Author, speaker Zig Zagler, once stated, “You are out of business if you don’t have a prospect.”
Every business or organization aims to increase its customer base regularly, and it applies various methods to generate leads and achieve its business goals. Leads can be potential customers who have expressed interest in your solution but have not yet made a purchase. The ability to convert leads into loyal customers and manage them efficiently comes with practice and systems. High-tech sales lead management software becomes the backbone of this strategy.
This article covers the aspects of lead management software solutions for the growth of business organizations. It also emphasizes the popularfree and open source lead management software solutions that are preferred by the majority of businesses today.
What is Lead Management?
Demand constitutes leads, and nurturing your leads efficiently converts them into your users.
Lead Management accounts tracking and managing prospective customers. It is sometimes also referred to as customer acquisition management or contact management and generally encompasses the following process:
- Lead Generation
- Customer Enquiry and Capture
- Filtering, Grading, Distribution, and Contact
- Lead Nurturing
Nurturing leads is as important as acquiring them in the first place. Effective lead management strategies can significantly help companies to improve their sales pipeline and these strategies cover a wide range of activities like lead scoring, nurturing, and marketing automation.
Lead Management Software
Aberdeen Study reveals that 71% of surveyed businesses agreed that they had utilized lead management technology in some way. They have used automated lead management tools to monitor prospect's behavior and timely engagement.
The sheer volume is the biggest reason for leveraging the power of technology to manage leads. Software-driven automated programs are quite capable of processing leads at lightning speed by introducing new practices for winning opportunities.
Lead management software allows businesses to merge their sales assignments and processes. From lead generation to conversion, all tasks are perfectly handled by the automated lead management solution using advanced reporting methods and comprehensive competitor analysis. They bring together important sales information within minutes. Much better than traditional spreadsheets, lead management solutions help users analyze critical data such as conversion rates, lead time, and win-loss ratio. They also provide you an insight into the performance of your sales team for various products, services, locations, and customers.
What are the types of Lead Management Software Programs?
Varying from basic and free tool suites to accurate and ultra-costly – different types of lead management software solutions are available in the market these days. Features can also come under the categorization criteria. However, certain specific programs just summarize leads, whereas others are more robust and allow the users to track the entire sales cycle, monitor lead behavior, and perform some custom branding. Deployment is also an important criterion that divides software into the following categories:
- SaaS or Software-as-a-Service Lead Management Software: It is paid software (on a monthly basis) hosted on the vendor’s server. Software installation, update, and maintenance jobs are not the responsibility of the business owner now. This kind of software handles such kinds of jobs well.
- On-Premise Lead Management Software: This is a single-licensed, client-server hosted software. It is expensive and requires a complicated setup. It occasionally requires some hardware installation.
- Cloud-hosted Lead Management Software: an affordable and easily accessible software solution with free basic plans. Some of them also come as free and open source lead management software solutionsthat users do not even need to update or pay for maintenance.
What are the critical features of Lead Management Software Programs?
The detailed comparisons given below will throw light on the main features of typical lead management software:
- Lead Storage and Distribution: This includes handling leads gained through email, web forms, etc. Then such leads can be stored in a database, evaluated, and sent to the right sales representative.
- Lead Scoring and Nurturing: This includes identifying promising leads based on online behavior, job title, demography, and buying behavior. Nurturing tools are used to automate lead follow-ups to bolster the relationship with prospects until they are ready to buy the product.
- Lead Analytics and Reporting: This includes generating lead reports to obtain sales and marketing results. The reports brief you about the most prominent business leads and successful sales campaigns.
What are the benefits of Lead Management Software Solutions?
Here is a list of benefits that users or businesses can experience by utilizing a reliable lead management system:
- Lead management software streamlines the lead lifecycle until conversion.
- Lead prioritization becomes possible with the lead scoring and nurturing features and with proper follow-up until it closes.
- An efficient software-based operation that saves your time and unnecessary paperwork.
- Easy to eliminate or filter out the non-promising leads that are not going to work for your business.
- The software lets the users understand the buying patterns of promising prospects.
