Lead tracking is a vital component of every sales organization. Without a proven lead tracking strategy, it can be near impossible to understand the status of each lead, forecast overall sales and calculate the ROI of each campaign.
But tracking leads effectively can be intimidating, right? It’s not just about wrapping your arms around the sheer volume of deals your team is working on – you have to coach them along the way and make sure they’re following the process outlined by your business. And doing all of this can take hours (or days, or weeks) more than you have time for.
So how can your team better track leads? From start to beginning, here are some ways to make sure your lead tracking strategy is as efficient as possible.
1. Confirm buy-in (from everyone)
Effective lead tracking requires data. Good data. And in order to collect that data, you must have buy-in from all parties involved: top management, who will encourage compliance, and your sales team, who will enter the information. Making sure everyone is a proponent of the strategy should always be the very first step.
2. Define your expectations
Make sure your sales team knows what you expect from them. Outline best practices on how to qualify leads, how to move them through the sales cycle, how to report on them. And here’s the important part: deliver this information in different ways. Some of your reps will learn best in training, some by reading a tips sheet, and some by working with them one-on-one. Tailoring your approach will ensure you reach every rep and they understand how to meet their goals.
3. Automate data collection
No one likes entering data twice – not you, and definitely not your sales reps. Your lead tracking system should offer ways for sales reps to import contacts without typing it all out. These offerings may include importing your email contacts or lead capture forms that are directly connected to your sales software. Base customers can use the Contact Clipper to save full LinkedIn and Facebook profiles to the CRM with the click of a button.
4. Make converting leads easy
Your CRM should make converting leads into contacts easy. After a lead is qualified it’s time to move it, and all of the information you have on it, into your contacts. It often requires multiple steps to move leads from place to place in the sales pipeline – and for your sales team, that’s discouraging. Keeping it simple makes following your business’s best practices easy, which helps ensure that your reps follow through.
5. Be mobile
Since your sales team is mobile, it’s worth investing in sales solutions that are mobile. One of the best ways to help ensure the status of each lead is always up to date is using a CRM that is always accessible, whether in the office, in the field or on the train. That way, reps can update accounts real-time, while it’s top of mind, without having to wait until they return to the office. And an added bonus: constant access encourages consistent account updates – which increases the accuracy of your prospect database.
Click here to download a free ebook on how to select the right mobile sales solution for your team.
6. Get creative
What other ways can you simplify lead tracking? Some suggestions include offering incentives for the most comprehensive data or tagging leads with labels unique to your business. What works for each business might be different, so don’t be afraid to test a strategy – then keep the ones that work, and abandon the ones that don’t.
Even if you only act on a few of the suggestions I laid out above, I guarantee that lead tracking is about to get easier for your business.
Have you found a creative lead tracking strategy that works for your business? Tell us all about it below.
And if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for a free trial of Base to see how simple we make it to automate data collection and simplify the sales pipeline.
The post Lead Tracking: 6 Ways Sales Teams Track Leads More Effectively appeared first on Base CRM Blog .
