It takes great wit, skill, and labour to effectively generate leads. But all that effort could be for nought if you are not distributing your leads to the right destinations. The process of strategically distributing one’s leads is known as lead routing. Depending on the size of your business, lead routing can be a significant undertaking—involving multiple destinations and possibilities. In this way, it is not unlike the London Underground, the massive transport system that is approximately 249 miles long, connecting 270 stations and using roughly 4100 trains. Much like an efficiently operating Underground is critical to keep the city of London in business, lead routing is vital for those who hope to find success in the world of lead generation and performance marketing. What is Lead Routing? Lead routing begins with marketers who are generating leads across one or a variety of channels. When a marketer is generating a higher volume of leads, it becomes necessary to employ a lead management system to organise and distribute those leads. Lead routing is the practise of using strategic automation to send leads to their optimal destination based on a multiplicity of factors. Traditionally, the main objective of lead routing is to transport leads to the businesses who will see the most value in those leads—often leading to those leads being purchased at a competitive price. This process of intelligent lead distribution can often include the use of ping tree technology. A ping tree allows a lead to be shown to one potential buyer, who has the option to acquire the lead or pass. If they pass, the lead “moves down” the ping tree to the next buyer in the queue. This continues until the lead is purchased. Why Lead Routing is Useful Like a Underground that is clean and on-time in London, an efficient lead routing system will benefit multiple parties. Marketers For the marketers who work tirelessly to generate leads, lead routing is integral to achieving a high return on investment. It means that they are able to share leads with those businesses who have the highest interest in their leads first. As a result, high-quality leads are more likely to be sold at loftier prices because of their value to the buyers. Advertisers The advertisers who are acquiring leads find value in lead routing with ping tree technology because it allows them to get a “first look” or “early look” at the leads that are most relevant to them. It then becomes the choice of the advertiser to accept or reject a lead at a certain price point. This ability to choose from a selection of high-quality leads is very attractive to direct advertisers. Consumers The consumers who are filling out forms or making calls are also benefited by this system of lead routing. Because ping tree technology uses strategic routing, the consumer is in position to get connected to the business that is best equipped to serve them. Rather than having to perform an exhaustive search, consumers are presented to multiple vendors for whatever they are looking for: insurance, home service work, financial services, or other businesses. By being connected quickly, the consumer has a favourable customer experience. Lead Routing Solutions In order for lead routing to work, businesses need a superior lead management system. LMS SYNC from Phonexa, offers all the tools marketers need to track, manage, and route their leads. Any purchase exploration of a lead management system should ask the following questions: Do I have optimised lead routing to ensure a high return on my marketing spend? Can I access reports that are simple, efficient, and useful in making data-driven decisions? Am I able to filter my leads so that my business exclusively routes leads that are high quality and close to conversion? Does my lead routing ensure a smooth and successful customer journey?
For marketers seeking to improve their knowledge and find greater success, the smartest course of action will always be for them to face their biggest problems head on. This is a truth that has been known by discerning minds for, well, centuries. In fact, one of the greatest writers of all time—William Shakespeare—offers a quote in Henry VI echoing that exact same sentiment: “”Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.” It may seem far-fetched for digital marketers to heed advice from a playwright who died over 400 years ago, but there really is great value in marketers embracing “sour adversity.” Finding solutions to your biggest problems not only will you help your business run better, but you’ll likely also gain valuable insights into your industry and earn an edge over your competitors. For many, the solutions to their biggest marketing challenges can be found by utilising the right call tracking platform. Here are the ways that call tracking helps marketers embrace and defuse the issues that plague them. 1. Proving Marketing ROI According to a State of Inbound report, beyond “lead generation,” the greatest challenge that marketers face is “Proving the ROI of our marketing activities.” In-house marketers need to prove their ROI to justify budget spends while entrepreneurs need to know their ROI so they can understand their expected revenue. Of course, the most important reason it is imperative to know your marketing ROI is so that you can improve your marketing ROI—thus creating conditions for growth. Call tracking exists to help marketers solve this problem. Utilising a call tracking platform, you will be able to get powerful insights into how much your marketing investments are paying off. The right call tracking software will also collect valuable data on all your calls and give you the sophisticated reporting you need to not only know your ROI, but dramatically improve it. 2. Understanding Campaign Attribution In addition to wanting to know your overall ROI, another concern that can frustrate marketers is judging the relative success of individual marketing campaigns. It can be difficult to plan your next big campaign without a clear picture of how your last campaign performed. Fortunately, call tracking software gives you the opportunity to get exceptionally detailed reporting on every campaign you launch. With call tracking software, you can get a bird’s eye view of all your calls and campaigns. You’ll know how many calls each campaign produced, and how many of those calls converted. You will also be able to unlock and demystify all your data thanks to call analytics, which thoughtfully condenses and organises all your campaign data into easy-to-read reports, allowing you to closely judge each campaign’s performance. 