Reasons Why Lead Management Process Fails To Yield Results

Your sales funnel probably is filled with a good number of leads, but none of them actually convert into sales. Lack of proper lead management strategies and co-ordination between sales and marketing teams come in the way of success in most of the cases. Let us evaluate what does not work when it comes to managing leads. There are few important areas that need attention and corrective action in order to deliver desirable results.

Common mistakes made in lead management process
If you are one of those firms that assess success based on cost incurred per lead, let us warn you that you are committing a serious blunder. In fact this is quite implausible as you cannot possibly be completely sure about what should a lead cost, particularly if you are taking into account the process inefficiencies and opportunities lost to the competition. So evaluating marketing success on the basis of cost per lead is not feasible.

Secondly, appointment setting is looked upon as an important lead traction weapon. However, in case of companies trying to sell complex and costly B2B solutions that require the involvement of multiple decision makers, scheduling merely an appointment with one contact at the initial stage of prospecting does not really suffice. The sales people generally do not discriminate between an expensive appointment and any other lead source. They will probably follow up with first few appointments and having received little or no activity from those sources, will leave them at that. Lead management is a complex and long drawn process that need close attention and regular follow-up to be successful.

Majority of sales reps only seek the names of the key contacts at the target companies and feel confident enough to take it from there on. This shows sales team’s lack of regard for marketing leads. Market blueprinting is bound to fail if your only goal is to search the market only for key contacts. Instead focus on collecting email addresses and other contact information. You can use these information details to devise and implement multi-touch, multi-media, and multi-cycle contact programs- a vital aspect of lead management efforts.

Making proper use of telemarketing for lead management
Telemarketing is given a lot importance when it comes to business prospecting. But this should not be used a stand-alone strategy. Companies should employ high-quality staff trained in modern selling methodologies and well-informed about mixing multiple media (phone calls, direct mail, email, personalized Web pages, and other electronic media) to deliver your message efficiently. Intelligent and integrated marketing has a great potential. Good lead management process should include multi-channel marketing campaign to multiply marketing results.

Conclusion
Re-evaluate your present lead management strategies and take corrective action in all marketing areas that you think need improvement to increase your marketing and sales productivity. This will drive more closed deals and in the process generate greater revenue. And Get the best out of your marketing efforts, optimize cost and increase ROI with a smart and well etched out lead management system.