In a business, every opportunity that comes in--whether from word of mouth, from the website, from advertising--must be followed up carefully. That's what lead management is for: tracking leads and working to convert them into customers.
In this article we talk more about it: let's see what it is, why it is important, and what processes characterize it.
We also see how to manage all leads easily and profitably with Odoo CRM.
What is lead management
Lead management is the process of taking a lead to become a potential customer, monitoring and managing it. It is sometimes referred to as customer acquisition management or contact management.
Once you have collected a lead (a potential customer, a person who has shown interest in the company) you try to qualify him, tracking his activities, his behaviors, putting in place actions that will engage and attract him and turn him into a customer.
The more the company grows, the more complex lead management becomes. Managing 100 leads is very different from managing 1,000, 10,000, 100,000.
And even when the lead has become a customer, the work is not over: it is important to continue cultivating relationships through follow-up actions to maintain high levels of satisfaction and high sales efficiency.
What are the benefits of lead management?
Lead management helps companies understand which strategies are getting the best results, so optimize them by making them increasingly effective.
The benefits of a lead management activity are many:
- Track the actions of potential customers by identifying patterns of behavior useful in the future;
- It separates contacts not in line with business intent, decreasing costs and wasted time;
- Increases the efficiency of the sales process by automating repetitive tasks and better control of the sales pipeline;
- Improves business monitoring and reporting;
- Increase the coordination of various business departments.
What is the process of lead management?
Through lead management, the company manages, monitors and establishes a relationship with the contact.
The process covers several activities:
- Lead acquisition: acquisition of potential customers through online channels (such as sponsorship campaigns or blog posts) and offline channels (events, direct contacts). For example, a user who downloads a piece of content or fills out a form to request information becomes a lead, i.e., a contact to be managed.
- Lead qualification: acquired contacts must be filtered, classified and profiled in order to take effective and relevant communication actions. In fact, not all leads generated are equal: for example, some users may be at the information stage, others closer to purchase.
- Lead routing: leads are assigned to a salesperson, whose purpose is to convey products or services profitably to customers and close the sale.
- Lead nurturing: leads are " nurtured " over time, i.e., followed and nurtured, by sending customized content as needed.
- Re-engagement: inactive leads can be contacted with targeted messages in order to trigger potential interest.
So through lead management you accompany the potential customer along the entire funnel, with the goal of leading them to their destination: buying your products or services.
How to manage lead management with Odoo CRM
The use of software allows you to effectively manage the lead management process, reducing the risks of misguided marketing and sales actions that drive customers away from your company.
Using Odoo CRM, a module of the all-in-one Odoo suite, you can capture contacts from a variety of sources, including your website and e-commerce.
You can also manage your leads with lead nurturing actions, monitoring the progression of lead interest and communicating with them through an integrated chat.
Retention of potential customers
Odoo CRM allows you to manage leads through nurturing actions, scheduling tailored email marketing campaigns sent automatically and based on your prospects' key segments and activities.
It also allows you to talk to visitors on the website through Live Chat, so you can have immediate contact with potential leads.
Assessment of the importance of potential customers
With Odoo CRM you can classify your prospects to track leads. Classification is done based on explicit and implicit criteria, such as page views, location, time of day.
You can decide the minimum total score that deserves to be converted into a sales opportunity and assign scores to the various contacts.
So you prioritize certain customers and plan actions based on lead quality.
Assignment rules
Odoo CRM allows you to set your own rules for assigning potential customers to the right salesperson or sales team, based on quotas and segments.
This way all your staff will know which potential clients to handle and contact.
Channel management (pipeline)
Odoo CRM gives you a clear overview of the opportunity pipeline and makes you work faster with the drag & drop interface.
It allows you to set specific steps for each sales team and create sub-steps to better organize processes.
It also allows you to archive missed opportunities and analyze the reasons for them to improve sales effectiveness.
Analysis of opportunities and customers
Through the setting of advanced filters, groupings, cascading menus, Odoo CRM gives you a complete picture of all the channels of opportunity you can leverage to track leads and close sales.
It also allows you to obtain statistics on the sources of your potential sales to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing campaigns.
Manage your leads effectively with Odoo CRM
Contact us: we will introduce you to the software and provide a free demo.
