How to Choose the Right Lead Management System for Your Organisation

Lead management systems have become a big thing over the past couple of years, and it’s no surprise why – leads are everywhere, and they are full of money.

Setting up an optimised system that converts the highest possible percentage of leads into prospects is the single biggest and most profitable process that almost any business can invest in. This means choosing the right lead management platform is one of the most important decisions your organization will ever make.

Keep reading to learn the following:

• The key components of any lead management system worth its salt
• Desirable characteristics to look for in lead management software companies
• How a lead management system can reduce your costs
• Which insights lead management systems can give you to increase your ROI by 50%

The Components

There are four main components that make up the lead management process:

1. Acquisition
2. Validation
3. Nurture
4. Conversion

Acquisition

Leads can be coming in from hundreds of different partners, affiliates and suppliers.

It is important that your lead management system can handle a high volume of lead acquisition. It should also be able to simultaneously calculate payouts, which you should be able to control based on quality cap management.

Validation

Validation requires checking if leads are real people, making sure they are in your inclusion zones, and ensuring they have not been fraudulently obtained.

You can get a 20-30% ROI boost on your campaigns simply by choosing a system which validates your leads in real-time. Rejecting leads that do not pass validation will not only save money (because you won’t be paying them), but it boosts your end conversion rates, too (because you have a better chance of converting real people than robots).

Nurture

Once you have got and validated a lead, it’s time to educate and nurture them to prepare for conversion.

This part is invariably linked to conversion, but there are a few suitable things you can do to make sure that you can secure the endpoint. For instance, you could use personalisation and send communications based on what prospects are responding to and interested in, in real-time.

Conversion

Once you’ve managed to drag your prospect all this way, it would be rude not to convert them.

Look for a lead management system that helps you do this. For example, the best lead management systems will let you send qualified leads directly to your call centres, or any other types of funnel you may have set up and have those funnels then post conversion outcomes back in to the lead management system – This opens up a whole new world of opportunities…

Features to Look For in a Lead Generation System

Not all lead management systems are made equal, and there is a lot more on offer than just simple automation.

Real-Time - Being able to get your leads and take action as soon as possible is not just a competitive advantage, it should be standard. Time is money in lead generation, and moments matter. You need to seize prospects while they are hot – make sure your platform allows it.

Usability - Black boxes equal bad news. Being able to quickly get what you want out of the system without having to wrestle with user guides or reluctant I.T. professionals is priceless. UI is key here. The best systems work on making the process intuitive – It can be incredibly difficult with complex set-ups, but having the basics clear is a massive advantage.

Support - When you have issues, you need to get them sorted fast. This could involve upgrading your campaigns, setting up advanced functionality, or even just looking for best practice advice on how to do things. Support is crucial to success, and your lead management system should take this seriously.

Things To Avoid

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There can be lots of things that look nice on the surface, but that are really covering up an endless list of bills, burdens and lock-in contracts.

Validation costs - Some systems can seem cheap from the set up, but they will charge you outrageous figures for validating leads.

Lock-In Contracts - Companies that spend more on marketing and looking good on the front end, but lock you in on the back end, can be a sign of slow product development combined with smoke and mirrors.

How a Good Lead Management System Can Reduce Your Costs

In the classic E-myth by Michael Gerber, we can learn that a person’s time is best spent working on the business, rather than in it.

An example of working in your business would be the setting up and day to day operations of manually transferring leads. Or perhaps going back and forth with suppliers about which leads are valid, and trying to use guesswork to determine who is supplying the best sources of leads. and drowning in paperwork when it comes to doing your numbers at the end of the month.

By working on your business, you are operating at maximum efficiency and letting a lead management system take the strain for you. You can then work on building strategic partnerships, increasing your marketing funnels, and testing out new forms of your offer.

Insights to Help Boost ROI by 50%

Looking at any top tech news source in the past year, you will realise that AI and machine learning are the up and coming things.

This is no different in the lead generation space.

When you select a lead management platform that provides feedback and information to your acquisition team based on the best performing leads, you start to only pay for the leads that are going to result in positive ROIs for your company.

The Details are in the Data

How do you know if a lead management system is performing? Look at the data. By looking closely at what your results are coming out, compared to what you put in, you will be able to learn loads about how well your system is performing. You should also include in this your time that you put into the optimising of your campaigns.

To find out how DataBowl can help you save money and optimise your lead generation campaigns, get in touch for a free demo today.