A successful marketing strategy is, by default, useless unless potential clients bite the bait you’ve used to lure them in. Those who have bitten the bait, but have not yet been reeled in are what you would call “leads.” Leads are the building blocks of what could possibly be an actual sales opportunity. But countless of times, certain leads fall short of being converted into “contacts,” those clients who you’ve successfully reeled in.
To create a concrete separation between your “contacts” and your “leads,” here are a couple of tips. On one hand, your relationship with “leads” usually ends as soon as they get a hold of your marketing promotions. Another characteristic common with “leads” is that they can easily be worked by sales development reps. On the other hand, “contacts” are more associated with opportunities, accounts, and revenues.
Fortunately, Salesforce, the SaaS-focused CRM, has got you covered with the filtration of “leads” and “contacts.” The CRM does this through a special feature within its system known as the “Lead Object.” The Salesforce lead object allows for the proper espousing of best practices. By delineating leads from contacts, agents are guided on which clients they are to send certain marketing advancements (i.e. emails, SMS, or voicemails).
How Does Salesforce Lead Object Support Sales and Marketing
Before getting into why you, as an agent or as a company owner, should use the lead object, let us clear out why some, unfortunately, opt to do without it.
- Companies often get overwhelmed with the thought of exerting extra effort in separating leads and contacts. Honestly, this is nothing a quick dialogue between the sales and marketing teams can’t settle.
- Companies from other industries tend to think that the system only fits the B2B business model. But come to think of it, most industries out there come up with their own marketing plans to invite in potential clients, also known as leads.
- The only probably exception would be those businesses with a small to no sales team (i.e. eCommerce companies). Often times, these types focus their marketing efforts into creating only a limited yet loyal clientele.
Now, as a responsible and committed leader of your company, here are compelling reasons as to why you need to grab a hold of your pipeline. These are the things that will help you have the reins over your whole sales process, and not the other way around.
- Salesforce objects allows both sales and marketing teams to aid their agents against confusing old contacts from newly converted ones.
- The Salesforce lead status assists sales managers in evaluating their team by making aspects of the pipeline (i.e. reps efforts in converting leads into contacts) visible.
- Salesforce leads are easily distinguishable through the lead status Salesforce provides. This equips your marketing team with the ability to efficiently publish their ROI information.
Weigh both the benefits of the lead object, and the painstaking tasks you manually maneuver through without it. Stop wasting valuable time and start the quicker route to transforming your leads into contacts.
Your Competitive Advantage With Salesforce Lead Object
As time takes its course, we have accepted the fact that the traditional method of face-to-face selling is a rather endangered way of doing business. The lead object takes complete advantage of this, and has made online transactions easier for both agent and client.
- It gives eases the profiling of leads by providing you codes for each who have filled out your online forms.
- Leads are assigned an agent depending on their location compatibility among other criteria.
- Agents are equipped with the lead’s profile which guides them in formulating interview questions that are in context to the client’s field.
What You Should Be Doing to Optimize Your Salesforce Lead Object
- Make sure that you are actually using it. Companies usually have it, but never seem to get their desired results since they misuse it. Some never even use it at all. Ensure that all agents are using this tool they’ve been equipped with. Always create a Salesforce campaign object for every marketing effort you come up with.
- Organize your system by segregating leads and contacts into standard “types.” This makes it easier for you to scan through your pool of clients, or potential ones. Also, doing so will allow agents the luxury to not have to constantly create a new “type” for every campaign. Tracking your prospects and opportunities with lead object should be easy, make it so for you.
- Easily peruse through lead and contact responses. As this CRM function’s lead statuses come with remarks to easily track lead status, your part is to make sure you automate it using web-to-lead forms.
Which Industries Benefit From Salesforce Lead Object?
The common notion that only B2B business models benefit from the Salesforce lead object has been debunked. As long as your business has marketing strategies driven to create a pool of prospects, then you are very much qualified to field in the aid of the lead object. To give you a better look on how this Salesforce feature benefits your industry, here are some examples:
1. Retail
Retail is a very customer-centric industry, and Salesforce is right with you through every step of the way. From marketing to sales—and even until after-sales support service—the CRM assists you in providing both leads and contacts with unparalleled attention.
2. Financial Services
Investing money, big or small, is probably one of the riskiest decisions one could ever make in life. Hard-earned cash is hard-earned cash, so people working within the financial services sector need to earn the complete trust of their clients. Salesforce allows you to understand your clientele on a personal level by systematically grouping their data.
3. Automotive
Cars are one of the rather bigger splurges people make, and for such they expect no less than the utmost attention from their dealer. Salesforce allows automotive companies to tweak their marketing and sales efforts to be able to connect with their clients better. This gives them a better understanding as to what questions to ask and which solutions to provide, for their clients to receive sterling customer service.
4. Telecommunications
When it comes to its sales and marketing efforts, the Telecommunications industry is heavily reliant on CRMs like Salesforce in streamlining these aspects of their business. Profiling clients through a CRM makes the process a whole lot simpler as you have all the vital details within arm’s reach.
5. Life Sciences
Even physicians who forge strong bonds with their patients require the aid of Salesforce. Their service needs to be available anytime and anywhere; and a CRM allows that by providing their patients with necessary information and solutions through any device.
Sales pipelines are called such for a reason. The whole process is an interconnection of various stages before leading to the bigger picture, which is the actual sale. And pipelines, often times, need a little cleaning to ensure the smooth flow of transactions. And that’s the main cause for the existence of Salesforce’s lead object. Having a hard time coursing through your sales funnel? Maybe it’s time for you to stop doing things the hard way, and allow the lead object to aid you with transforming that lead into a contact!
