How do businesses increase the likelihood of conversions? One of the surefire ways is to follow up with leads within 5 minutes. It helps to increase the chance of conversion up to 9 times, especially if companies implement lead distribution software while doing so.
Every sales and marketing department relies on an efficient lead distribution process.
If a company struggles to define how inbound leads are assigned to its sales reps, it can cause numerous issues and disrupt the process.
Naturally, utilizing lead distribution solutions is an excellent choice for every company. But how do you deal with declined leads and wield substantial control over your revenue? Ensuring a simple and transparent lead distribution process can be challenging with many lead assignment rules and routing options.
Let’s examine in more detail the lead management process and the role of lead distribution in driving business growth.
What does the lead management process entail? It’s all about identifying, managing, and converting prospective customers into returning and paying ones. In other words, utilizing lead management solutions allows businesses to bring in new high-quality leads, manage them efficiently, and then generate income by converting them into loyal customers.
It is traditionally divided into five stages. Here’s a short description of each step to help you understand the process better.
Lead capture is when leads enter the company database for the first time. With the significant expansion of lead sources, including social media, websites, offline events, email campaigns, and PPC efforts, businesses often generate inbound leads in substantial numbers.
Here is a list of mediums marketers typically use to capture leads successfully.
Source: Formstack
The increasing number of lead sources is one of the reasons for brands to automate their lead capture process rather than keep and manage inbound leads in an Excel spreadsheet.
With marketing automation tools, businesses can leverage built-in lead capture features. Such features allow for capturing leads from every source and passing them on to the appropriate sales professionals for follow-up. On top of that, they help the sales reps be more efficient and lose no prospects in the process.
This stage entails determining the lead sources and the type of leads, i.e., inbound or outbound. Businesses can use this lead data to plan and enhance their future steps in the conversion process.
Most commonly, a lead management and distribution system tracks a lead’s behavior and website engagements after they are captured. Then, it passes (or distributes) the leads to the company’s sales professionals with the most relevant experience.
Source: PerformanceIN
Strategic lead distribution can improve conversion rates and sales. For instance, businesses can distribute leads based on their geographic location, interest in a specific product, or account size. In some cases, sales reps can be assigned to the same area. That implies using a particular rotation method and lead assignment rules to ensure a fair lead distribution.
In this stage, sales professionals communicate with the inbound leads assigned to them. The communication process entails getting a good sense of whether the leads are worth following up with during the initial call. When qualifying a lead as a sales opportunity, sales reps typically use a list of features provided by their managers to eliminate the guesswork.
Source: Deskera
This process is called lead scoring. It implies that inbound leads get specific scores on a scale from one to ten based on numerous criteria, including demographics, engagement, buying history, behavior patterns, interest, etc. Qualified leads with high scores are considered sales-ready and typically have the highest priority.
Even the most sophisticated lead generation process doesn’t always result in an abundance of high-quality leads.
In other words, most inbound leads will not score well or make a purchase immediately. Although leads might lose interest in your offerings, you should consider them as prospective buyers.
Source: HubSpot
Developing and implementing lead nurturing strategies can help businesses keep leads in the pipeline, keep them interested, update them on current offerings, and engage with them until they finally convert.
Lead management is the process of capturing lead data from multiple sources and using it to guide communications between sales reps and prospective customers. It entails capturing, tracking, validating, nurturing, and forwarding leads to sales professionals.
Lead distribution is inextricably linked to lead management. It allows for capturing leads and directing them to specific destinations or lead buyers.
On top of that, it enables lead sellers to monetize declined leads and get connected to more interested parties.
Businesses use lead distribution systems to connect consumers with the brands and products they are looking for. The process generally starts with a company using particular marketing channels and ads to direct consumers to specific offers. These prospective consumers, also known as leads, are then assigned to sales reps who can best assist them.
It’s not uncommon for lead generation companies to use distribution and lead routing software to connect prospects to optimal buyers successfully. Businesses equipped with automatic lead distribution leverage sophisticated algorithms that match reps, buyers, sellers, and leads by using the information captured during the lead and call tracking processes.
For instance, Phonexa’s LMS Sync – lead management and distribution solution – offers a unique filtering feature that enables buyers to receive the most relevant leads while reducing lead response time. Besides, it allows lead distributors and generators to direct leads to the correct destination without delay.
Scaling sales and marketing efforts comes hand in hand with the decreasing capability of a business to manage leads manually as effectively as before. At that point, business owners realize it’s time to automate the company’s distribution and routing efforts.
