Lead Management Software

Lead Management, Marketing and CRM round-up – 3 things you need to know this week #7

Duncan Macdonald — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:17:59 +0000

Here are the articles we found most interesting and useful from the blogs and social networks for the past week.

Top 3 Ways to Make Your Content More Discoverable

An excellent summary about the benefits of discovery over search. With all the interest and buzz in niche sites like Pinterest this seems even more relevant

http://awe.sm/5fL6w]

Is Position 4 The New Position 1?

Again on the topic of SEO, and relevant to any search marketers it challenges the idea that the higher the average position, the better your campaigns will perform?.

http://awe.sm/5fXlJ

How to Bring Back the Old Customers via Email

Utilizing email marketing not to just generate new leads but as a tool to reactivate old customers. Tips and guidance on how best to put this into practise.

http://awe.sm/5fXlz

That does it for this week, if you’re looking for more below is a list of the rest we have been tweeting this past week.

The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors http://awe.sm/5fXnf

10 Benefits of B-to-B Email Marketing - http://awe.sm/5fXm6

6 Cool Link Building Tips for E-Commerce Site | SEO Takeaways - http://awe.sm/5fNmr

Sales Team management – maximizing on your leads - http://awe.sm/5fviG

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Do sales people care about lead follow-up?

Duncan Macdonald — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:22:15 +0000

Rarely will you hear anyone tell you lead follow-up is a waste of time, but why then is it so hard to get sales to follow-up leads? Sales people only want to follow-up opportunities but an unavoidable part of creating good opportunities is working, following-up and qualifying leads.

Lead nurturing will assist in progressing raw leads to opportunity status but for many companies this is a function performed by sales and for many this is part of the lead follow-up process.

Getting commitment from sales on lead follow-up is greatly effected by the issue of lead quality, whether the leads are deemed “sales ready” and whether sales people believe they have better chance of closing deals of their own. Generally speaking if you can’t make it as easy as possible and if sales people are hitting their targets without needing new leads then those leads you feed them are more likely to get ignored.

So why go to the effort of generating leads in the first place? Well we all know that to sustain and grow a business you need to bring on new customers to offset the inevitable churn. Sales can’t have everything on a plate and whether they like it or not you will always need to follow-up leads.

Here are some pointers to get sales people caring about the leads you send them:

Don’t waste sales peoples time - Reduce admin, data entry, and filter obvious time wasters or bogus leads. It only pi**es sales people off.

Get leads to them whilst they are hot – For every second that goes by, the less chance you have of converting. Get the leads to sales without delay so they can strike why the iron is hot.

Improve lead quality – You should have the information at hand telling you what your best and worst sources of leads are, so make sure you use this information and focus your efforts on the best sources.

Manage workloads – dumping leads all at once often by surprise and then expecting them to get actioned never endears you to any salesperson. Make sure you drip leads constantly so they can manage their workflow. If you inundate them then you know the leads only get ignored.

Knowledge is power – No-one like cold calling and if you are generating the leads then there is no need. Make sure you provide as much information as you can about the lead, their interactions, what triggered the lead and any history of past lead activity. The more sales knows ,the more confident and professional they will be.

Competition – A bit of healthy competition never hurt anyone and helps no end. Sales people are by nature competitive so don’t be afraid to name and shame lead follow-up rates on a regular basis. Be careful not all leads can be contacted first time so take this into account and don’t judge them on leads they have only just received.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Managing Sales Teams – maximizing on your leads

Duncan Macdonald — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:10:09 +0000

If you distribute leads then you will want to make sure you not only have the tools but also the process to effectively manage sales teams, reps and sales agents.

Successful sales team management requires getting good quality leads to the right sales person whilst providing an environment to make it as easy for them to work those leads. These pointers will help your sales team management no end:

1. Identify the best lead sources and focus your efforts on these.

2. Save sales people time – make sure you filter out obviously bad leads. If the details are obviously fake, or just garbage then filter them, this is not a job for sales.

3. If a source continually produces bad leads filter them out completely or at least look at your offering and make sure it is targeted.

4. Create a sales workflow that helps lead follow-up. Reduce the steps required by sales to get to the lead and provide all the information you have.

5. Define your sales stages (sales pipeline) based the buyers actual process not yours.

6. Train sales teams on how to move leads through the pipeline to closure by arming them with information on how to overcome objections at any stage.

7. Automate tasks, and reminders so your sales team can focus on follow-up not on the admin.

8. Stagger marketing campaigns to drip leads – swamping your sales teams with leads every now and then does not help manage their workloads, leads will only get lost.

9. Move non-contacted leads to someone that will follow-up or has the bandwidth and let the sales person know why you moved the lead. Missing out on a lead to a colleague will make them sit up and think.

