The Importance of Maintaining a Database in Lead Management

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There are so few people who actually appreciate the use of a database in relation to their lead management tasks. In fact, some marketers do not maintain or use their databases at all since they are so engrossed in pursuing new leads or are spending too much time building leads that they forget to maintain or organize a database.

An electronic database is actually very useful for the lead management process. Here are just some of the reasons why marketers should purchase and maintain a database in relation to lead management. 

A Database Allows You to Access Old Leads

Some marketers have the mistaken concept that, to have a great-running business, they have to build a lot of leads. That is why great emphasis is placed on lead generation rather than lead nurturing. 

The truth is that no lead should be ignored during the process—in fact, at any stage of lead management. Most marketers would naturally reject leads and leave them rotting on the database when they give an unfavorable response to mails with offers or when they totally ignore it. They then turn their focus to looking for new leads without giving the old ones a second thought. 

Proper lead nurturing would entail follow-ups in the hope of closing a sale. This would include new and old leads. To do that, someone would need to be able to access the information from old leads. The only way to be able to do that is to maintain a database, where you can access and organize information on the old leads like contact information and others. 

It Is Easy to Assign Leads to the Right Persons 

The database contains not only names and contact information of a lead. It also has fields like lead priority, lead score, and many others. Using the information like lead priority, marketers can discern which of the many leads they have need the most urgent action from their part. They then can assign them to the best salespersons there are to maximize the chances of closing a deal with the prospective clients. 

Lead score, on the other hand, gives a hint as to how interested a lead is about the products that you are offering because a score is assigned for every action the client has done in relation to the offer. The higher the lead score, the greater the interest the lead has for a product. Like lead priority, marketers can tell using lead score if the lead requires urgent and decisive action to close a sale. 

Marketers Can Easily Evaluate Their Marketing Performance

Aside from using the database to contact leads and peddle their products, marketers can use the database as a guide as to how well they are doing with their marketing efforts. For example, the size of the database is already indicative of how effective their marketing strategies have been. It is even possible to check which advertising campaigns have had success with the market by simply checking the field that shows the source of the lead. 

There are many ways that one can use the database to evaluate their performances. Here are some examples:

Using the number of new leads produced in a period, one can already make a performance report for that period. By querying for leads produced within a set period, you can use the number of fields returned for a statistic. 

The information of the database can also be used to find out which of your products have been able to arouse interest from your target. You can simply check out how many leads have signed up for that offer. 

Visit our lead management software sponsor: www.leads360.com

Automatic versus Manual Lead Distribution

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Lead distribution, which is a step in the entire lead nurturing process, is a process all on its own. Well, each step is a detailed procedure that needs to be done. In this case, lead distribution is necessary in order to make sure each lead is handled by somebody that is best qualified to do something with it like selling products or services. Here’s how lead distribution by a lead tracking company is done. 

The Leads Are Grouped into Categories

The first order of business for an outsourced lead handling company is to group incoming leads. The reason for this is that an outsourced lead handling firm does lead handling for several companies. If they don’t group these leads into categories, then they’ll end up sending leads to the wrong companies. Even if they manage to send the right leads to the right companies, they might end up sending non-qualified leads. 

The categories are usually the niches that the lead handling company is working on. If they get a lead from a website that is intended for promoting home improvement services, then they file that under “home improvement.” The list goes on and on. Under each category, one might also want to further segregate the leads by their scores, which makes it easy for the company to know which leads needs more “pushing” or more efforts to increase their interests in the product.

Looking into the Dealer-Company Relationship

The tricky part of referring leads to companies is the firms’ relationship to the lead handling company. For example, some lead companies are governed by contracts with a dealer that compels them to submit to them the leads that are located on the area in which the dealer is located. Some companies may be free to submit leads to whatever dealer is near to the potential customer. Afterward, the company would have to consider several other factors. These include the manner of priority in which they deliver which lead to which dealer, and many others. 

Should the Process be Automated or Still Left Manually?

And now, there arises the question on whether or not the lead handling or distribution process should be automated. We shall answer the question by looking again at the first two processes and how a company can benefit from automating the procedure. 

First, we could see how daunting and how time-consuming it is for the company to segregate the leads. Even if you have a lot of people handling the segregation for you, you can still actually save time and improve the efficiency of your business if you introduce the automation of your lead distribution function. Special software can handle the job better than a simple Excel sheet; the program has the advantage of using a database, which makes the second process better. Although entering the information into the database can be similar to entering the same information into a spreadsheet, the only difference lies on how it affects the ease or difficulty of the next process. 

With the advantage presented to you by the software’s database, it is now easier, quicker, and more efficient to distribute the leads using the factors keyed in to the data fields for each lead. For example, the program can just pull out the leads that are located in, say, Iowa and send them out to the dealers that are located in the same area. If you are still using a spreadsheet to do that, you’d have to manually send out the leads to the qualified distributors to receive them. That can take a lot of time and effort; a program clearly increases your efficiency. 

Visit our lead management software sponsor: www.leads360.com