Leads are the starting point for all sales transactions. An efficient lead generation process will generate more qualified leads which ultimately leads to higher sales. This article looks at how to effectively manage the lead lifecycle in your organization.
A lead lifecycle is simply a series of actions taken by you and your leads that affect how the relationship between them grows.
It consists of three phases: acquisition, activation, and nurturing. This simple idea has helped marketers grow their companies by better understanding what happens between sending out an email to marketing automation software and when it results in a client decision (and hopefully a sale).
In order to gain the maximum value from a lead generation campaign, you must be able to dedicate time and effort to improve your customer relationship management. If a new lead is created outside of your marketing efforts, what should you do with these prospects? What opportunities are available at each stage of their lifecycle?
To answer these questions, B2B organizations need to track leads throughout their various stages using software that makes it easy for them to assign actions.
The lifecycle of a prospect is broken down into five stages. Each stage has a different purpose, which helps business owners track and analyze their progress with leads.
1st Phase -
The first Phase is the Lead Screening Stage, which includes several steps that allow you to identify who your prospects are and weed out those who won't be suitable for your product or service.
You can also learn what skills they have so that it's easier to tailor your products or services to them or target them in an effective manner if they are a good fit for what you're selling.
2nd Phase -
The second Phase is Profile Building - Prospect Research. It's the Phase of trying to get a clear understanding of where you are in your lead development process, who they are and what they need.
3rd Phase -
The third Phase is The Qualification Phase - Working With Your Prospects. This means that you've made the decision that these people may be right for your business or service.
You're reaching out to find high-value clients now by talking with them about their needs and confirming why it makes sense for you to engage with them.
4th Phase -
The next Phase is The Bait Phase - Attraction and Qualification (AQ). These steps involve developing the right strategies and tactics that will help you convert these prospects into clients, moving further along your lead lifecycle.
Some natural techniques used include viral marketing campaigns like Facebook advertisements or using an email program called Acuity Scheduling that tracks click-through rates on emails sent out to cold contacts without having a good reason to expect them to engage with your messages.
Your goals should be specific, and you can then plan out various ways that the strategies will help you achieve them - perhaps there are some people who may respond well to certain choices of message content or emotional triggers which change over time based on previous interactions they've had with your brand and whether they're interested in what it has to offer.
5th Phase -
The last Phase is getting those prospects into a formal sales process, which is often done by creating a sales page/page on your website for them to confirm their interest in taking the next step with you.
It can be as simple as having another person from within your staff or from outside contact them and working out when they would like to set up a time that works best both organizationally (for yourself) and logistically (for the prospect).
It's also important to remember that a lot of leads that don't fit your sale process are likely to be heavily engaged with the business right now. These contacts would not benefit from having their lifecycle changed but should instead be prioritized for retargeting and other marketing activities.
You can spend a lot of time studying your competitors, but it's impossible to know who they are without understanding what steps they took on their own lead lifecycle.
You'll also find that you implement the same marketing and sales strategies as your competitors – so if there was an approach that worked well for them, it's likely to work just as well for you too.
And changing things up early in the process – such as approaching potential customers the wrong way or selling outdated products – will only make life harder later on. So, mapping out exactly where your leads are at – when they join and why, how you talk to them, the jobs you do for them – is vital if your site or marketing process isn't working.
This lifecycle map will help ensure that sales don't come too soon on any leads which are closing in on their life cycle with the company.
First, think about where your leads are currently in the lifecycle process. Then, develop a plan of action using this lifecycle stages that will move them through different customer journeys.
Even if you're not doing so now, it is worth at least thinking about how this could be done for your business goals and objectives. It will put you one step ahead of those companies whose sales cycles have been too long-lasting or too short to account for such changes taking place over the lifetime of their company.
Using lifecycle stages can help improve marketing efficiency by automating certain tasks and allowing anyone involved to target marketing efforts that are more tailored to their unique business needs and objectives.
Mapping these out is a great way to prioritize which leads should be followed up on now, rather than when they become inactive later down the game plan timeline or potentially close before you can even contact them.
For returns-acquired customers who have disengaged entirely, reorganizing your sales pipeline in advanced lifecycle stages allows managers such as yourself (or another team member ) to get off the road and into a system that can track each contact in its own place.
Through behaviour-driven marketing, you'll understand who your active customers are doing business with – what they're buying and how they use it -- under separate categories like software tools vs social media training; helping differentiate those which may be more secure purchases regardless of price or competitors' offered services (and therefore ones better suited for an educated investment).
The lead lifecycle is a sales process that you will use to convert visitors into customers. If you are in a B2B industry, your leads might be people who have an interest in your product or service.
You can use different tools and methods to create and nurture them so that they become customers.
That's all for now! See you later with a new topic!
