13 Tips for Successful Lead Management in B2B

1. What is Lead Management?
2. What role does the Marketing and Sales Funnel play in Lead Management?
3. Why is Lead Management important in B2B?
4. Lead Management already starts with lead generation. It's not about which measures and tools are used, but that they are brought together centrally. It is not enough to track events in your analytics tool, measure conversions in your Ads account or collect website form submissions. Lead Management includes merging all these actions in a database.
5. What do optimal forms in Lead Management look like?
6. It becomes much more concrete when leads are not only identified, but also de-anonymized. This is typically achieved by using online forms where interested parties leave data. Many B2B companies work with "gated content" for this purpose. These are contents that are not freely available, but only after filling out a corresponding form. These contents must be so attractive that leads are willing to leave data for them.
7. The next step is to further qualify the identified lead. This includes both the enrichment of further data on the lead and the enforcement of further activities. The latter is called
8. To make structured decisions in Lead Management, the qualification of leads should be made measurable.
9. When a lead reaches a new qualification level, this is often associated with internal handover to other teams. This can be the case both within the marketing team (e.g. from the performance marketing team to the email marketing team) or from marketing to sales (e.g. when reaching the SQL level).
10. Last but not least, Lead Controlling is also part of the tasks of Lead Management. To do this, the entire process of Lead Management should be measured using key figures to show strengths and weaknesses in the process.
11. As already mentioned, Lead Management is largely automated to build scalable business models and create efficiency in customer acquisition. This is only possible software-based. Corresponding software providers bundle their offers under various terms. In addition to the term Lead Management software, many providers primarily speak of Marketing Automation software.
12. There are many different Lead Management software solutions on the market
13. In summary, a good Lead Management strategy in combination with the right software is a real success factor - especially in B2B. Through Lead Management processes, customer acquisition gets more structure. Automated qualification processes like a Nurturing ensure that larger quantities of painstakingly generated leads are also followed up. The evaluation using a scoring and a clear definition of handover points then ensure more efficiency and help that sales employees focus on the really valuable leads, achieve deals faster and thus shorten sales cycles.

How Lead Management works, why it's important, and the challenges lurking here, you'll learn in this article by guest author Alexander Mrohs.

What is Lead Management?

Lead Management encompasses all processes that control the structural identification, acquisition and qualification of potential customers (leads). All interactions with the lead are centrally recorded, analyzed and evaluated. A special focus is placed on a coordinated interplay between marketing and sales.

However, Lead Management is only indirectly about the actual measures for customer acquisition, but more about the underlying processes and tools. Lead Management aims to ensure that leads are actively pursued and resources in marketing and sales are used efficiently.

What role does the Marketing and Sales Funnel play in Lead Management?

A helpful visualization of Lead Management is provided by the Marketing and Sales Funnel, as used in many companies. Initially, it is about generating leads. So, leads get into the funnel. Lead Management then has the task of identifying these leads. Then the leads have to be developed along the funnel. It is then the task of Lead Management to qualify these leads.

Many B2B companies work with stages ("Lifecycle Stages") such as Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL), Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) and Sales Opportunities. In such a funnel, Lead Management coordinates the transition of leads from MQL to SQL to (hopefully won) sales opportunities. Sometimes there are also other (intermediate) stages in the funnel.

Figure 1: Lead Management along the funnel

Tip 1: Don't cling too tightly to the funnel. Especially in B2B, Lead Management doesn't always run so linearly and leads can be played back and forth between different stages. This is especially true when sales cycles are long or large purchasing committees are involved.

Tip 2: Even if you are not working with a funnel logic, Lead Management processes are necessary. The only important thing is to create a classification of leads that can be used to identify at which stage of the Lead Management process the lead is.

Why is Lead Management important in B2B?

Lead Management is therefore particularly important for companies that have to generate and lead a high number of leads through the funnel. Due to this large quantity, they depend on Lead Management processes that run reliably and largely automated. This is especially true for companies with scalable products and services such as online shops or software providers. Here, good Lead Management in combination with a good lead generation strategy has the potential to generate sales and increase profitability.

Especially in B2B, Lead Management is important because usually different departments work on leads. Lead Management defines the internal processes that ensure a clear allocation and coordinated processing of leads. Usually, the responsibility for Lead Management lies with marketing, as it is responsible for lead generation and thus sets the Lead Management process in motion.

Figure 2: Simple representation of the interrelationships in B2B.

Tip 3:

As a marketer, you should be interested in good Lead Management to ensure that the leads you have laboriously generated are followed up. Only if you make measurable how leads develop can you prove an ROI of your campaigns.What tasks does Lead Management have?

Lead Management already starts with lead generation. It's not about which measures and tools are used, but that they are brought together centrally. It is not enough to track events in your analytics tool, measure conversions in your Ads account or collect website form submissions. Lead Management includes merging all these actions in a database.