10. Create competition between sales teams and sales people by setting benchmarks and comparing.

11. Create a name and shame, never the most popular tip with the actual salespeople but certainly effective, watch your follow-up rates increase when they know the rest of the sales team can see their performance.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Lead Management, Marketing and CRM round-up – 3 things you need to know this week #6

Duncan Macdonald — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:07:37 +0000

Here are the articles we found most interesting and useful from the blogs and social networks for the past week.

Inbound.org: A Hacker News for marketing content

Described as a “Hacker News for marketers” Inbound.org is basically a ranking list of good articles voted for by users. It is mainly focused as the title says on Inbound marketing but with a lot of good emphasis on SEO.

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/startup-vets-launch-inboundorg-hacker-news-marketing-info

Top 3 Ways to Shorten Your Sales Cycle With Inbound Marketing

Regardless of how long your sales cycle is, the question remains – how can you minimize the time between initial contact or web visit and final sale? Here three tips for doing exactly that.

http://www.kunocreative.com/blog/bid/71096/Top-3-Ways-to-Shorten-Your-Sales-Cycle-With-Inbound-Marketing

Lead scoring can be misleading – it focuses on the norm, not the specific.

One of the issues with a lead scoring system is not all leads will conform and you risk missing out. For many smaller or niche businesses any inquiry is important and offers potential.

http://www.b12leads.com/index.php/lead-scoring-can-be-misleading-it-focuses-on-the-norm-not-the-specific/

That does it for this week, if you’re looking for more below is a list of the rest we have been tweeting this past week.

Tools to manage lead follow-up and conversion within sales teams -http://awe.sm/5fJXZ

Successful Lead Nurturing – 4 Tips http://awe.sm/5fJXQ

6 reasons why your organization might need a marketing automation s… http://awe.sm/5f6oR

How to Make a Cold Call That Works - http://awe.sm/5dkdt

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

4 Tips for Successful Lead Nurturing

Duncan Macdonald — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:34:18 +0000

A good and effective lead management process includes lead generation, lead follow-up and closure. Lead follow-up is an often confused area as many leads will not be ready to buy there and then. Yet scheduling call backs on a lead is not going to get the prospect to the buying stage.

With research showing 40% of leads eventually leading to a sale, effective lead management needs to encompass lead nurturing. Your resources will determine whether this is a role for marketing or sales either way it is an important step to get to the buying stage. Here are 4 tips that can help you achieve this.

1. Personality – We all know when an email comes from faceless corporate, make yours stand out. Give it a personal touch and use language you would use in your own emails.

2. Mix it up - Try out different kinds of communications; your nurturing may be led by emails but that should not stop you including videos, webinars, infographics etc.

3. Add Value – There is no point if its not adding real value – it just gets ignored. Get inside the prospects mindset, what are their issues, what will they find helpful.

3. Get to the point - Prospects have a short attention span so get your point across succinctly, then let them opt-in for more.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Tools to manage lead follow-up and conversion within sales teams

Duncan Macdonald — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:39:27 +0000

With the B12Leads, you’ll see exactly how your sales teams are performing, your overall pipeline progress or even delve into specific leads to make sure they are being actioned.

Understand who is performing best or probably just as important who is letting you down. Here is a 2 minute overview of the tools we provide.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Lead scoring can be misleading – it focuses on the norm, not the specific.

Duncan Macdonald — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:52:03 +0000

In the perfect world you would fill your sales pipeline with loads of high quality leads that all get accepted by sales. Keep dreaming, in reality it is some what different.

Marketing automation vendors have created a lot of buzz around lead management, and specifically the role lead scoring plays in filtering out leads that aren’t sales ready so they can be nurtured. What can often get overlooked is lead scoring really is not a one fits all solution. It needs to be matched to your sales process, your market and the resources you have at hand.

For companies creating a high volume of inquiries and leads, it makes sense to score and filter leads until they are sales ready. After all there is only a certain volume of leads that a salesperson can handle and you want them focusing on the deals that are most likely to convert. Yet for many smaller or niche businesses this is not the case, any inquiry is important and offers potential.

One of the issues with a lead scoring system is not all leads will conform and you risk missing out. Lead scoring can be viewed in 3 ways:

1. How much information is given, and how complete is that information.

2. How relevant is that lead to your business.

3. How willingly are those that inquired to enter into a dialogue with you.

These 3 factors define the quality of your lead but a scoring system can be misleading as it will always focus on the norm and not the specific.

Some of these factors will be out of your control, and you can be misled by a cut off point. You may miss a big opportunity simply because the inquirer did not fill out the form correctly or adhere to your selling process.