What are the targeted businesses that use Lead Management Software Solutions?
Lead management software can be a useful tool for every company’s marketing and sales strategy. There are still two scenarios where a lead management system can have the most significant impact on the overall business revenue:
- B2B Businesses: They are engaged in more extended sales interaction lifecycles, and hence, these buyers should have strong hands-on lead scoring and nurturing features.
- B2C Businesses: They use lead tracking features for organizing a large amount of customer data. They also utilize analytics to identify consumer segments for boosting their sales strategies.
Before we go through the best free and open source lead management software solutions, let us have a look at the details of one of the most popular CRM software with incredible lead management features - NetSuite CRM.
NetSuite CRM
NetSuite CRM is a versatile SAAS-based CRM solution trusted by thousands of businesses around the world. It allows you to manage the entire lead management lifecycle starting from lead capture to conversions. By tracking the entire journey of the leads using NetSuite CRM, you can design personalized marketing campaigns that can guarantee success in terms of increased sales and profitability. Some of the major modules of NetSuite CRM include marketing automation, sales force automation, customer service, sales forecasting, customer service, and support. Starting from lead generation to cross-selling and after-sales services, NetSuite CRM acts as incredible support to sales and marketing professionals. It seamlessly integrates with ERP and eCommerce applications making it easy to automate manual tasks and focus on revenue-generating activities. Some of the key features of NetSuite CRM focusing on lead generation include -
Key Features
- Streamlines the entire lead management process
- Stores customer data in a centralized location that is easily accessible
- Tracks time spent on each marketing activity or project
- Elevates sales performance through marketing campaign management, and commission management facilities
- Enables accurate sales forecasting, helping you to capitalize on opportunities
- Provides a complete overview of buyers’ journey, enabling you to execute personalized marketing strategies
- Generates analytical reports providing real-time insights into the current situation of the business
- Allows managing customers and business remotely from your mobile device
Now, let us have a look at some of the popular free and open source lead management software solutions that are in huge demand in the market today.
The comparison chart given below covers diverse aspects of each of the above-listed lead management software solutions.
Let us discuss all of these software solutions in detail.
Marketable is the most dynamic, powerful, and result-oriented lead management platform for converting leads into customers. This custom-built lead management system offers state-of-the-art B2B services for efficiently managing leads and driving sales down the pipeline. It is a multi-feature online lead trading system that comes with an open-source facility.
(Source: Marketable LLC)
Features:
- The lead capture feature of the software reduces lead leakage.
- The Lead Qualification feature helps in making use of the lead quality and activity scoring.
- Lead distribution and source tracking to identify the best possible lead generation sources.
- Synchronized email tracking is facilitated with an email integration feature.
- Ping duplication-checking, lead verification, lead complaint management, invoice management, and buyer and vendor portal management are additional features associated with the software.
2. Convertable
Convertible is 100% free lead management and tracking software. It brings forward real-time analytics, contact forms, and lead management in one simple and straightforward platform. It is a fully web-based system that combines a simple online form builder with a database. With an easy-to-use setup, convertible software can be installed quickly on your computer.
(Source: Convertable)
Features:
- Users can customize their form button and add CSS styles to their forms while using Convertible software.
- One can have multiple forms in one account and form submissions can get sent to multiple email addresses.
- Fully protected, state-of-the-art servers of the system are updated regularly.
- Real-time analysis of data with notes, charts, and tracking tools.
- Quick visibility of the source, keywords, hostname, past visits, geo-location, pages viewed, and time spent by the prospects on the site.
3. LeadFeeder
LeadFeeder is one of the most promising lead management platforms. It promises to turn visitors into actual leads. The software comes with unrivaled data quality and native integrations with full 2-way sync. It is a performance-driven tool that generates leads from website analytics.
(Source: LeadFeeder)
Features:
- LeadFeeder is a web app that enhances your sales intelligence by integrating your marketing and sales data.
- It can easily get connected to Google Analytics to generate free leads for your business without needing to install any additional script.
- Additional features associated with the software include LeadFeeder Booster, automatic lead scoring, versatile lead filtering, and CRM automation.