The identification of the lead is the first task in the Lead Management process. Here, a distinction is made between pseudonymous identification and de-anonymization.

Pseudonymous identification means the recognition of interested parties without knowledge of their complete identity. These are typically website visitors who are identified via cookies. So Lead Management already starts in this pseudonymous phase. Online shops, for example, recognize interested parties when visiting the website and create "shadow profiles", which are then used for remarketing campaigns.

What do optimal forms in Lead Management look like?

It becomes much more concrete when leads are not only identified, but also de-anonymized. This is typically achieved by using online forms where interested parties leave data. Many B2B companies work with "gated content" for this purpose. These are contents that are not freely available, but only after filling out a corresponding form. These contents must be so attractive that leads are willing to leave data for them.

Tip 4:

You should use clear "Unique Identifiers" in Lead Management, i.e. characteristics that make a lead unique. This could be an email address or a mobile phone number. Just a name is usually not enough.In this context, the question often arises to what extent data should be requested in forms. Behind this question is the balancing act between form conversion optimization (hypothesis: the more data requested, the lower the conversion rate) on the one hand and the scope of data required in the Lead Management strategy on the other.

Basically, only data should be requested that move the Lead Management process forward. If a direct telephone contact is also in the interest of the lead, a telephone number should be requested. If asking for a telephone number is a "conversion killer", it should initially be omitted and only supplemented later on.

Figure 3: Example of a form that guides through the form with help texts and explains the added value

Tip 5:

As always, there is no blanket recommendation for the amount of data to be requested in forms. Conduct A/B tests to optimize your forms. Ask yourself the question, how much conversion loss are you willing to accept for additional data. To stay with the previous example: Is a lead including phone number more valuable to you than two leads without phone number?Tip 6:

Some Lead Management tools offer "Progressive Forms" where the number of data requested is dynamically adjusted. For unknown leads, initially only the basic data is requested in the interest of a simple conversion. If the form is filled out by a known lead ("Re-Conversion"), the form now requests further supplementary data.Based on the Unique Identifier, a

Lead Management Softwareprofile for the lead is then created. These profiles are the core of Lead Management and essential for all further tasks. In the Lead Profile, all data about the lead are stored, activities recorded over time, and his attractiveness and probability of sale evaluated.Figure 4: Exemplary Lead Profile

Which data must be captured in Lead Management?

The next step is to further qualify the identified lead. This includes both the enrichment of further data on the lead and the enforcement of further activities. The latter is called

Lead Nurturingand is a classic in theLead Management Process. Lead Nurturing means the constant and automated play of the lead with marketing campaigns. However, Lead Nurturing processes do not run linearly, but individualized for each lead and at individual points in time. The decision about the course of Lead Nurturing campaigns is based on the data available in the Lead Profile.Tip 7:

When creating Lead Nurturing chains, you should ask yourself two questions: A) Which contents add value to the lead? B) Do the interactions give clues about the qualification of the lead?Figure 5: Dynamic Nurturing Campaigns in Lead Management

How can leads be made measurable?

To make structured decisions in Lead Management, the qualification of leads should be made measurable.

Three variants are available for this:

Target group requirements:

• Master data provide a first filter to determine whether the lead belongs to the target group at all. In B2B, these can be countries where sales are made or company sizes.Milestones:
• Important events in the Customer Journey can also represent qualification characteristics. For example, a lead can reach a new qualification level when it has filled out a certain form or participated in an event.Lead Scoring:
• InLead Scoringproperties and activities of a lead are evaluated. Website visits, downloads or event participations can be evaluated as well as properties of the lead such as their seniority or regionality. On the basis of the score, transfer points in Lead Management are then defined, such as the handover of the lead to sales.Tip 8:

Develop your Lead Scoring together with Sales. This gives you valuable input from a sales perspective and primarily creates agreement on the scoring model and handover points. This spares you tedious discussions later on.Figure 6: Exemplary Scoring in B2B. But often it's also simpler.

Tip 9:

Lead Scorings can quickly become very complex. Try to keep it simple and create a model which is still understandable for the marketing and sales colleagues later on and provides actual conclusions. Sometimes it's enough if you work with a simple traffic light system (red, yellow, green lead).How does the transfer of leads from Marketing to Sales work?

When a lead reaches a new qualification level, this is often associated with internal handover to other teams. This can be the case both within the marketing team (e.g. from the performance marketing team to the email marketing team) or from marketing to sales (e.g. when reaching the SQL level).

Figure 7: Optimal handover point using scoring

Every handover point is a real challenge for Lead Management in practice. The aim here is to avoid loss of information and to ensure that leads are actually followed up. It is important to summarize the lead and its history well. Again, focus is key and only relevant information should be provided. A brief summary of the history leads to more perception in practice than an overloaded data set.

