What are the lead stages? How lead stages can help you make your business easier? What is the lead lifecycle? What are the four main stages in the lead management process? What are the lead stages in Salesforce? In this article of lead stages you'll get all of your problems solved within a single roof.
The lead stage is the first phase of a sales cycle, and when it comes to closing a deal, this is where things get done. However, there are some common mistakes made in lead stages that can be avoided. Here’s what you need to keep in mind before signing your next deal.
In the concept of "stage" we may refer to a section of gameplay that has already been developed and is being tested in order to shave off any bugs or glitches that might accompany it.
In this way, we allow people with better knowledge about how code works from another dimension (they are called "Lead Devs") to aid in developing/fixing certain issues that may cause problems for us prior testers (called Testers).
A Lead Stage will have us feature 3 stages: Design stage, Build stage and Bug Fixing / Tweaking stage. The latter two stages are optional depending.
In reality, there are three stages to creating a new Lead Gen campaign.
Definition Stage – The definition stage is where you decide which platform(s) your lead will come from (or do not). This often differs for different industries and niches.
In our case, we decided that the niche of "tech" was what people would need if they were looking to buy not-so-techy office supplies like printer toner but tech accessories like desk chairs or end tables instead.
But how am I going to find out what's interesting – or even useful, for many tech people are things like printers? Toner might be easier to find but nearly all companies don't show the price of toner on their clearance boards.
Also, what makes you think a customer will want to buy from my store when it's not free shipping?
Wolfe Research shows that “63% of buyers look at pricing first regardless” and is usually listed underneath most other items, while other retailers tend to list clickable customizations.
Jeff Doyle from JDA also finds that price and quantity are two quick ways for consumers to find good deals, so here's where I'll be experimenting with of making the "customizable" niche more clear
It was important for us to target customers in a particular industry as well (and by so doing lower our average order value quickly) but at the same time not get left behind by companies that are using the Lead Gen channel.
Build stage-The first stage of building any marketing campaign is defining the offers to give away with your ads.
For us, this meant deciding on the four things I wanted people to buy from my company – which was easy once we had decided that only techies and not businesses would be interested in these items.
By narrowing our focus down even more (considering lead categories by functionality) it became clear what percentage each one could drive for a given profit margin based upon revenue.
We decided to target a good chunk of the market by targeting people who are in certain top categories on Google Adwords but this was also done for reasons we've already mentioned: $125/m revenue .
This meant that those price modifiers only work out at maybe -$1 each when you total up everything ( the CPA is based upon your cost per click and average order value ).
Bug Fixing stage-Ok, so you have your offers locked in at a certain price and that order value can be figured out.
The next thing to do is get them downloaded for testing – or even better still if the Ads are busy it might mean some of those of clicks actually make purchases from our site:
One of the last remaining things on my list was taking screenshots (of all ads) by both Google Adwords and Ebay .
I also wanted to make sure we hit as many of these niches quickly as possible because not everyone may be in this industry or interested in anything similar to it, so a wide target is better than cramming all five into one bucket but if I were making my campaign for members of another niche perhaps...defines your offerings by narrowing down what you're willing to sell and ensuring you have other.
In order to define lead stages in your sales funnel, you need to have an idea on what stage of the whole buying process a certain group of leads belong to.
In simpler terms, know how engaged each lead at each stage is and if they are ready for push towards buying.
As your company grows larger, it won't be possible to sit with every single one in person face-to-face and talk about why they should buy from you.
However this doesn't mean that there aren't ways or means by which you can connect with them as well as having conversations about them becoming customers so you can use your big data to define lead stages.
In essence, you need to know enough about the potential customer that it would take far less time (if not any) for you to get their input and opt in knowing more about them - seeing how much further along they are within your sales funnel before making an offer.
This is the very first lead stage of any sales process.
This is the time when your audience is first introduced to your business.
They could have come across you thanks to your marketing efforts.
Say, you ran a Facebook campaign targeting young earning professionals within the age group ’24-35′. A visitor, Hareesh, happens to see your ad and clicks on it.
He gets redirected to a webpage offering discounts. He glances through but doesn’t do much.
This stage allows you to reach out to the leads when they are most receptive and engaged with your business.
You do not have to wait until anyone lands on your B2B website or you already get an inquiry from a B2C site before you start engaging with them in this lead stage.
In online based sports coaching businesses, emails are used quite often, as these could be sent on autopilot but read and respond to canned emails.
Other ways of engaging (lead nurturing) using messaging services such as Zoho Contacts or Slack can also help engage even more quickly during this stage.
With customer contact, your lead has officially expressed interest in your business.
They might still think of you as a stranger and the next stage is crucial to their decision on further engagement.
The purpose of this stage is to build a better relationship with the lead and thus ensure they continue down your sales funnel.