- You can add as many users as you like to your LeadFeeder account to ensure that you never miss another online lead.
- Personalized email alerts are sent if any specific company visits your website for timely follow-up.
4. ClinchPad
ClinchPad is famous for closing leads faster. It is simpler than the traditional CRMs and better than using spreadsheets. Basically, it is built for small teams and offers a free account for users with up to 100 leads. It is ideal for all types of organizations and provides a more organized way of tracking leads than others.
(Source: ClinchPad)
Features:
- Easy visualization of the sales pipeline at the start of every day. Cards and stages are represented by columns to view the sales pipeline. Multiple pipes and filters can be created.
- Quick actions are made possible to add or remove leads.
- Every lead is assigned notes and a to-do list to register meetings, calls, emails, and tasks with a date and time.
- Custom fields, notifications, massive document and file storage, and daily activity snapshots are offered with the software.
- Easy to process, user-specific, preset charts and reports are made available to the users.
5. truLEADS
truLEADS is one of the most simple, flexible, and easy-to-use lead management software. Its iPhone and Android apps let you manage your leads from any remote location. Multiple workflows are allowed to be used to segregate your different departments or service offerings.
(Source: truLEADS)
Features:
- An exceptional lead dashboard is facilitated to manage and view all your leads at a glance.
- KANBAN style workflow is majorly followed to drag and drop leads in custom stages.
- The software facilitates cross-selling leads or adding one lead to another workflow easily.
- Quick access to the simple note message board to loop in team members anytime you want.
- A simple task manager is available to assign tasks to team members and notify them of them through the calendar.
6. Nurker
Nurker is literally the easiest-to-use lead management software online. Although it offers only basic functionalities, it still offers the best solution compared to its competitors. It gives you free access to the software and takes a minimalist approach to managing your sales leads.
(Source: Nurker)
Features:
- Nurker software comes with an efficient prospect management approach to manage your new and existing leads.
- The visual deal management feature of the software helps in understanding the flow of your business.
- This free lead management software facilitates the planning and scheduling of future activities, such as meetings, callbacks, and more.
- The software comes with a mobile-responsive LMS, and the tool has already been tested and optimized for all mobile devices.
- Easy data analysis is facilitated with a simple click of a button.
7. Zigihub
Zigihub is a popular lead management software that captures, scores, and tracks your leads through intelligent, data science-driven features. Zigi’s easy 1-click lead management strategy is driving a massive number of leads to businesses. It is a product by Kloutix Solutions Pvt. Ltd., and it helps clients grow their revenue using advanced machine learning methods.
(Source: Zigihub)
Features:
- Zigihub software can capture bulk-import leads from any system and in any format.
- Lead Rating is given from 1 to 5 stars to prioritize the lead management efforts.
- The mobile-enabled interface facilitates the viewing of leads in real time.
- A customized dashboard offers enormous functional features to make the software work according to you.
- Location-based lead interaction is possible due to the association of the geo-location feature.
Pipedrive, Sugar CRM, Copper, Leadscampus, LeadManager, noCRM, Follow Up Boss, and LeadMethod are other popular lead management software solutions popular in the market.
If you are already using one of the software solutions listed above, you can freely share your reviews here.
Conclusion
Technology plays a significant role in shaping different business functions, and so is with lead generation and management software. Things were not that scalable earlier, but today, tools based on AI technology have the capacity to help many companies in lead generation and management. As per DemandBase reports, businesses using AI-based solutions get 59% better close rates for a sales deal, 54% more traffic and engagement, a 59% increase in revenue, and 52% higher lead conversion rates.
Machine Learning practices have also contributed significantly to the highest conversions. Businesses utilize the data they gather through chatbots and use it for further analysis.
The sole aim of using a lead management system is to maintain the customer acquisition process through all stages of a business deal. When businesses have an agenda of obtaining an increased number of leads online, tools like lead management software work best to achieve the desired outcome within the stipulated time and budget. Whether they are free, open source, freemium, or popular, you can choose them according to your needs and explore the benefits of lead management software solutions.