Figure 8: A translation of scores leads to more understandable tasks

Tip 10:

Define Service Level Agreements between Marketing and Sales for the handover of leads and record them. Marketing should promise a certain lead quality, Sales on the other hand should promise to follow up within a defined time period. This way, you avoid mutual frustration!Which key figures are important in Lead Management?

Last but not least, Lead Controlling is also part of the tasks of Lead Management. To do this, the entire process of Lead Management should be measured using key figures to show strengths and weaknesses in the process.

Typical key figures for this are:

Number of new leads

• Number Leads in the individual stages
• Conversion rates between individual stages
• Length of stay in individual stages
• Average number of marketing activities (per stage)
• For more in-depth analyses, these key figures can then be broken down to individual lead sources, campaigns or segments.

Tip 11:

Versioning in Lead Management should not only take place in one direction. It's just as important to get feedback from Sales. Demand to get feedback on the quality of leads, both negative and positive. This helps to validate, among other things, the meaningfulness of your scoring model and to develop it further.Tip 12:

Reports also help to monitor Lead Management processes. Alerts can be set up for critical values that indicate errors in the process. Because of the high degree of automation, errors can creep in unnoticed. KPI alerts help to set up a monitoring system.It's also important to regularly maintain the database

, to ensure that the data is reliable and up to date. This helps to make better decisions and improve Lead Management. These include the use of unique fields (avoid free text!), duplicates management and also working with timestamps to illustrate changes over time.What functions must a Lead Management Software fulfill?

As already mentioned, Lead Management is largely automated to build scalable business models and create efficiency in customer acquisition. This is only possible software-based. Corresponding software providers bundle their offers under various terms. In addition to the term Lead Management software, many providers primarily speak of Marketing Automation software.

A good Lead Management software should support the following functions:

Creating Lead Profiles

• Connection to website forms
• Connection to Marketing systems for Lead Generation (in B2B, especially LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms; but also Webinar Software)
• Link to Email Marketing Tool or integrated Tool for Nurturing processes
• Lead Scoring Metrics, which, however, can be individualized. Rarely do the standard versions fit and the internal models titrated as "AI" often don't impress
• Workflows with if-then functions, delays and internal notifications
• Connection to a CRM, if not integrated
• Figure 9: Typical workflow in Lead Management

Which Lead Management Software is recommended?

There are many different Lead Management software solutions on the market

. Here are some of the most popular ones:HubSpot is very popular in B2B and is strong in growth oriented startups or midsize companies. Originally started as a pure Marketing Automation software, HubSpot now offers a complete sales system.

HubSpot Sales Hub

Comprehensive Marketing Automation software that is used especially by large corporations.

Marketo Engage

The solution known as "Pardot" is integrated into Salesforce and is therefore of interest to companies that use Salesforce.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (aka Pardot)

ActiveCampaign is the slightly smaller version than the previous providers and is therefore worth a look for companies with less complex requirements.

ActiveCampaign

Unlike the above mentioned providers, this Marketing Automation Software is "Made in Germany". Evalanche emphasizes especially its high data protection standards and configuration possibilities. The software has many clients in the field of the so-called German "Hidden Champions".

Evalanche

Tip 13:

Not the software should determine the Lead Management strategy, but vice versa: "Software follows Strategy". So first develop a concept for your Lead Management. Based on this, you can create a requirement catalog, with which you can then go into the software selection.The software providers try to include as many functionalities as possible in the Lead Management software and to keep the operation as simple as possible. Nevertheless, it requires technical understanding to grasp and map the complex processes. Therefore, experienced specialists should be hired or consulted externally to control the software.

Conclusion: Lead Management as a success factor in B2B

In summary, a good Lead Management strategy in combination with the right software is a real success factor - especially in B2B. Through Lead Management processes, customer acquisition gets more structure. Automated qualification processes like a Nurturing ensure that larger quantities of painstakingly generated leads are also followed up. The evaluation using a scoring and a clear definition of handover points then ensure more efficiency and help that sales employees focus on the really valuable leads, achieve deals faster and thus shorten sales cycles.

Zusammenfassend ist eine gute Lead-Management-Strategie in Kombination mit der richtigen Software ein echter Erfolgsfaktor – insbesondere im B2B. Durch Lead-Management-Prozesse erfährt die Kundengewinnung mehr Struktur. Automatisierte Qualifizierungsprozesse wie ein Nurturing stellen sicher, dass auch größere Mengen an mühsam generierten Leads weiterbearbeitet werden. Die Bewertung mittels eines Scorings und eine klare Definition von Übergabepunkten sorgen dann für mehr Effizienz und helfen, dass sich Vertriebsmitarbeiter*innen auf die wirklich wertvollen Leads konzentrieren, schneller Abschlüsse erzielen und so Verkaufszyklen verkürzen.