Lead Management Best Practices.Com

The question discussed fiercely among lead management software / service providers and customers is still about the pros and cons of using Push and Pull methods for lead distribution to the follow-up team. Though most of the lead management software services incorporates both the methods, the controversy refuses to die down; it is not without a reason. Every lead slipped through the crack is a missed opportunity and will hit the top line.

What is Lead Distribution?

For the beginners or users who are just switching from Outlook or spreadsheet based tracking systems to lead management software, it is nothing more than a jargon. If your leads are originated from the Internet - through own websites or third party lead generation services - then your marketing / sales team does not have immediate visibility to the leads. In most of the cases, the leads land in somebody’s email inbox in the organization. Then, the sales team as well as the prospects are at the mercy of that some one!

The centralized, web based Lead Management Software systems (or services) help to aggregate and capture the leads in one central location and distribute the leads to the inside sales team or field sales team. The process of assigning leas to the sales team is referred as Lead Distribution. Another term used is Lead Assignment; yet another term used is Lead Routing.

Methods of Lead Distribution

A popular, widely used method is known as “Push” method of Lead Distribution. In this process, the lead management system distributes (or pushes) the leads to the sales team based on preset rules. Several rules are used by businesses depending on their respective business scenarios. The major criteria used for lead distribution is:

• By Geography (State, County, Metro Area, County, City, etc.)
• By Area Code
• By Full or Partial Zip Code
• By Sales team / area or agent
• By Sales Region / Office
• By Lead Profile (such as demography, authority, budget, etc.)
• By Round-robin rule

Once the distribution rules are set, the lead management system can automatically route the leads to the respective sales agents. Additional validation rules can also be set based on the complexity of the business requirements. For example, if an agent has a higher number of untouched or un-contacted leads, then the lead assignment to that agent can be avoided until the queue comes below the threshold limit.

Pull Method of Lead Assignment

Since there are several limitations in the “Push” method, many businesses have started following the “Pull” method for distributing leads. In this process, the leads are not pushed or distributed to the sales agents. Instead, the agents have to request and pull the lead from the common queue. This is similar to the “Pull” method and “Just In Time (JIT) Inventory” concept used in manufacturing sector.

How to choose the Lead Distribution method?

Most of the modern lead management systems, including LeadPro Lead Management Service, provide both the options to the customers. It is left to the customer to decide and pick the suitable process during the implementation of the system.

There are no hard and fast rules to decide the suitability of one or the other; it depends on the individual business. Even within the business verticals such as Mortgage industry, Real Estate professionals, and Debt, Credit, Insurance and other Financial services, a uniform rule can not be employed. Several factors such as business size, number of leads acquired, sales team size, vetting or lead qualification process followed by the marketing department and the past practices play a major role in choosing the lead distribution process.

A professional lead management consultant could be used to assess the current scenario, analyze the business requirements, blueprint the to-be process and arrive at a suitable lead management process to be followed. The decision should be made on solid business case rather than emotion and subjective judgment. The consultant can be from the lead management service provider or an independent consultant.

Everyone knows that Email Marketing is used to generate leads and build lists. However, many do not comprehend the power of using a email marketing tool to increase the conversion rates. Unless leads are converted to customers, there is no meaning in acquiring a large list or buying costly leads through various sources.

Conversion Rates

Research has proved that 70% of leads acquired are either not contacted or poorly followed-up resulting in poor conversion rates. Unfortunately marketers are content with small conversion rates. The reason could be they are so used the direct marketing conversion rates (1% to 2%). In the internet world, the conversion rates can be much higher and the cost of conversion can be much cheaper.

Email Marketing

The prospects can be groomed and nurtured and converted to customers using Email Marketing tool such as LeadPro which integrates email marketing and lead management in one solution.

Email Marketing is not simply bombarding the prospects with email messages to sell products or services. The following factors are critical in email marketing:

• Relevancy of content
• Frequency of emails
• Timing of email

Sophisticated features are available with most email marketing services to target specific segments of prospects and deliver at right times. Blindly setting up automated autoresponders or drip emails without using any intelligence will result in more opt-outs or spam complaints.

Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing is a powerful strategy to be used with email marketing. Simple Lead Ranking or advanced Lead scoring methodologies can be used while using email marketing as a follow-up tool. The subscriber behavioral activities such as email opens, click throughs and email forwards can be used to intelligently nurture the leads.