3. Finding Data Blind Spots Every business is forced to grapple with knowledge gaps in their business—but call tracking software helps you aggressively close those gaps by giving marketers get a more complete picture of their strategies in action. The best call tracking software offers marketers granular reporting like being able to see more than just whether a call was accepted or rejected—but also details as to why. Call recording can give you access to conversations between callers and representatives so you can identify problem areas or learn what works best. Plus, automatic reporting via call analytics means that you can have easy access to the data reports that are most important for your business. Time can often be wasted transferring call data into reports and graphs that help you identify trends. With automatic reporting the work is done for you, allowing more time and energy to be spent on planning your next campaign. 4. Improving Lead Quality One issue that can often vex marketers is dealing with low-quality leads. If your business suffers from too many calls from leads that are highly unlikely to convert, then using a filtration system through a call tracking platform could be the answer. There are many benefits that come with using a sophisticated filtration system—not only are you able to pre-emptively screen out most bad leads, but you can also create and edit your own filters for maximum flexibility. 5. Optimising Your Business The cumulative benefit of tackling all these problems is that it will also help you take on one simple but persistent concern that every marketer is faced with: “How can I optimise my marketing strategy?” To that end, call tracking assists in many ways. With an accurate understanding of your ROI, you can build a better budget. Getting granular reporting on your campaigns can help you streamline your sales funnel and more effectively target your prospects. Automatic reporting will save you and your team time, allowing you to pay more attention to more complex issues. The benefits of using call tracking to tackle your most difficult problems are self-evident. There’s little doubt as to why wise men might say it’s “the wisest course.”
Your leads keep your business going. If you’ve got things sorted when it comes to lead generation, you should have a steady stream of inbound leads. These can come from calls, web forms, PPC ads, and many other sources. But just as important as getting those leads is being able to keep them organised, manage them, and then either convert or distribute them. In order to do this, it’s critical to know what a sales lead is and how to use lead management. What is a Sales Lead? When we talk about leads, we typically mean sales leads, but there are distinctions. Some leads are marketing leads, or marketing qualified leads (MQLs). These are leads that have been educated by your brand marketing and are deemed ready to present to sales. A sales lead, or sales qualified lead (SQL), is a lead that has taken an action that suggests they are ready and eager to make a purchase. A sales lead will have clicked a call to action with statements like “Call Now,” “Get Quotes,” “Talk to an Agent,” or something similar. A sales lead is very valuable because it is a lead that is far ahead in the sales funnel and are ready to take the plunge. What is Lead Management? Lead management is what happens to a lead once it enters your sales funnel as a sales qualified lead. From here, it is on a path to being converted by your sales team—unless you plan to distribute the lead to third parties for conversion. Lead management is important because it is the link between your lead generation endeavours and sales goals. If you don’t manage your leads effectively, you could be wasting all your marketing and lead generation efforts. If you are a very small business, you may be able to manage and organise your leads using a “manual” system like an Excel spreadsheet, a digital notes app, or even notecards on a bulletin board. But for most small, medium, and enterprise-sized businesses, there is a need for lead management software. Organising with Lead Management Software A lead management system is useful for many reasons, most simply because it puts all your leads in one digital place: the cloud. SaaS lead management allows you and other members of your team to track how leads made it to you and where they need to go. It makes sure nothing falls through the cracks. The best lead management software will do even more than help organise your leads—it can also illuminate ways you could earn more revenue. You can use filtering and restrictions with lead management software to improve your lead quality and only accept leads you are likely to convert. A feature like URL tracking can give you insight into the traffic source for each lead. By tracking the marketing that is driving leads your way, you can make better decisions about where to allocate funds. By knowing where your leads came from and effectively managing them with a lead management system, you can account for each lead, refine your approach, and pursue strategies that will lead to more conversions.
