Sales Lead Tracking: 5 Channels Every Business Should Keep an Eye On
Why is sales lead tracking so crucial? Does it really matter where your leads come from? More importantly, what happens if your business fails to account for the origins of each sales lead?
Remember that every sale counts, as everything from the smallest purchase to the largest bulk order contributes to your company’s bottom line. Tracing the sale’s origins back to where the customer first encountered the brand can help you find more like-minded clients. Done properly, sales lead tracking makes it simpler for sales and marketing to focus their efforts on leads that have a higher probability of closing the deal.
Customer relationship management software is an essential part of identifying and tracking the buyer’s journey. And being able to add detailed and personalized content makes converting a lead to a sale that much easier.
Lead Generation vs Sourcing: The Difference
To make a sale, the salesperson can either work on a lead supplied by the marketing department or prospect for new customers. The former are pre-qualified individuals or businesses that earlier showed interest in making a purchase. For instance, they might have downloaded a demo, visited the online store, inquired through a customer service channel or downloaded marketing materials. Meanwhile, prospects are potential customers identified by sales representatives but have yet to appear in the company’s leads database.
The distinction between leads and prospects depends on their origins. Leads are often a product of an automated process performed by a marketing application. This could be a database containing information provided voluntarily by site visitors or customer service callers. In contrast, prospecting is a sales activity that relies on an agent’s ability to identify potential clients through personal interaction.
Why Lead Sources Matter
If you want to get more people or businesses to buy a product, it’s vital that the sales team identify where most of their leads—and by extension, actual customers—are coming from. How exactly did the lead learn about your firm? How did they end up visiting the company website, researching your product offerings or calling customer services? Perhaps more significantly, what ultimately convinced them to make the purchase? Answers to these origin questions are what we call lead sources.
In the quest to attract customers, companies may implement multiple campaigns on various channels simultaneously. However, different market segments have different preferences. A multi-pronged approach can help reach each segment on the platform which they usually frequent. This includes email campaigns, social media marketing, YouTube advertising, influencer sponsorships and even traditional print and billboard displays. Over time, companies can identify which of these channels generates the most leads and adjust their campaigns and their budgets accordingly.
Why Should You Perform Sales Lead Tracking?
Leads on their own won’t automatically result in closed deals. In sales lead tracking, you need to be able to prioritize those leads with the best chance of turning into conversions.
Identifying lead sources provides your business with a means of analyzing and understanding how people learn about your company. Once you’re able to pinpoint these sources, it’s easier to effectively channel your resources into enhancing the customer experience. Maybe build a better, more accessible website or find ways to optimize search engine results on related products or services. Alternatively, it may mean increasing the advertising budget on certain channels. Of course, this also requires fine-tuning campaigns and communication content so that it appeals to specific markets. These targeted improvements won’t just lead to higher revenue, they’ll also boost ROI through cost-effective spending.
Finally, gaining a more in-depth understanding of your lead sources allows you to develop programs that can more successfully nurture your clients. Because if there’s one thing better than a customer buying your product, it’s the same customer buying multiple times and asking friends to do the same.
Best Channels to Track Your Lead Sources
Which channels generate the most leads? More importantly, which ones generate leads that are more likely to become conversions? Below are five of the most popular and easy-to-measure channels that allow you to perform sales lead tracking.
Referrals
Referrals provide a genuine endorsement of your company. Clients who already bought and enjoyed your products are some of the most trustworthy sources for prospective new customers. And the best part? Customers who genuinely love what you sell won’t need convincing to leave a glowing review. Moreover, customers who made a purchase usually won’t have any problem disclosing the referral.
Even in this age of direct messaging and chats, email marketing remains a powerful channel for companies and brands to introduce themselves. This channel depends more on sheer numbers to reach the widest audience possible, so getting an average 2.5% click-through rate (CTR) in 2022 is a pretty good result.
Social Media
Having a social media account is one of the most effective ways for customers and potential buyers to connect with your brand. Depending on your social media stature and the content you post, it’s possible to own valuable online real estate space that regularly features your products and services. At the same time, social media can be extremely finicky. A simple misguided or misunderstood post can lead to a significant drop in followers.
SEO Content
Scoring high on search engine results pages can instantly steer people toward your website or online store. And when we talk search engines, we mean Google. The company has the global search engine market cornered, with an astounding 83.84% share. The good news is that companies don’t necessarily have to pay to get to the front page of the rankings. Following the necessary search engine optimization practices, such as using keyword phrases, linking to authority sites, regularly adding content and not writing like a bot can push you up the search engine results ladder.
Paid Ads
If all else fails, there’s always a paid option. Buying ad space on popular websites, streaming sites or even social platforms is a great way to get noticed. Thanks to target marketing, many companies that buy ads tend to get more bang for their buck than the mass mailers of years past. Compared with organic advertising, purchasing ad space ensures you’re getting to the front of the line, instantly. Just make sure you check your ROI regularly.
Keep Track of Your Leads with Ingage
Sales lead tracking can help unlock the secret of your online success. For instance, making it easier to identify which strategies work for your brand and which don’t. In addition, lead source data can show which leads are more likely to result in conversions.
Ingage is cloud-based presentation software that helps businesses create interactive presentations and marketing landing pages. Its collaboration tool lets teams work together and share ideas instantly. More important, Ingage allows groups to measure the impact of their content. The software’s analytics tracks open rates and captures critical lead data.
Learn more about how Ingage’s versatile yet powerful features can make sales lead tracking an everyday part of your workflow. We’ll be happy to schedule a free demonstration.