Every business has unique goals and challenges. Why should your inbound marketing strategy be any different when it comes to new leads online?
Businesses operate on one basic principle: supply and demand, no matter the industry. Whether you are a service provider or product supplier, your business objective of turning a profit and creating value for your customers remains the same. Modern markets are highly competitive, and with so many options available online, there isn't enough room to put lead generation on the afterburner. A strong lead management process is vital for your inbound marketing strategy. Here's how your inbound marketing strategy can benefit from implementing a lead management process.
Lead management is the process of acquiring new leads, evaluating their quality, then engaging and nurturing them through the buyer's journey. It's important to note that there isn't one way to implement the comprehensive lead management process. It is entirely customizable and should be catered to meet specific business goals and customer needs.
Lead management encompasses the broad process of lead generation, nurturing, scoring, and content creation. The goal is to get visitors the right message at the right time to convert on a website offer and generate a new business lead.
All of this happens to nurture the lead into taking an action that indicates they are ready to buy. Having a good framework for your lead management process allows you to achieve sales and marketing alignment, invest in marketing activities that generate real value, and increase revenue while enhancing the customers' experience when engaging with your organization.
Acquiring a new lead is just the beginning of the buyer's journey. No two leads are the same. Lead management is about understanding which leads in the database are ready to make a purchase and which ones need more time to be nurtured and informed. One of the reasons companies struggle to convert leads online more effectively is they lack an understanding of how to use lead scoring to prioritize leads in a sales pipeline.
Lead management often involves tailoring a plan to customer-specific goals. To reach unique leads, managers must understand who these leads are and why they have shown an interest in your company. This allows you to engage with leads in the right way. Lead managers know which content to share for a lead's specific needs and can set them up to speak with the right people in the company at the right time.
A marketing team is responsible for providing content for leads in every stage of the buyer's journey. Their responsibility is to support sales by providing quality leads and nurturing those leads with relevant information. Marketing creates content that speaks to leads no matter what their interest level is in your company.
With lead management, your marketing team organizes and segments contacts to send tailored messages and content. For example, once sales converts a lead, marketers can attribute which campaign and the specific content that was valuable in closing the deal. As time goes on and more deals are won, your marketing team begins to see a pattern in what content works for which clients and when to use it. This natural evolution of organizing both contacts and content will significantly improve an organization's ROI in its unique lead generation campaigns.
Without an organized lead generation strategy as part of your overall lead management process, your sales team will have no way of knowing which leads are truly qualified. A common pain point for sales is spending too much time prospecting and not enough time prioritizing leads ready for the sale.
A strong lead management process will help you identify lead goals and provide guidance on the best way for sales and marketing teams to help nurture leads. Sales teams are responsible for winning the deal. The more work the marketing team does beforehand, the better opportunity the sales team has to get the job done.
Alignment on shared goals and processes is critical to success. It reduces friction and improves efficiency between teams. Marketing and sales teams are equally responsible for lead management. It’s important that both teams not only have a strong understanding of who their target customers are but also the attributions which identify these ideal customers in the buyer's journey. This helps both teams focus their lead generation strategy on a singular goal. Both teams should work together to align SLA goals and create automated workflows and custom messages for leads.
Just as lead management is a broad process, it coincides with HubSpot's inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing is about attracting the right people, with the right content, at the right time. Sound familiar?
When growing an organization, it helps to have lasting relationships with clients. When you help them reach their goals, they help you reach yours. Lead management is crucial for scaling your business. It helps to streamline process efficiencies and optimize all areas of your business related to customer service, acquisition, and retention.
Incorporating a solid lead management process into your inbound marketing strategy is vital for the success of your business, no matter what industry you are in. The foundation of inbound marketing has many blocks, if you leave one out, the foundation will be weak and eventually crumble.