Recently, I attended a major conference for users of a leading sales force automation system (SFA).
As a marketing director in the lead management industry I was excited to meet other marketing executives at this conference. Many of the attendees/marketers were new to the responsibility of corralling leads and working with their sales executives to define how leads are captured and distributed to sales people. While these marketers are still learning, I was surprised to discover that many of them incorrectly assume that an SFA system is a lead management system.
This tells me that the lead management industry still needs to do a lot of education. Because there is much industry clutter for marketers to slog through while evaluating their options, it’s easy for them to become confused about what lead management is, what a sales force automation system does. Adding to the confusion was the introduction of marketing automation systems.
So, let’s define what a lead management system does and why it’s different from sales force automation. (By the way, marketing automation systems plan, execute and track all of a company’s online marketing campaign activities – web site visits, e-mail marketing results, social media posts.)
What is a lead management system?
A lead management system automates from end-to-end all lead management processes that include:
- Distribute leads to the appropriate sales person (dealer or distributor), either within the lead management system or forwarding the lead to a sales force automation system
- Track leads
- Reports and charts to analyze the ROI of lead generation and lead management practices
What is a sales force automation system?
A sales force automation system is totally devoted to making it easier for sales people and sales managers to do their jobs. A sales force automation system is the central repository for all sales leads, including all lead and account contact information.
The SFA system offers sales people the ability to add additional information about a contact or company, elevate a lead to an opportunity and enter communication history with each lead.
The system may include an email function which allows a sales person to send email directly to a prospect or a group of prospects.
How is a sales force automation system different from a lead management system?
A sales force automation system will not perform lead management tasks, such as:
- Qualify a lead to see if it is worthy of a sales person’s time and the company’s additional marketing efforts.
- Rank and score a lead to enable a sales person to prioritize which leads to pursue – chasing the hot leads first, then the warm leads.
- Nurture leads to move a cold lead or “not ready to buy” lead closer to a sale.
- Analyze and report on the ROI performance of lead generation programs.
Because only a true lead management system performs these functions, we integrate our lead management system with our clients’ sales force automation systems.
Why integrate a lead management system with a sales force automation system?
Marketers need a total 360-degree view of leads. They need to know what happens to them from the time they are captured, qualified, ranked and distributed, through the time they are out in the field being worked by sales, and after the leads are closed (as either sold, not sold or a dead lead). Integrating a lead management system with a sales force automation system provides this 360-degree view. Plus, more accurate data is available to the marketer to analyze the ROI on their marketing spend.
Sales managers need a separate SFA system to monitor and manage sales activities. Sales people need the SFA system to manage their prospecting and selling activities.
Does a company need both systems?
Yes. A company that wants to gain market share, increase revenue and reduce both marketing and selling costs needs both systems.
A lead management system:
- Reduces the cost to generate leads
- Decreases customer acquisition expenses
- Shrinks sales cycles
- Converts more leads into sales
A sales force automation system:
- Track the entire sales process – contacts, accounts, opportunities, sales revenue, wins and losses
- See account history
- Add notes to records
- Produce sales reports
-Project revenue
Ultimately, an SFA system makes the sales team more efficient and helps them sell more.
Exciting times for marketers, real tools to answer real questions
These are exciting times for marketers, when tools and systems are available to measure what’s happening in the field, answer a marketer’s questions about what’s working and what’s not, and reveal data that helps marketers and their sales colleagues make wise decisions.
