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   is a term used in general business practice to describe methodologies, systems, and practices

designed to generate new potential business clientele, generally operated through a variety of marketing techniques.
Lead management facilitates a business's connection between its outgoing consumer advertising and the responses
to that advertising. These processes are designed for business-to-business and direct-to-consumer strategies. Lead
management is in many cases a precursor to sales management andcustomer relationship management. This critical
connectivity facilitates business profitability through the acquisition of new customers, selling to existing customers,
and creating a market brand. This process has also accurately been referred to as customer acquisition
management.

The general principles of lead management create an ordered structure for managing volumes of business inquiries,
frequently termed leads. The process creates an architecture for organization of data, distributed across the various
stages of a sales process, and across a distributed sales force. With the advent of the Internet and other information
systems technologies, this process has rapidly become technology-centric, as businesses practicing lead
management techniques have shifted much of the prior manual workload to automation systems, though personal
interaction with lead inquiries is still vital to success.

Along with its other related business practices--marketing, brand development, advertising, and sales--the goal of an
effective lead management initiative is to generate new business revenue, increase visibility, and improve the general
attitudes of potential clients and the public at large for future business development.

A typical outline of a lead management process might follow the following steps:

1. Business engages in a range of advertising media (Lead generation).

2. Recipients of advertising respond, creating a Customer inquiry, or lead.

3. Respondent's information is captured (Inquiry Capture).

4. Captured information is then filtered to determine validity (Inquiry filtering)

5. The filtered leads are then graded and prioritized for potential (Lead grading)

6. Leads are then distributed to marketing and/or sales personnel (Lead distribution).

7. Leads are contacted for prospecting (Sales contact).

8. Contacted and uncontacted leads are entered into personal and automated follow-up processes (Lead
nurturing).

9. End result is a new business sale (Sales result).

While simple in scope, lead (or inquiry) flow process can become complex as clients, prospective clients, and sales
professionals interact. Interactions and subsequent actions create a variety of potential outcomes, both productive
and counter-productive to business development. This ever-increasing number of scenarios creates functional
disconnects, in other words, critical opportunities to mishandle an inquiry that reduces or destroys its potential value.
Appropriate management of these scenarios is the function of lead management.
 h



[hide]

° Lead Management Architecture

u ° ° Lead Generation

u °
Lead acquisition and distribution

u °  Marketing & Sales Process Operations

u °  Communications

u °  Analytics

Optimizing Lead Management

 Technical Functionality

u  ° Lead Acquisition

u 
Lead Filtering and Assessment

 References

 External links

[edit]Lead Management Architecture

[edit]c
 



renerating a lead, or lead generation can relate to a myriad of marketing technologies and methodologies.
Regardless of how it is achieved, however, from an architectural perspective lead generation is simply the ability to
attract the interest of a consumer and capture enough data to validate and prioritize their interest, then contact them.

A few examples:



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LendingTree runs TV advertising that touts that "when banks compete, you win" and directs you to
visit lendingtree.com. After watching this advertisement, and being depressed that you rent a 300-square-foot (28 m2)
studio apartment, you flip on your computer and go to their website.

Upon reaching the website, you surf around a bit and read some information about buying a house, and how the
mortgage process works with LendingTree. This convinces you to give it a shot. You click a link to request
information, and fill out a form on their Web site to provide information about you: name, address, telephone number,
estimated home price, and so on. Once finished, you submit the information to LendingTree, and your information is
immediately compiled into an electronic lead.

 

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You are surfing the Internet and you decide there has to be a good way to make a lot of money on the Internet. So,
you go to roogle and search for "make money on the Internet." This search reveals an interesting link that says, "10
steps to becoming a millionaire using the Web." Sounds good to you, so you click the link and arrive at a page with a
brief sales pitch for making money on the Web and a brief web form asking for you name and email in order to
download the sacred PDF white paper with the 10 steps. Once you have filled out the form, submitted, and received
your PDF²again, you are a lead.

Ä



You're at home, awake late at night due to insomnia, and while watching TV you see a paid advertisement for the
"Sleep Number Bed" by Select Comfort. Thinking that your old mattress is falling apart, and one of the likely causes
for your insomnia, your call the toll-free phone number listed in the infomercial to receive more information about the
product being offered. An agent captures your information in a computer system, and agrees to mail you a brochure
discussing the features and benefits of the Sleep Number Bed. You are now a lead in the system.

[edit]c





Lead acquisition is the first, and possibly the most critical potential disconnect in the lead management process. With
billions being spent on advertising expenditures,[1] in many cases the value of those expenditures is reduced because
relevant information from responses is not collected or distributed. The value of this process is tightly linked to a
variety of consumer response theories that highlight the relevance and responsiveness of the customer
experience as being key ingredients in turning potential customers into actual customers. Once acquired, the speed,
accuracy, and relevance of response can greatly influence a potential consumer's decision to buy, or not buy, a
product or service.