In an age of constantly-changing technology, it is critical that businesses are prepared to adapt in order to stay competitive. More than just keeping a healthy bottom line, the ability to evolve can mean the difference between continued success and closing up shop. One of the most famous examples of this is the “double pivot” achieved by Netflix. The company had originally started as a movies-by-mail company, sharing paper sleeves of DVDs with consumers who wanted to skip brick-and-mortar rental shops (and their notorious late fees). With the dawn of the digital age, though, Netflix pivoted to streaming services and delivered digital movies right into the homes of cinephiles. Netflix would pivot again and start creating their own feature and TV content some years later when the company realised its lack of original programming put it at a disadvantage. The lesson from Netflix is that there is never a bad time to take an intensive look at your business and implement necessary changes. One segment of your marketing strategy that is always worth examining is email marketing. Whether you are just getting started with an email marketing plan or have been utilising it for a long time, the right kind of email marketing software can help you evolve and stay relevant. Forge Stronger Connections The power of email marketing is undeniable, especially when it comes to your marketing ROI. According to Campaign Monitor, for every £1 spent on email marketing you can expect a £44 return on investment. Part of what makes emails so effective is that they allow you to communicate directly with a receptive audience. It’s the personal touch of getting your message into a person’s inbox that makes a difference. Email marketing software gives you the ability to create even stronger one-on-one connections with your target audience. With audience segmentation, you can divide your subscribers into different groups so that they get content that more tailored to their needs. Instead of sending one email out to all your subscribers, you’ll be able to craft readers according to age groups, buyer habits, or geographic location. Considering that subject lines are one of the most important factors in achieving a high open rate, it is especially wise to use segmentation to customise your subject lines to specific groups within your email list. Doing so will lead to a deeper connection between your brand and your top consumers. Optimise Campaigns You can further evolve your email marketing strategy by taking a renewed approach to how you evaluate your campaigns. Build better emails by using a sophisticated drag-and-drop template that lets you easily build emails to fit your business. When you have flexibility in your email design, you can quickly adapt to changing market trends and put together sharp-looking campaigns in a moment’s notice. Additionally, you can use your email marketing software to test different messages and see what’s working best. By taking a close look at your past open rates, you can make adjustments to your latest message so it has the maximum impact. All this will allow you to create email campaigns that perform better and deliver a bigger ROI. Make Data-Driven Decisions Ultimately, if you want to have agility in your business and be ready to adapt when circumstances change, you need to be as well-informed as possible. For the task of acquiring volumes of valuable information, there is no better source than campaign analytics from your email marketing software. Not only will utilising campaign analytics allow you to have all your campaign data in one space, but it makes it easier to understand the importance of that data thanks to automatic reporting and customisable dashboards. An easy-to-navigate user interface becomes especially significant when you need fast access to the most relevant data and reports. With an uncomplicated view of how your past campaigns have performed and granular insights into your open and click-through rates, you’ll be able to execute precise adjustments that can make a big difference. No matter how you utilise your email marketing software, there’s little doubt that it can be a valuable tool for optimizing your campaigns and making plans for the future. Staying connected to your subscribers and aware of market trends will allow you to pivot when needed like Netflix and avoid ending up in the dustbin of history, like a certain beloved blue-and-yellow video rental chain.