If you’re volume of leads and conversion rate is greater enough for you to able to afford miss a few to do this then all well and good, but this is still a dream for many of us. Ask yourself can you afford to miss that big opportunity, or should you be a bit more flexible in your approach to lead scoring.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Lead Management, Marketing and CRM round-up – 3 things you need to know this week #5

Duncan Macdonald — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:29:11 +0000

Here are the highlights from the blogs and social networks for the past week.

How Demand Generation and Lead Management Work with Marketing Automation

Good presentation / videos on how to get demand and lead generation working together.

http://marketingautomationtimes.com/2011/12/20/how-demand-generation-and-lead-management-work-with-marketing-automation/

LeadGen ROI: Calculating Marketing Contribution to Sales Revenue

In the spirit of the results-oriented approach to Lead Generation, marketing is transitioning away from soft success metrics. This is an insight into how to calculate Marketing’s Contribution as a % of Total Revenue.

http://www.salesbenchmarkindex.com/bid/77485/LeadGen-ROI-Calculating-Marketing-Contribution-to-Sales-Revenue?

10 Top Sales Trends for 2012: Staying Humble and Hungry

With the dynamics of the buying cycle changing and giving more control to the buyer, here are 10 tips for 2012 sales engagement.

http://thecustomercollective.com/josianefeigon/75247/10-top-sales-trends-2012-staying-humble-and-hungry?

That does it for this week, if you’re looking for more below is a list of the rest we have been tweeting this past week.

How cost effective is using Salesforce to manage your leads? -http://awe.sm/5eeS1

The only three sales meetings you need - http://awe.sm/5eYfu

The 3 Major Factors To Fast Blog Growth – http://awe.sm/5eYeM

B2B Sales: Has SFA Really Reached a Tipping Point? -http://awe.sm/5ePsB

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Is Salesforce good value?

Duncan Macdonald — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:52:25 +0000

To start let me get this out the way, as SaaS vendors we have a lot to be thankful to Salesforce for. Almost single handed they made hosted business software acceptable. There software is undoubtedly good but does that make it good value for everyone?

For many the answer would probably be a “yes” after all they have a lot of customers. Yet for some would they be better off with a more focused or cost effective alternative?

Getting good value from your CRM tool, isn’t just dependent on the price you pay. It is a combination of the cost, ROI and how well it helps accomplish your goals.

Cost is relative to the alternatives in the marketplace. If you can get the same function and benefits for less then that would represent better value.

Return on investment, namely how much business you gained as a result of having the CRM tool as opposed to having nothing at all is also important. I certainly recommend you have any tool rather than nothing.

Finally value is a measure of the efficiency it brings to your business. How effective it is in supporting a business process. After all successful CRM software is 100% about the right process.

Now this is simplifying to an extent but these are 3 key factors areas when considering what is a good value CRM tool.

To me it really comes down to what size of organisation you are, your expectations and the process your trying to improve. If you are large enterprise, with many customer facing departments with differing objectives then Salesforce may be the best value tool for you.

If that’s not you then you are probably looking for help with a specific business process such as sales, lead management or customer service. Ask yourself, do you need all the function, do you really have a complex business that needs a Salesforce consultant to customise?

The other way of looking at it, is can you find a CRM tool that is specific to your workflow, that is easily customized by you, and costs less per seat. If so does that not represent better value?

I feel it is often unfair to compare all CRM software to Salesforce as it is clearly not a like for like comparison. May be a better way of phrasing the question is “For what business processes are there better value CRM tools?”

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Lead Management, Marketing and CRM round-up – 3 things you need to know this week #4

Duncan Macdonald — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:38:37 +0000

Here are the highlights from the blogs and social networks for the past week. Inbound marketing certainly seems to be continuing as the hot topic especially when it come to Lead generation tactics.

How to design Call-To-Action Buttons – 6 Factors Everyone Should Know

The glue in any Lead generating campaign. How well you get prospects to respond will make or break your campaign and this is a good article on the best practices in Call to action design.

http://awe.sm/5dyJl

B2B Sales: Has Sales Force Automation Really Reached a Tipping Point?

Has CRM software finally overcome it’s bad reputation? $ tipping points suggesting it is well on the way to universal adoption

http://awe.sm/5ePsB

10 A/B test Do’s & Don’ts for B2B Marketers

Continuing with the A/B testing topic, some excellent tips on how to implement and test.

http://awe.sm/5ePtU

That does it for this week, if you’re looking for more below is a list of the rest we have been tweeting this past week.

Starting a lead generation program – the basics http://awe.sm/5eFvz

What to look for in CRM software in a Sales driven business - http://awe.sm/5eFvy

Good CRM software is 100% about the right process - http://tinyurl.com/7j7r4f5

7 Tips: Convert readers of your blog into paying customers -http://awe.sm/5eFvM

Which Channel Has the Highest Inbound Marketing Mojo?http://awe.sm/5e7Nr]

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.