It has largely been accepted that in B2B companies, the best way to start building rapport would be by writing which products or services they could benefit from.
It also depends on their buying behaviour too if at all you are selling them product based solutions - will it be easy for both parties?
Now, during this so-called build stage, you start to engage with your lead.
You get communications from him that lets you know his next step.
This can be in the form of your app downloading and a message saying he will cancel the subscription if he does not like it or something along those lines.
Then he visits your website for the first time and signs up for a free trial.
Finally, after showing interest at every stage (save for click rates), your prospect finally becomes a paying customer officially referred by someone else.
Now, he has become a prospect and his interest to do so is increasing with each passing day.
You start emailing him on a regular basis with offers like ‘Perk Download our fitness app now for free’.
He will click through your email and download the app on his smartphone or tablet, which eventually leads to registration of his mobile number in the application, which then activates an auto-remind system that sends you text messages every Sunday morning to remind him about certain events happening at your gym or offers during this period only that can be availed by paying a nominal amount.
Similarly, you also send him SMS texts on certain occasions to inform about specials happening during his birthday week or other special events like ‘If this is the first time you are visiting our gym.
We have a sports workout every Monday and we will waive 10% off your membership fee today’ etc. You start treating clients in a personalized manner by sending them an offer or product in their preferred language as it could be important for them.
You start onboard customers with a personalized approach.
For e.g., the first time he comes to your gym, you arrange for him an introductory session on your dance floor or even offer him special discounts and VIP treatment in general simply because this will boost his interest in coming back again.
If he tries hard enough, you can invite others who have also signed up after hearing about great deals/specials they used to get while using another fitness chain to try your gym too.
You can keep this up till he is now a regular member who comes frequently and uses all of the services with no hassle, by making him feel special today sometime.
Lead Stage is the term used to describe the sequence of lead identification and interaction. There are three general stages:
■ Stage 1 – At first contact with your marketing team, leads go through a preliminary qualification process that determines their eligibility for standard qualification requirements and filters post-qualification based on some performance rules (such as time to response). This stage typically includes initial outreach forms, which can include documents such as CVs or spreadsheets with sales pricing.
■ Stage 2 – Qualifications are complete during this phase; stage numbers may vary by service category but usually run from 10–30 days . During this stage, conversion flows into the pipeline are “primed” and qualify leads via automated confirmation of delivery (either a phone call or web form).
■ Stage 3 – Customer selection is conducted at this phase which typically takes 12–30 days to complete. At least one customer should be confirmed in order for customers of all stages to run through eligibility checks within 14 business days.
The ability to predict a customer’s future behavior is possible because of the fundamental features of human beings such as their association with information, market and identity.
With the help of your Lead Stage plan, you can create partnerships that will not only characterize future behaviors but also set up an opportunity for success.
By implementing AI/NLP to your lead generation campaigns, you can easily identify which of the 5 stages a potential customer is in by extracting the appropriate label.
The exact steps are set according to each specific business use case scenario and will have differences, if they have more than one stage while other businesses may only have 1 or 2 at this point in time.
Once that particular person has reached each stage – whether it’s ‘Opportunity’, ‘Ask’ or ‘Actionable’ – you should act upon their feedback more seriously as less people reach.
1.Which stage is best for my company?
To start your company, you need to identify the target market.
Once you have identified the target market, decide on what kind of services or products that you want to offer.
The next step is to choose a business name and register it with the state office in your area. Next comes the legal stuff such as getting your LLC registered and also getting a tax ID number.
Then comes choosing a website domain name and hiring an IT person for hosting your website.
Finally, marketing begins by promoting your product or service through online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus etc..
2.What are the stages of a lead?
The stages of a lead are as follows:
• Pre-contacting - the initial contact is made.
• Referral - The source has been contacted and has provided the first piece of contact information.
• Leads - The person or company is reached out to and they respond with their interest in your product or service.
• Qualified leads - A lead has now been selected and is ready for conversion into a customer, either through phone call, email, etc.
• Sales ready leads - Now that the potential customer is qualified for sale, you can send them more information about your product or service, such as pricing and availability.
3.What are the four main stages in the lead management process?
Lead management process is the process of managing leads, making sales and following up with potential customers.
1. Prospecting: The first stage in the lead management process is prospecting. This is where you find out who your target audience are and what they need or want. You can use various methods to do this such as using email marketing software like Mailchimp or G-Suite or any other platforms that offer lead generation features.
2. Lead qualification: In this stage, you decide if a lead is worth pursuing by asking questions about their needs and interests which will help you figure out whether they are likely to buy from you or not.
3. Closing the sale: Once a lead has been qualified, it's time to close the sale by selling them on your product or service through phone calls, emails, live chats, website visits etc.,
4. Follow up: The final stage in the lead management process is following up with the customer after they've purchased. You apply sales processes to convert qualified leads into paid customers.