In this day and age, most businesses find value in acquiring web leads regardless of their industry. The world is now online almost every waking hour, which means that your target market is available for onboarding right now as you’re reading this. This paradigm shift to online marketing happened years ago and is now an accepted part of the advertisement industry altogether, which calls for one thing: lead management. Whether you have web leads, call leads, or both, you need a tool to help you streamline your marketing efforts, accurately attribute your ROI, and track and segment your leads according to their respective sales statuses. We’re talking about an advanced Lead Management System. Lead Management Systems provide a better, more efficient way to track, manage, and remarket your leads. Phonexa’s remarkable lead management system, LMS SYNC, captures all of your inbound and outbound leads so you can choose to handle them in any way you see fit. LMS SYNC is not just a tool, but a comprehensive solution to lead management. It works hand-in-hand with our predictive modelling solution, Waves, to create detailed reports on all your campaigns. Here’s how LMS SYNC can help you better manage your web leads. Detailed Reports on Every Campaign LMS SYNC works with Phonexa’s premier predictive modelling solution, Waves, to deliver comprehensive reports on your marketing campaigns. Waves creates a complete visual analysis of your web leads. You will be able to view your reports and stay updated with the latest campaign results. LMS SYNC and Waves make it easier for you to analyse trends, so you’ll have the ability to evaluate your campaigns in detail. Customisable On top of the powerful metrics and reports that you will receive, the LMS SYNC platform is also fully customisable for your convenience. You can create custom charts for any lead parameter of your choosing, as well as sort the parameters based on the number of leads sold, the EPL, revenue, accept rate and more. The charts also allow you to personalise the analysis process in a way that makes sense for your specific industry. In addition to being able to customise the solutions according to your business and industry, LMS SYNC also includes API integrations, accounting options, a handsome user management dashboard, and more. Feel free to set your campaign filters, group campaigns as needed, create duplicate settings, cap restrictions, create schedules and edit your Ping Tree settings. User-Friendliness Phonexa firmly believes in the power of simplicity, which is why our Lead Management System prioritises user-friendliness. The software is extremely intuitive and easy to use, which ultimately saves you more time overall. The old saying is true: “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t know the subject well enough.” The reason why the LMS is user-friendly without sacrificing any important metrics is because we know how to manage leads in the most efficient way. Let the pros simplify the complex processes so you can focus your time on things that matter most, such as growing your business. If you’re ready to take a glimpse inside the advanced LMS, book a demo with us today! We’ll walk you through the entire software and show you how to easily streamline your current business process.
We have never interacted with technology using voice commands with as much frequency as we do now, thanks to recent advancements in voice technology. First came the introduction of Siri in late 2011, enabling iPhone users around the globe to access the world’s first commercialised virtual assistant. 2011 was only seven years ago, but we’ve made significant strides since Siri. Now, it seems as though every modern American home has a virtual assistant of some sort to help with daily tasks, simple searches, and even household chores – everything powered by AI voice commands. As more consumers become accustomed to living with AI-powered voice systems, businesses across all industries are incorporating this technology into their customer journey for a more seamless experience. It would be a shame to miss out on this opportunity to connect with your target audience while AI voice tech is still so prevalent. We might not know exactly how this will evolve in the future, but this is how you can equip your business for the immediate technology demands. Personalise Your Calls The business-to-consumer interaction has been reliant on voice technology for decades, whether that includes a simple phone call between the agent and consumer or a full-fledged automated conversation between the AI attendant and the consumer. Companies have made considerable strides since the first attempt at creating the automated attendant, but one thing remains the same: our human need to connect in a personal way. That’s why call tracking is such a game changer. It’s the brains behind the voice, so to speak. While the interactive voice response system can sound impeccably human and offer a variety of self-service options, it won’t be able to deliver the kind of personalised experience consumers are looking for without the help of an advanced call tracking system. With call tracking, your voice recognition software will be able to service customers according to their specific status in the sales process, automatically route calls based on location, offer multi-lingual speaking options based on demographic and much more. The tools are there for you to be as inventive as you want with the personalisation process! Customise Your Customer Journey Companies should assess their customer journey through the consumers’ lens, determine the points of inefficiencies and research the technology you need to improve your pipeline. With call tracking, you can customise almost every aspect of your customer journey to make it as smooth and high-converting as possible. For example, a common inefficiency in the customer journey is putting the caller on hold for too long. When the wait time exceeds just 40 seconds, the chance of your customer abandoning the call increases dramatically. Call tracking can fix this issue by distributing your calls to the appropriate agents, departments or store locations based on your preferred settings. Your callers will no longer have to speak to an IVR or representative to get routed to the right line, allowing both sides to save more time and effort. By skipping this small but significant hiccup in the customer journey, your callers will experience a much smoother and quicker service with your company. In the world of customer service, quickness is everything. In fact, studies show that 82% of customers admit that getting their issues resolved quickly is the number one factor to having a great customer experience. The faster your customer gets to speak with the right person who can resolve their issues, the more likely they will to recommend your business to others. Call tracking delivers the speed and efficiency you need to convert more calls and boost your ratings. If your current customer journey does not involve any AI-powered voice technology, we highly recommend that you give this brilliant marketing software a try. It completely changes the way customers view and receive your brand. The communication process improves, customers are treated with consistent professionalism, and issues are resolved quickly without holds or hiccups. When your calls are equipped with advanced call tracking, your customers are happy and your bottom line increases. Everyone benefits.