Here are the top four automated methods of lead routing most brands use to manage a growing number of inbound leads:
Since these salespeople are expected to generate and convert more leads, they typically have to handle a higher number of leads. Managers and business owners must remember that this approach may result in the top-performing salespeople feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, and overworked. That, in turn, may result in a deteriorating quality of the customer experience and leads over time.
For instance, B2B efforts must entail different sales tactics to ensure successful sales to businesses of various sizes. Utilizing this routing method can help brands categorize their sales professionals based on their skill set and specialization. That way, a company can flawlessly match B2B leads with sales reps.
It’s no secret that customizing routing rules and automating routine tasks is essential to creating a successful lead distribution strategy. Here are some crucial steps brands take to develop and implement an effective distribution strategy:
Regardless of the size of your sales team, sales reps and marketing experts have probably used one of the lead distribution strategies listed below. While each has advantages and drawbacks, it’s crucial to understand how these approaches can help you decide which fits your company’s next growth stage.
Let’s examine in more detail the most common lead distribution strategies.
| Strategy Name | Explanation |
| Segment-based lead distribution | It’s not uncommon for sales reps to choose clients based on their experience and company strategy. More often than not, businesses use a segment-based approach when reps are assigned to specific areas, regions, states, or cities and, therefore, leads from those locations. The segment-based strategy is about more than just a particular territory; it can take many forms, including the industry or the company’s annual revenue. |
| Round-robin lead assignment | This strategy is common in early-stage companies because it facilitates lead distribution. Simply put, it divides inbound leads evenly among all the sales reps. Since small companies typically have up to five sales professionals, implementing this approach often jeopardizes the customer experience. Why is that? As a sales team grows, it includes varying expertise, skills, and competencies, making this strategy no longer efficient. |
| Tiered lead routing | This strategy implies assigning leads to reps based on predefined criteria to guarantee the best team performance. For instance, if a company hires new sales reps with decent ramping skills, there are two ways to deal with lead distribution. First, a company can assign them more leads so that they open up the pipeline and move leads down the sales funnel faster. Second, assign fewer leads so that they take time to grasp the intricacies of a company’s sales process. Simply put, this strategy considers individual capabilities and skill sets to determine the reps with the most significant potential for enhancing the overall team performance. |
After figuring out which lead distribution strategy fits your business, it’s crucial to understand how to optimize and streamline your lead distribution process.
Here are five actionable tips that will help you achieve the mission:
The cooperation and transition of leads between sales and marketing departments must be smooth. Businesses can automate their lead capture process with the right marketing automation solution.
When a lead signs up for a trial, messages you on social media, or fills out a web form, you can capture their information, track their behavior, and direct them to specific sales professionals through the CRM system integrated with the lead distribution tool.
Businesses need to define the factors that impact their lead qualification process. It can be a geographic location, business size, company’s budget, issues the organization is experiencing, etc.
That will help you filter your inbound leads based on specific predetermined factors. As a result, only high-intent leads will be routed to your sales representatives.
After lead qualification and prioritization, businesses must assign them to suitable sales professionals. It means establishing specific routing rules. Here are some common factors companies consider when setting routing rules:
Regardless of your chosen criterion, it’s crucial to ensure that the company representatives have enough resources to engage with leads properly.
Before utilizing a lead distribution system, brands must ensure that their lead generation, call tracking, lead management, lead distribution tools, and CRM can integrate and work seamlessly. This way, companies can reduce lead response time and ensure an efficient sales process while remaining transparent with sales and marketing teams.
Tracking and measuring the results of implemented lead distribution strategy is as important as evaluating the performance of every stage of your sales funnel. Here are some of the essential metrics businesses typically track:
Over 50% of marketers spend half their budget on lead generation efforts. It’s hardly surprising since effective lead generation allows for building a sales pipeline by capturing and stimulating the interest of prospective buyers. Besides, businesses that use lead gen to determine their ideal customer profile may rest assured that they’re on the right track to capturing more quality leads.
But how do lead generation and effective lead distribution correlate? Let’s examine in more detail how lead generation efforts can improve your company’s lead distribution system.
Many organizations invest in increasing efficiency and speeding up business processes. For that reason, it’s common for companies to purchase and implement lead distribution software that ensures better performance, speed, and integrations.
Additionally, it helps businesses concentrate on innovative lead generation methods and approaches without sacrificing lead quality.
With Phonexa’s lead distribution software, brands can facilitate the lead management and distribution processes and leverage advanced reporting, automation, call tracking, and lead routing resources that make for one of the most effective lead distribution solutions available on the market.
Phonexa’s lead distribution software with ping post technology enables businesses to optimize the traffic flow, create custom ping trees, leverage predictive insight into active campaigns, and strategically route leads in real-time.