One extremely relevant example of this process is the use of the Internet, online marketing, and Web analytics for
high-level lead generation. A consumer generally uses the Internet and makes Internet inquiries for products and
services out of a desire for convenience and efficiency of their time. Consequently, they expect a timely, relevant
response to inquiries made. If the acquisition and distribution of data collected during their inquiry is not effective, the
consumer experience will be negative. No response, poor response, too-early or too late response equals negative
impact on consumer attitudes and behavior.

For this particular medium, the lead acquisition architecture generally consists of a Web form to collect consumer
data, a database to temporarily or persistently store that information for subsequent distribution, and a software
application to distribute the data at appropriate levels.

The distribution architecture will vary widely depending upon the objective of the lead generation. reneration for the
purpose of selling the inquiry itself to another organization would typically include a methodology for selecting one or
more buyers and then transmitting the lead via a variety of potential means, like: XML, named-value pairs, fax, email,
telephone. In the case of leads generated for an organization's own use it may simply consist of a web page to render
the contents of the lead database or a simple email action from the Web form itself.

[edit]

 
 
 


Once the lead information is collected and distributed, it is then transferred to a marketing and/or sales

management department, who will continue to implement lead management practices in pursuit of completion of a
sale. Established lead management practices should provide the needed connectivity and accountability between
those two operational units, and when managed properly, enhances the effectiveness of both operations.

The architectural relationship is much akin to the order carousel in a short order diner. This carousel is the
communication and accountability between the waiter and the cook. Without this simple coordination orders would be
lost, prepared incorrectly, or prepared in random order missing the expectations of the customer.

For management teams with a solid foundation in lead management principles, the process should create increased
efficiency and accountability between marketing and sales activities. As stated previously, the increasing
technological foundation of lead and sales management practices provides a number of "closed loop" data circuits,
tracking the overall effectiveness of everything from lead generation, to prioritization, to distribution, to final
disposition, and then back again to re-calibrate the process.

For marketing, this portion of the architecture primarily manages the analytics of the lead generation, distribution, and
disposition. For sales, the architecture provides a fast, accurate method of distribution, in addition to improved
management and accountability processes for sales activity.

[edit] 


The central hub of the lead management process once the prior architectures are in place is communication.
Effective lead management principles requires intensive and accurate high-level communication, both internally within
organizations, and externally to the lead inquiries.

Communications functions should include intelligent sourcing of inquiry information, and provide appropriate vehicles
for overt contacting methods such as phone, email, or other communication forms. In addition to overt communication
methods, technologies now also now provide marketing systems the ability to do extensive lead nurturing activities
through automation systems, which often include opt-in email listings, automated telephone dialing systems, or hard
copy mailing lists to increase visibility, touch on customer need, and increase brand visibility. In many cases,
especially where inquiries may not be ready to work with businesses immediately, it is crucial to maintain ongoing
nurturing communications that cultivate a lead into a future sales, and effective lead management practices include
these methods.

[edit]!
"
The analytics architecture is the last, and once the other architectures are in place, the most critical piece of an

effective lead management system. This portion of the architecture allows for the dynamic review and analysis of lead
actions, marketing channels, and sales performance.

For many organizations this information can be vital in assisting management teams make decisions that improve
production, return on investment, and the overall performance and cost benefits of their marketing and sales
strategies.

[edit]Optimizing Lead Management

As larger vendors work with partner organizations such as distributors (see distribution
(business)), resellers, brokers and other channel partners, those vendors often distribute leads to their respective
partners to provide a local contact to those prospects and also 'feed' partners with new business opportunities. Today
there are two major methods for distributing sales leads to partners: Push or Pull.

#$ The push method sends leads to specific partners assuming that those partners will follow up and work on
those leads. The challenge with 'push' is the fact that often the local sales people may not be able to react
immediately for various reasons: not available, busy, on vacation... Many large vendors report disappointment when
asked about their lead follow-up rate through partners after the leads where pushed out to those partners.

 The pull method was invented and patented by a rerman Engineer, Axel Schultze, who was frustrated with the
lead follow up results of the push method and decided to let the available and motivated sales people 'pull' leads from
an online available system. Patent was granted by the US Patent Office in May 2006. The pull method became widely
accepted in the high tech industry where thousands of resellers from companies including Avaya, Nortel, Juniper and
others distributed leads that way. The PULL Method became superior over the PUSH method, and lead closure rates
grew on average by 300% as white papers from BlueRoads indicate.

[edit]Technical Functionality
[edit]c
!

