Best lead management tool 2020 

Whether you are a startup or a well-established company lead management is one thing you need to concentrate on. All the efforts you put in with your marketing campaigns will go to vain if no lead management system is in place. As all the leads generated must be tracked, scored, monitored, and nurtured at each stage of the customer journey. 

Why do you need a lead management tool?

Lead management is not just a phonebook with all the information of your leads to manage it on an Excel sheet. Although excel can be used as a lead management system for a very small volume of customers it is not advisable for higher volume.

A business with a medium to high volume leads needs to have a proper lead management tool in place. Trying to track leads with an excel sheet for such volumes will be laborious and the manual entries will lead to errors which will, in turn, have an impact on the business. 

Lead management tool will ensure all the leads generated is updated automaticity form website, chat etc., and keeps a record of the leads. This makes sure all your prospects tracked and nurtured timely. 

A lead management tool will work in 4 stages

• Lead capture: Lead capture is done automatically from your digital marketing campaigns like website, social channels, chatbots  etc.,  
• Lead tracking: At this stage, we need to track the behaviour of the leads based on the time spent by the lead on a specific page, product view etc.,
• Lead qualification:  At this stage, the leads are qualified based on all the parameters tracked in the previous stage.
• Lead Nurturing: This stage is more about building brand awareness and educating the prospects. 

Our top picks for lead management Tools 

Zoho CRM

Zoho lets you distribute the leads generated automatically to the sales representative based on the location, product etc., During the set up you will be able to choose there guidelines or rules for the algorithm to distribute the leads. For scoring the leads you can set up customizable rules to rank the leads based on the activities. For instance, filled survey= 10 points. With the help of the reporting system, you will be able to easily calculate your marketing performance. their plans start from Rs 500/- per month.

Insightly

Insightly provides features like automatic linking on conversion, convert leads to convert or opportunities, web to lead form, lead assignment or lead routing etc., which creates the basic framework for the lead management software. The downside to this is we can not create leads pipeline and does not automatically collect data from social networks. They have plans starting from Rs 2000 per month.

Creatio CRM

Creatio CRM provides a full package of the lead management software with the following features Separate Lead and Contact Lists, Integrates with Email Providers, Creates Pipelines for Leads, Mobile Versions, User Forums, Automated Responses etc., however it does not Automatically Collect Social Networking Data on the tool. BPM’online/Creatio provides pricing based on the number of active contacts and users. 

Pipedrive CRM

Pipedrive CRM has basic features like builds forms to collect data, integrates with the email provider. They also have a mobile version. The lead management tool is easy to use and set up. Pipedive provides plans starting from Rs 900 per month.

Bitrix24 CRM

Bitrix is another good lead management tool out there which has a free version with up to 12 users. They also have paid version with premium features. The premium version has project management system, collaboration tools, online store, live chat, bulk emails and SMS.      

Really Simple Systems 

This is free tool with moderate features like Integrates with Email Providers, Automated Responses, Creates Pipelines for Leads etc. However, Really simple systems don’t collect data from social networks which is an issue if you are running social media campaigns.

Conclusion: 

A lead management tool for your business must be selected carefully as it is a long term investment. Before selecting a lead management system for your business analyse the requirements of the business now and in future. As most of the software provides a free trial period or a free version. Make use of this and test out the tool and choose the tool which would be suitable for your business.