When it comes to Phonexa’s ping tree software, it enables a sophisticated lead distribution process that employs ping post technology to deliver and route leads to multiple sellers and buyers based on different filters, factors, and lead prices. All those arrive at the lead management dashboard via LMS Sync, Phonexa’s lead management, tracking, and distribution solution. The ping tree software enables publishers and affiliate marketers to instantly distribute the same leads to a network of potential buyers for real-time bidding.
One of the traditional lead distribution methods provided by Phonexa’s lead routing software is intelligent rules-based routing. It helps brands find the best match between the lead and the sales rep by using specific criteria such as lead origin, interests, language, etc.
Phonexa enables businesses to take advantage of CRM integrations within their tech stack by seamlessly organizing lead data, routing leads, adding prospective customers to the sales pipeline, and streamlining the sales process to facilitate converting leads into sales.
Integration opportunities are essential to the success of any lead distribution strategy. Therefore, companies must be able to integrate a lead selling software and distribution system with their CRM software. With Phonexa’s suite of marketing automation solutions, businesses can automate their workflows, make strategic decisions, and accelerate lead data transfers.
Lead generation and management strategies require access to structured lead data and insights. Therefore, advanced reporting is a critical feature of any lead distribution software. Phonexa offers granular analytics and an advanced reporting feature with an easy-to-use dashboard, custom reports, information on agent performance, unpaid invoices, etc.
Innovative lead management software with ping post lead distribution improves business functionality by offering such features as customer feedback capture. This feature facilitates lead assignment while allowing businesses and teams to track leads and prospects as they are pulled or qualified by sales or marketing departments.
Phonexa’s Ping Post Calls 2.0 enables performance marketers, small businesses, and enterprises to collaborate directly. With this feature, Phonexa introduced a novel approach to enhancing lead flow management and purchasing and selling ping post leads. It assists sellers and buyers with real-time bidding based only on the best call and lead data attributes and ensures that sellers maximize their profits on every lead.
Let’s look at how companies can use lead distribution software across four industries.
It’s common for financial companies to use technical terminology to describe specific processes and products. That makes it challenging for prospective customers to understand the offerings. Besides, it complicates the purchasing decisions.
Since prospective clients often have many questions, they call financial advisors to clarify doubts and make educated decisions.
Here’s how financial institutions can benefit from implementing lead distribution software:
Consumers contact hotel chains and tour operators to inquire about travel packages and accommodations. Such communication usually happens via phone calls, email, or live chat.
Here’s how implementing lead distribution software can help travel and hospitality businesses achieve their sales and marketing goals:
The home services and improvement industry has numerous niche offerings, including solar power solutions, remodeling, and roofing.
When home service providers get most inbound leads from performance marketing companies or a network of affiliates, the leads are distributed simultaneously to multiple contractors. In other words, the same lead can be sold to several contractors in a specific area, which means speed-to-contact is crucial.
Implementing lead distribution software can help contractors achieve the following goals:
The name of the game for insurance professionals and providers is “jockeying for position” in a highly competitive market. Therefore, it is paramount to implement tech tools and solutions to improve customer engagement, increase retention, bring in more quality insurance leads, and distribute them effectively.
Here’s how insurance carriers and agencies can make the most of lead distribution software:
The process of generating, capturing, qualifying, and routing inbound leads is ongoing regardless of the industry or niche. Therefore, developing a distribution strategy and implementing lead distribution software is the surefire way to speed out the process of reaching out to leads and delivering them the best possible customer experience.
Schedule a consultation with one of Phonexa’s experts to discover how LMS Sync can help your business increase lead response time, streamline sales workflow, and automate your lead distribution process.
Lead distribution software aids the lead management process by assigning inbound leads to suitable sales professionals based on predefined criteria. The criteria typically include but are not limited to the representative’s availability, geographic location of prospective clients, sales rep’s expertise, company budget, and time zone.
Inbound leads are prospective clients who initiate contact with the business after an organic search, a referral, or a chance encounter with the company’s content. Inbound leads tend to have higher quality because they trust the brand and are ready to purchase.
Lead routing, otherwise known as a lead assignment, is the process of distributing inbound leads among salespeople manually or automatically with the help of the lead distribution software.
It means assigning inbound leads to your sales reps manually or automatically.
It ensures that each lead is assigned to a sales rep with a specific experience and skill set. In other words, it guarantees that brands will assign inbound leads to the best-suited representatives who are likely to close the deal. Since every prospective customer has unique goals, issues, and needs, it’s crucial to match them with the appropriate sales professional to deliver excellent customer experience and boost conversion rate.
The round-robin method implies that every new inbound lead is assigned to a different sales professional until each sales rep has received and handled the same number of inbound leads. Then, the cycle repeats.
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