Understand your lead lifecycle

Fully understanding your lead lifecycle can be the difference between your business winning and losing a deal. By understanding your lead lifecycle, you will also be able to align your business, understand your leads and make insightful decisions to spark growth. In this article, we will look at what the lead lifecycle is, how to track it and make it more efficient to drive your sales.

What is a lead lifecycle?

To understand what a lead lifecycle is, we need to define what a lead is.

• Lead – A lead is a contact that has shown interest in your product or service that may be a good fit for your business to make a sale.
• Lead lifecycle – The lead lifecycle is the process that a lead will go through as they get to the conclusion if they would like to move forward as a customer with your business or not.

The lead lifecycle stages

The lead lifestyle stages that are crucial to understanding to make your sales process more efficient are:

• A lead is generated
• The lead turns into a marketing qualified lead (MQL)
• The lead turns into a sales-qualified lead (SQL)
• The lead turns into an opportunity for your sales team
• The lead is converted into a paying customer

We will now take a deep dive into each stage.

1. A lead is generated

The first stage of the lead lifecycle is when a lead is generated. A prospect would have shown interest in your business and interacted with your company.

2. Marketing-qualified lead (MQL)

When the lead turns into a marketing-qualified lead (MQL), it has been deemed a high-quality lead by the marketing department and will now be passed to the sales team. To judge if a lead is a high-quality lead, the marketing department must consider data from past successful leads and consider your business’s customer persona. Factors like a customer’s location and industry should be considered here to see if they are a good fit.  

3. Sales-qualified lead (SQL)

Next, the lead will turn into a sales-qualified lead (SQL). This is when the sales team come to the conclusion that this lead is a high-quality lead that they can possibly make a customer. At this stage, your sales team will have contacted the lead through a method such as a discovery call or demo.

To qualify a lead, your sales representatives should ask probing questions to find out about the customer’s pain points and context to see if they are a good fit for your business.

4. Opportunity

Once a lead has become a SQL after the first point of contact, they are now an opportunity for the sales team. They have been deemed to be a good fit for your product or service and have shown interest in becoming a customer. During this stage, your sales team will nurture the opportunity and guide them to make a purchase from your business.

5. Customer

The last stage of your lead lifecycle is when the lead has become your business’s customer. After nurturing your lead and guiding them to make a purchase, they have become a customer. The relationship with the customer does not stop here as now you have an opportunity to build a long-term relationship with them. However, the lead lifecycle ends here as they have changed from a lead to a customer.

The importance of tracking your lead lifecycle

Tracking your lead lifecycle is key to making more sales and generating higher revenue. The invaluable benefits you will get are:

Marketing and sales alignment – Your marketing and sales team will be better aligned as there will be a clearer understanding of the roles they play and will collaborate with each other. Lxahub shares that 56% of aligned companies will reach their revenue goals.

A better understanding of leads – You will get a better understanding of who your leads are, their needs and requirements, and where you lose leads in your sales process. As a result, you will be able to improve your lead nurturing process to increase the number of sales you make.

Make data-driven decisions – Get access to data to help with making insightful decisions about your sales process. Getting data on your leads, your sales process and your business’s interactions with clients will assist your decision-makers when trying to win more sales.  

Streamline tracking with CRM software

A good CRM software can be used to track a business’s lead lifecycle. CRM software will record information on the different stages of the lead lifecycle and present it in an accessible way for sales representatives, management, and leadership to see. This data will show you the strengths and challenges in your sales funnel to help your business evolve and win more deals. CRM software can deliver these brilliant benefits to your company lead lifecycle:

• A better understanding of leads – See valuable lead data to get a better understanding of clients
• Increased efficiency – Increase data visibility to streamline decision-making to increase efficiency 
• Lead segmentation – Segment your leads to keep your business organized with what leads you want to pursue first

Streamline your lead lifecycle with TEB

Create a more efficient and organized lead lifecycle with TEB to increase your sales and drive revenue. TEB is a sales automation CRM software that will streamline your entire sales process and make tracking your lead lifecycle an easy, seamless experience. TEBs invaluable features for lead lifecycle are:

• Generate custom reports – Create reports on different areas of your business like your lead lifecycle, increasing your data visibility and informing managerial decisions
• Automate tasks – Automate different sales tasks, like assigning leads to team members, to create a more efficient sales process
• TEBs lead funnels – Organise your leads by segmenting them with funnels and filters to prioritise the right leads for your business
• Align marketing and sales – Share valuable information from TEB with your marketing department to align your teams, bringing in high-quality leads and increasing productivity

Book a quick demo with us at a time that suits you to view live how TEB will streamline your entire sales process and lead you to more sales, more revenue and more growth.