The Management of B2B Leads : A Complete Guide for Business

What Is Lead Management?

Lead generation is the most relevant definition in any business. We hope you remember who these B2B leads are. In short, this is a person who has shown an interest in your product or service. The smallest manifestation of an interest: following the link, browsing your site, and the greatest manifestation of their interest is the contact left by them in a contact form or direct contact with the company by an email or a call which will mean that your b2b customer wants to move further.

It is good if you have everything planned and the flow of customers is such that you can manage all sales and grow your business at a moderate pace. Unfortunately, sometimes in the process of B2B generation, setting the appointment as well as managing the entire flow of customers can be difficult. This can reduce the quality of your service and customer support. If the volume of customers and their requests is much larger than your contact center can handle, this also leads to a lack of attention to your potential leads. Remember how you waited on the line for 20 minutes? You have had a negative experience with this service, and therefore you will never want to work with this brand again. This is how you easily give away your B2B leads to your competitors. 

B2B Leads vs. B2B Customers

One very big mistake of novice businessmen is that they do not distinguish between B2B leads and B2B customers. In principle, you need to understand that this is the same person but at different stages of purchase. Let’s try to understand the difference between these similar concepts.

A B2B lead is a contact that has just learned about the existence of your brand and has shown an interest in working with you. In this case, your first move should be to help the client and be good at setting the appointment. Help your potential future partner with what your business is doing, learn more about it (if you have not done your marketing research before) and help understand how you can solve the problem of this prospect.

A B2B customizer is a person who is already working with you and has taken all the previous steps. Such a customer needs a complete sales process as well as after-sales service. This is extremely important because it will leave a good impression, which aids in setting the appointment, and therefore they will make a purchase again (or in our case, work with us again), and maybe recommend us to partners. 

Both cases are always the same person or company, but because of the difference between a lead and a customer, they need different treatment. A partner who has not yet made a purchase does not need after-purchase service, and vice versa, your regular customer does not need a presentation about your company every time they contact you. Only in the case of expanding opportunities for cooperation in connection with the development of the company and your two businesses.

The Lead Management Process and Setting the Appointment

Every successful lead manager knows that there are five main stages of new customer management:

Step 1. Lead capturing

This is the first process that requires a good strategy and basic quality tools. Imagine you have a new product and you need to sell it. You can run an advertising campaign or an email campaign using a well planned email marketing campaign with a correctly written script and an accurate CTA.

Step 2. Lead enrichment

Don’t waste time at this stage. Use the publicly available information to understand how to approach a new customer. Age group, number of workers, previous purchases, company name, its products and location. All of this can be found in the public domain.

Step 3. Lead qualification

The contact evaluation model you received in the previous stages is the most important tool for qualifying potential customers. This model ranks your business lead based on demographic information, their interest in your product or service, how they found your brand, and their interactions with your company.

Step 4. Lead distribution

To do this, we recommend using a CRM system. Such a system will automatically disperse new leads among sellers. Sometimes doing it yourself can be too energy and time consuming.

Step 5.Lead nurturing

The last stage before buying is very important. Some buyers may not be sure of the purchase yet, so your task is to remind yourself with the help of a spam checker and answer all the questions that may arise in the process to convince the buyer of the correct choice.

Benefits of B2B Lead Management

Any management will mean time management. You have to understand that if you want to manage the whole company and control everything yourself, you will not have enough time in the day especially in lead generation in B2B. Lead management allows you to improve and develop. Without it, you will stay in one place, and it may possibly lead to failure.

In management, you have the ability to automate the process of generating business leads and put more effort into the development of the company and networking for the same purpose.

By organizing all the processes correctly, you will be able to increase the efficiency of your brand. This will increase brand awareness and profits. Reduce manual work and increase automation in your business.

Management will help you analyze your customers and understand where you made mistakes, thereby reducing possible harm and failure in the future. And these are just a few of the reasons why lead management or buying leads is healthy for your business. 

Build Lead Management Strategies for Success

In order for the whole lead management process to go smoothly and as planned, you need to think through everything clearly and introduce such management gradually.

Our main advice is to set the KPI for lead generation. It will help to analyze your successes and also act as a way of dividing your big goal into smaller ones. Don’t set goals too high, like “Get 1000 Leads a Month.” Instead, make a goal of “Getting More than 25 Leads” every day. That is, set a minimum because then it will be much easier to exceed.

Setting the right KPI and doing your lead research and goals will make it much easier to move towards the goal and less likely to slack on the little things or new tips you’ve heard. The new strategies are good, but remember that this month you have other goals, “so we’ll consider this idea this month to use it next.”