Lead generation is the process of identifying potential clients or customers to avail your services. Generating leads is an integral part of growing your business. However, generating reliable leads alone will not ensure that your customer base expands. Managing the leads you generate is crucial to making good conversions. Let’s go ahead and look at the best lead generation tools that can help you do that.

Lead management is the strategic process of qualifying, analyzing and nurturing incoming leads to convert them into viable business opportunities. However, managing a growing number of leads can become difficult.

Several tools / softwares have emerged that you can utilize to generate and manage leads effectively. They help you improve efficiency in the workflow while decreasing the possibility of human error.

Lead Management Tools Vs. CRM

It is important that you don’t confuse lead management softwares with those for Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Lead management primarily deals with identifying prospective clients to be onboarded. CRM is attributed to an existing customer database, where the goal is to retain clients through constant engagement. 

A lot of people tend to confuse the two because some CRM systems come with lead management features. However lead management software can also be stand alone. Data can subsequently be onboarded to your CRM. 

The Benefits Of Lead Management Tools 

Almost 65% of businesses state that generating traffic and leads is one of their primary marketing challenges. In this climate, successfully following up on leads is pivotal in maximizing your conversion rate. Whether you are a small, medium or large business, these are the reasons why you should be using lead management tools.

Lead Organization

Your business generates leads through a multitude of sources ranging from your website to social media, online ads and so on. Manually inputting these leads into your CRM can be slow and inefficient as the number of leads you generate increases. The possibility of error and leakages also mounts as more leads come through. A lead management software helps you automate the process of organizing leads that are generated from various sources and ensures that no information is lost.

Lead Enrichment

The more information you have about a potential customer, the more likely you can make a conversion. Many lead generation and management tools come with enrichment features. They search for and verify additional information attributed to a lead, such as social media profiles and employment details, in order to enhance your data. This saves your sales department valuable time when it comes to background research on prospective clients.

Lead Tracking

Tracking your leads involves categorizing their positions in the stages of the sales pipeline. Lead management softwares enable you to monitor the behavior of prospective clients. This enables you to engage them with information relevant to their position in the sales pipeline. Regardless of whether you close or not, tracking leads can help you improve your marketing campaigns significantly.

Lead Qualification

Lead qualification involves determining the conversion potential of your leads. This is carried out through a process of lead scoring.  Lead scoring is the process of ranking prospective clients or customers on their readiness for sale. Prospective customers are primarily scored on the basis of three categories: the interest they show in your products or services, their position in the buying cycle, and their fit in relation to your business. Lead management softwares has scoring metrics that, in most cases, accurately forecast the potency of a lead. This greatly simplifies the task of your salesforce. 

Lead Distribution

It can be difficult for growing businesses to manually assign leads to the relevant sales personnel. Since timing is key in closing on a lead, it becomes imperative to make the process of assigning leads more efficient. A good lead management software automatically assigns leads to your staff based on predetermined criteria. This helps you save a lot of time by optimizing your workflow.

Lead Nurturing

Leads generally vary in their potency. A majority of your leads will not be sales ready. In many cases, they will be in the preliminary stages of the marketing funnel. Lead management softwares help you nurture these individuals by providing them appropriate information to carry to the end of the sales pipeline.

Tools To Help You Manage Your Leads

Let’s have a look at some of the best tools that you can harness for lead generation and management. 

Here are 5 tools that you can utilize to generate reliable leads to grow your business and optimize marketing strategies.

1. Intercom

Intercom is a great lead generation tool that allows you to engage and collect information of prospective customers using its chat feature. Once their details are collected, Intercom also allows you to track consumers’ behavior on your website. 

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a go to lead generation tool for many startups and small businesses. You can use it to seamlessly grow your email list by building forms and setting up campaigns that are designed to boost conversions. 

3. Turnstile

Videos are becoming a more prominent form of content creation and marketing campaigns. Turnstile by Wistia helps you build your list by requiring consumers to provide an email address to complete watching a video. 

4. Qualaroo

Qualaroo lets you create on site polls that can help you collect valuable user feedback and generate leads simultaneously. Feedback you receive can be used to enhance your website’s user experience and improve your marketing campaigns.

5. Hotjar

Hotjar is a tool that enables you to analyze customer experience effectively. It provides options for creating heat maps, form analytics, on-site polling and more, to completely understand how consumers behave on your website.

Lead Management Software

These are 5 of the best lead management softwares out there. Some of them provide lead generation capabilities as well.

1. Hubspot Marketing

Hubspot marketing is one of the most popular lead management softwares. Its features make it a good fit for medium to large businesses. Its lead generation and management tools make it easier for your business to maximize conversions. 

2. FreshSales

FreshSales is hands-down the best lead management software cum CRM for small businesses. It comes packed with features that make connecting to prospective customers extremely efficient. FreshSales also has a free edition for up to 10 users and promising AI aided lead generation and management options. 

3. Monday.com

monday.com provides a highly secure and reliable CRM that also has lead management capabilities. It has great automation features that make it extremely simple to do repetitive tasks. Whether you are a small, medium or large business, monday.com can make pipeline management more organized. 

4. Zoho

Zoho is a trusted CRM that offers substantial lead management. It’s platform is suitable for medium sized businesses. The software has a customizable dashboard,  integrates with your G Suite and makes email marketing easy. Zoho also offers a sleek mobile app and in-person training for your employees. 

5. Pardot 

Pardot by Salesforce is one of the best B2B lead management systems. It’s a stand alone system that can hold a large database of leads. Pardot’s campaign creation and management features makes your marketing team’s job extremely simple. 

Wrapping it up

Lead generation and management are vital to expanding your business. There are several tools available in the market to optimize both these processes. Using software to generate and manage your leads will help your business increase its efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to making conversions. Evaluate the many options available, and make the right choice for your growing business!