Lead lifecycle management is a mainstream issue for marketers nowadays. It also deals with all the chain reactions that a lead goes through around the marketing stages, like listing the data of contacts, their engagement journey, and the way to the final purchase. In easy words, a lead is a contact or prospect. For businesses, a lead is a person or business that has the potential to become a client or customer.
Marketing teams identify the leads through a number of sources from direct advertising to inbound marketing. Businesses should also assess the quality of a lead by knowing their level of intrigue with your business or brand. Qualified leads show good interest in your product and are ready to make a purchase.
What is Lead Generation?
The basic motive of marketing is a lead generation and it refers to making consumer interest in your service or product. Not surprisingly, the internet has a strong influence on how marketing functions today. With more than 90% of people cruising the web, businesses use the digital space to their benefit. Mover content marketing is one tactic for getting organic traffic towards your business. Businesses might employ content management (CMS) to generate blog content pertinent to the product they wish to promote.
Platforms like CMS make it particularly easy to attract the eye of the common internet person. Just like this, customer relationship management (CRM) systems double as marketing automation platforms to increase your marketing efforts. They could also manage marketing contacts and auto-mail leads in response to specific clicks. Salesforce and Hubspot are famous CRMs on the market today.
Let’s see how the sales cycle works:
Sales Cycle:
All the features mentioned above are crucial to the seven principle stages of the sales cycle. The stages are as follows:
- Prospect
- Contact
- Qualify
- Nurture
- Make an offer
- Handle objection
- Close sale
What is Lead Lifecycle?
The lead lifecycle mirrors the sales cycle closely. They are virtually the same, except the sales team is not the focus of the lead cycle. Lead lifecycle management points to the particular ways in which a business manages the life of a lead. Sometimes businesses visualize lead lifecycles to make sure no lead falls through the cracks. Refining your business operations could be as simple as selecting the right sales automation tools.
Moreover, knowing what tools and tactics work suitable could be hard. The main motive is always to convert prospects into leads. Lead conversion is the procedure of turning a prospect into an ideal customer. For this, you will need the best team for IT Development Services to get the desired result.
Let’s move on to the stages of the lead lifecycle:
Lead Lifecycle Stages:
Lead lifecycle management could be hard as there are various stages that a lead moves past before purchasing a product. But knowing what stage your leads are on could definitely guide you on what you can do next.
Lead:
A business or person becomes a lead after engaging with one of your marketing campaigns. At this time, you must gather some information about the lead, and save those details in your CRM.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL):
Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs) are the most important stages of the lead lifecycle. Your system determines that a lead is completely engaged and your system draws this conclusion automatically based on a set of pre-designated actions. Marketing automation tools come equipped with the capacity to stimulate workflows and react to triggers as well.
For example, an MQL can have downloaded premium content or viewed your product pages many times within a short span of time.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL):
Sales qualified leads rely on human qualification and this qualification would depend on your unique and different criteria. In many cases, someone from your sales team keeps direct contact with the lead through a demo or discovery call.
Opportunity:
In case, if the initial contact with the lead goes well, there is a great chance that the lead will convert and become a customer. At this stage, you are supposed to answer some preliminary questions.
Customer:
Always remember that your lead has become a full-fledged customer in this stage. That is why you must make sure not to avoid the connection you have made. Your customer service team can take it from here, and they must foster a relationship with your customer that enhances retention.
Buyer’s vs Customer Journey:
It is not mainstream for people to confuse the lead lifecycle with the buyer’s journey. It does not assist that the lead lifecycle is often used interchangeably with the customer lifecycle. Buyers are your customers, and the two categories are equivalent. The buyer’s journey is distinct from the lead lifecycle in composition and purpose.
There are basically 3 stages of the buyer’s journey:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
The awareness stage is where the buyer knows a problem and takes to different channels to research the issue. In the consideration stage, buyers point out the problem and their research would commence to narrow it down in particular. Lastly, there is the decision stage in which buyers have to actively implement solutions. Searches have become more in-depth and there are direct comparisons so that the buyer will be able to make an informed decision.
Also Read: What is Google My Business And How Does It Help Boost Your Digital Presence
