lead management process
• There may be managerial challenges in creating buy-in from top management. Help top level managers understand the need for it and give it due priority
• You will need to dedicate quality time on mapping the whole process for this initiative to bear fruit
• Expect to make quick marketing decisions based on output from this new lead management process
• Last but not the least, earmarking budget for the whole process!

So the bottom-line is, if you have to get more, then you have to spare more – more resources, more challenges, more time, more deviations and, of course, more money. But one thing is for sure, it will bring in more leads and close more sales.

Major challenges

Although the demand for lead management capabilities is growing fast, there are several challenges when it comes to implementation and execution of a successful lead management system. Companies do not have a well-documented lead management process and many tasks are done on an ad hoc basis, making multi-channel lead management extremely complex. Further there is a need to clearly define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The market is still growing and the tools are evolving and changing; therefore, there is a need to dedicate more resources to get the process right.

If you want to avoid the complexities of managing the whole process in-house, you can bring in consultants who can manage this process you, possibly with greater efficiency since they are continuously involved in delivering similar services. This can also bring down your Total Cost of Operation (TCO) and marketing execution efficiency.

According to industry sources, only about 15% of companies have marketing automation driven CRM-based lead management processes. If your company has not yet sketched out the whole stuff, this may be the right time to start off with a lead management and quality audit. Wishing you great sales ahead!