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Lead Management

Lead management is a term used to describe the overall process by which potential buyers are identified, educated, engaged with, qualified, and passed to sales. It is a term that is very similar in meaning to demand generation, which also focuses on this overall process.

Introduction to Lead Management

As a comprehensive strategy for generating revenue, lead management falls between broader marketing initiatives such as branding and advertising, and direct one-on-one efforts such as direct or channel sales. Lead management begins when interest is first identified, whether through awareness efforts (social media, PR), discoverability efforts (search optimization, search marketing, in-person or online tradeshows) or direct connection efforts (outbound calling, list acquisition).

From the start lead management efforts focus on building buyer interest through education and lead nurturing efforts. Educational efforts such as webinars, breakfast events, whitepapers, and eBooks are promoted through a variety of marketing means, including through the use of marketing automation to remain engaged with potential buyers.

Over time, as prospective buyers remain engaged and begin to educate themselves on a market space, they may begin to display signs of buying interest. As they do so, lead scoring allows marketers to identify interested buyers and get them engaged with the sales team. This aspect of lead management involves building an objective definition of what makes a lead qualified that is agreed to by both marketing and sales. Then, based upon this definition, a process for handing the qualified leads to sales and a service level agreement with sales can be built.

Sales, in its role in managing leads, can then follow up with the lead and either begin to work on it as a sales opportunity, or hand it back to marketing for further nurturing after an initial conversation discovers that the lead’s level of qualification is not as high as originally determined.

Lead management, as a discipline, requires a marketing mindset whereby the way in which buyers become aware of a solution category, educate themselves, and validate which solution is correct for them, is understood and facilitated by marketing. With a publisher’s mindset, marketers can identify what content is needed by each type of buyer in each stage of their buying process, and ensure it is available and discoverable.

By facilitating buyers, rather than pushing outbound messages, marketers focused on lead management are able to generate more qualified leads, and more revenue for their businesses.


 

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Blog Entry

Scoring leads to determine which are qualified for sales is only valuable if the sales team works with those leads appropriately when they are handed off. This is complicated by the fact that in many cases, a sales attempt to connect with a lead can result in ambiguous outcomes, like leaving a voicemail, or discovering that the prospect is interested, but suggests speaking again in three months.
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The Goals of Lead Nurturing
2009-06-23 Steven Woods
One of the most common ways to use a marketing automation system is for lead nurturing. Also called “drip marketing”, “nurture marketing” or various other names, this is the art and science of keeping prospects “warm” until such time as they are ready to buy. At that level, there seems to be general agreement that it’s a great process to put in place. Similarly, the results are clearly showing that there is tremendous value in nurturing leads. However, there is often something of a lack of consensus on what the approach should be for nurturing leads.
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Handing scored and qualified leads to sales in order for them to follow up is an inexact science. Continual optimization of the process is necessary in order to understand what aspects of a buyer’s digital body language are key to understanding buyer’s intentions. One of the best sources of this information is the sales team themselves. However, as any marketer knows, getting information out of a sales team can be challenging. On a topic such as the quality of an individual sales lead, it may in fact seem almost impossible.

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