As an entrepreneur, it is very challenging to keep track of your sales process. It becomes more difficult when you intend to convert a lead to a customer, no matter the type of business you may be running. Not just funnel tracking, but also figuring out how to turn leads into potential customers is a problem most teams are facing.
This article aims at answering all your questions, including why tracking your lead is necessary. It also helps you understand how exactly you can track your sales funnel and steps to improve your funnel tracking system.
Why Do You Need A Funnel Tracking System For Your Leads?
Despite your volume of leads, at every lead stage, you may have deals coming your way. A funnel tracking system will enable you to manage your leads, follow up on quotes, track proposal requests, send frequent task reminders, and maintain good customer relationships. In case a lead gets neglected, chances are you may lose out on a potential customer. But, imagine having to manage all your tasks manually. Trust me, it can get mentally taxing.
Therefore, you need a software or a digital tracking system that could properly organize and track your sales funnel consistently. You know the saying ‘first come, first serve’. If you don’t get to your leads quickly enough, chances are that you may lose out to your competition. Having an autopilot system that tracks your sales funnel and keeps giving you timely nudges, helps you in replying to your leads on time.
How Can Software Help You In Sales Funnel Tracking?
A good funnel tracking software will give a precise look into what is happening in your sales funnel. It will tell you how many leads are in every stage of the funnel and how you can push them along the funnel. It will also help you track conversation, meetings, emails, lead stage changes and more.
Your software should also be able to figure out when something goes wrong and why it went wrong. This way the management will be able to figure out how to rectify that mistake. Inadvertently, your funnel tracking tool helps you make strategic business decisions.
How Can Qualified Leads In The Funnel Be Tracked?
Thanks to smart CRMs these days leads are grouped as either hot, cold or warm. This then creates an effective lead scoring system. Your CRM will help your sales teams focus on what they do best: selling! But, a good CRM comes with the ability to also track your sales funnel.
Sales folks contact your potential leads through the phone or their emails. These conversations need to be tracked so that they know what the lead’s last response was and when the last conversation took place. The best way to go about this is to enable your tracking tool to automate your communications with your leads.
Automated workflows such as autoresponders or email nurturing sequences help sales reps to keep the leads engaged. It also significantly reduces the response time, increasing chances of closing the deal much more. Additionally, you also get to know how many leads have opened your emails and had a positive interaction with it.
Another good way your CRM can become a funnel tracking system is through your phone calls. Having an integrated calling system will help your agents to quickly reach out to the lead from the CRM itself. All of this, with a single click. Also, it should be able to record calls and be able to reroute calls if the agent is unavailable.
How Can Leads In The Funnel Be Nurtured?
If you look at a funnel, it is wider on the top and gets narrower as it goes down. This is because only a select portion of the leads that know about your business give you their contact details and even fewer interact with your business. And, still, fewer become your customers. So how can you make your funnel wider?
Sales agents need to keep a check on the leads in the funnel, to ensure that they are constantly engaged. They can also take a look at past conversations of the lead to identify any possible red flags. This is when they can start nurturing them, by sending over educational content such as webinars, ebooks, podcasts etc. Or, you can also offer them some discounts based on their interests. Gleanster reports that 74% of top-performing companies use automated lead nurturing. It is extremely important to constantly nurture leads to push them down the funnel.
Move Leads Down The Funnel Automatically
While managing your sales funnel using your CRM, you need to be aware of how your leads are performing and how long it takes for them to move to the next stage. Knowing how many leads are moving from one stage to another, at any given time, is also advantageous. A good funnel tracking CRM will give your pushes and prompts to enable your leads to move smoothly and quickly through the funnel.
Your tool should use rules and triggers to know that a lead is ready to move to the next stage and then automatically update the lead stage. A CRM saves you the stress of keeping track of thousands of leads yourself. By setting timely reminders and notifications, salespeople are fully aware of what is happening in their funnel.