Let us take a look at these strategies in detail in future posts.

If you are looking at blogging as a business development tool for generating quality leads and prospects and convert them to customers, then you can not afford to be amateur blogger. You got become a pro and invest some serious time in blogosphere. Amazingly, the results will be sweet and the experience will be exhilarating.

Why Blog?

Now that the Internet has turned into a mass marketing media, the internet space has become cluttered just like the traditional TV and print media. If you want to stand out, you need to use several strategies to drive traffic to your web site and generate leads. The strategies include EMail Marketing, Blogging, Articles, PR and paid advertising using Google Adwords, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

Of these strategies, blogging is the most interactive medium and can be leveraged to nurture the leads to a great extent.

Invest Time and Efforts

Blogging supports the most natural form your expression! Unlike PR or articles, there are no set standards or expectations for blogging. You can be your own and express your ideas and opinions and share the expertise.

With some time, efforts and little money invested, you can become a pro blogger and produce results for you and your organization.

How do I Master Blogging?

As you all know, there is tons of information on blogging available on the internet. You can get primers and advanced guides for free if you spend some time. Here is a free ebook on blogging from Yaro Starak. This Blog Profits Blueprint is a concise guide on blogging. Note that Yaro is a professional blogger. He has also provided several free beginner videos on his BecomeABlogger.Com website. Probably you may not need them, if you have come thus far; but no harm in browsing through them - you may pick up one or two tips.

If you are in a hurry and master things quickly by spending some money, then I suggest that you take a look his blog coaching and mentoring program. You can opt in for a one time fee and get immediate access to the entire program; or if you wish to move in a slow pace, select the monthly subscription. Of several such programs available from internet marketers, his program seems to be more genuine, professional and involves no hype.

Another word of caution: As a pro blogger, Yaro provides tips and tricks for making money directly from the blog using sponsorship, advertisements, third party product reviews, Google Adsense, etc. You need not use these if you are selling your own product or service; but you can leverage the concepts and best practices to professionally maintain your blog. You may also think about adding complimentary products in your sales suite. You may also take a look at his money making blog http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com.



By now we all know that video is a core part of blogging activities. Weather you are an amateur blogger (for fun or hobby) or a professional blogger (to make money through your blogs or promoting your own products or services), including a video in the blog helps attract more readers.

Why use Video?

Research shows that blog readers are more likely to share the links with their friends and acquaintances if the blog includes a video. In other words, video blogs are more likely to act as viral marketing tools and enhance reach of the word of mouth marketing.

Tools for Video Production

Even basic product tutorials can be converted into videos using tools such as Camtasia Studio, which can be learned and used in a short time. If you would like get a professional / HD qualit, you can invest thousands of dollars to use pro grade cameras and editing suites! Many organizations have started using professional production crews.

Video Hosting

Once you create a video, you will realize that the volume of the file quite high unlike the traditional text or image contents. While you might have enough space on your web hosting server, the bandwidth will be a key issue. If several visitors start viewing the video, your web site will start slowing down and might even fail to respond!

An easy solution to avoid situations is to host the videos external servers (other than your web host). There are several options available to host videos. The same option can be used to host your podcasts (audio narrations) and large image files.

YouTube Hosting

One simple and widely used option is to host the videos on YouTube and provide (or embed) a link on your blog web site. Millions of users use this method to host their videos. However, most of these videos are not commercial in nature. These are used to spread the word around and share with friends and family.

There are several other options such as Yahoo Videos, Google Videos and several other little known video hosting sites.

Amazon S3 Media Hosting

If you are looking for a professional hosting, I strongly recommend using Amazon S3 for media hosting. It is very easy to setup an account, upload your media files and link the hosted files in your blog or other web content.

I am planning to prepare a brief overview of the S3 set up process and using the content on your web site. I will keep this for another post.

Auto Responder services, which forms part of Email Marketing, play a critical role in Lead Management and Follow-up and increase conversion rates. While everyone use autoresponders to generate a lead, very few leverage the power event triggered drip emails (another name for auto responder emails) to nurture the lead.

If you market off-line products or services, using autoresponder service to nurture the leads will greatly enhance the conversion rates and even helps increase customer satisfaction.

This video provides a brief walk through of the autoresponder feature of LeadPro. Please note that this feature includes some powerful functions which could be used to target specific segments of of your lead list.