The 

 functionality should allow for the simple and efficient acquisition of lead data into the lead

management system. The acquisition functions must be able to support a variety of marketing channels and methods
of capturing data. Some examples include:

' Electronic Data Transfer

This acquisition function may include the transfer of discrete lead data via technologies like name-value
pairs, XML, RSS, HTTP POST, and FTP. These technologies can be used in conjunction with an organization's own
website or third party lead provider. Often lead providers will deliver leads via a standard email. These leads can be
electronically captured byparsing the email and then submitting the lead using one of the methods described above.
' Batch Imports

This acquisition function may include imports of multiple leads' data via technologies like Microsoft Excel, CSV, or
other formatted batch data values. These technologies can be used to acquire leads that have been stored in other
systems, assembled from lists, or other volume sources.

' Quick Apply Web Forms

This acquisition function may include Web landing pages or sales interfaces. This technology can be used to acquire
discrete lead data via manual input into an application-type form.

[edit]c
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Most lead management systems will have some intelligent methodology for filtering and assessing lead data into

useful categorizations. There are a myriad of ways to accomplish this process and some of them may be specific to
industries. The following is a suggested list of possible functions:

' Data verification (i.e., telephone numbers, zip codes, address scrubbing)

' Device Intelligence (i.e., device fingerprint, botnet proxy detection, true geo location[2], true ip detection)

' Fraud screening

' Data appending (e.g., appending third-party data such as credit, preferences, purchase history)

' rrading/Lead Scoring

' Prioritization

' " 


  " 




Contact management systems have become increasingly popular today, and when you look at what all these systems
provide, it is easy to see why so many businesses are turning to them. You see, it is so important that you are able to get
the edge over your competitors in the competitive market today. If you want to have this edge, then you need to use a
good contact management system to help you stay on top. You see, when you use a contact management system, you'll
find that your business becomes a whole lot more efficient. It's important that you work on managing your contacts and
leads, since effective management can definitely empower your company. So, let's take a closer look at contact
management systems, a few indicators you need one, some great benefits, and one of the best options to try when it
comes to a contact management system.
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If you still don't have a good contact management system working for your company, more than likely you really need one.
If you're not sure you need to begin using one for your business, here are a few indications that you are in desperate need
of a contact management system to help you streamline your work processes and make your company more efficient and
productive.
' - '$
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 - If you happen to have a variety of different customers and you have many rows of them
on spreadsheets that are disorganized and hard to sort through, then it may be a huge indicator that you need to get a
great contact management system.
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  - Dealing with customer information that somehow ended up being duplicated and you
just don't have the time to go through and fix it all up? Well, if this is the case, you'll find that a contact management
system may be what you need to get it all organized and fixed up the way it should be.
' - å

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 - If your company has a variety of different users who need to have access to the same information, then
this is yet another indicator you need to go with a good contact management system for your company. This way your
sales people can access the same information at the same time when they need to.
' - '( , ! -

  - Do you need to run searches to find various types of data? If this is the case,
then it's a great idea to implement a contact management system into your company.
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  - One of the biggest indicators that you may need a great contact management
system is that you have a huge stack of spreadsheets sitting somewhere full of contact information. This is a disaster
waiting to happen and you need to get a contact management system installed as soon as possible.
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- One way that you can benefit from having a great contact management
system is that it will allow you to easily keep track of data. Instead of having spreadsheets filled with data or data on a
variety of computers, you'll be able to keep track of all of it with the one program.
' - ,  /0 

 

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 - You'll also benefit from the ability to generate great reports when you use a
great contact management system. This can be so handy, especially when you suddenly need reports and you don't have
the time to do all the calculations yourself.
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"# - Another benefit of a good contact management system is that they are so easy to use.
You'll find that you can easily implement them into your company, and most of the time it will take little time for everyone
to be able to use it properly

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Benefits of Lead Management

1.Follow up on Each Lead ± Keeping tabs on each lead enables the sales team to be in the know . Multiple contacts
with potential customers can be avoided, and the leads can be managed in an organized manner.
2.Focus on Sales ± lead management reduces the time that is wasted in futile efforts like cold calling. It also provides
a good opportunity for the sales team to focus their efforts on leads that are sales-ready.
3.Categorizing Leads ± Segmenting leads by locations, occupations, etc., can help in assessing the needs of each
segment and selling accordingly. You can also decide which leads need to be pursued and which need to be nurtured
with the help of lead scoring.
4.Future Reference ± Statistics garnered via lead management can be used as reference for future augmentation and
for ensuring absolute customer satisfaction.
5.Enhancing Team Efforts ± With Lead management, every team member can track their individual progress as well
as the progress of others on the team. This provides them with an opportunity to improve their efforts and rectify their
errors.
6.Individual Attention ± Lead management techniques, like lead nurturing, give personal attention to potential
customers, thereby creating a strong bond that doesn¶t happen with cold calling.
7.Adaptability ± As every business has various needs, lead management programs can be personalized according to
business requirements.
8.Complete Information ± Lead management facilitates a business in gathering beneficial information about the leads.
It provides a good idea as to what the best channels are and what messages would be most appropriate