Capturing Leads

• Do not use web forms – open a dialog with your prospects: according to a Marketing Sherpa report in 2004, “Interactive registration forms [i.e. dialogs] get 300% more completions than regular sales lead forms.” Web forms intimidate prospects by asking multiple questions all at once. Dialogs engage prospects by making them feel as if they are having a two-way conversation.
• Engage customers with an interesting question: engage the customer with an interesting question to open the dialog. Moreover, place that question in a few places on your web site to increase the chances that the prospects will see it and interact with it.
• Ask one question at a time: once the prospect has answered one question, move on to the next page and the next question. Asking more than one question at a time will intimidate the prospect and deter them from answering everything.
  
• Offer interesting side notes to keep the prospect interested in the dialog: keep the prospect interested by offering them something in return for their efforts, such as interesting product information or market trend information. This will not only increase their trust in your organization, it will make the dialog more immersive.
• Personalize the experience: prospects are people, and like all people, they wish to be addressed appropriately. Your lead capture system should be able to use their names when asking questions in order to gain their trust and further draw them into the process.

Qualifying Leads

• Use flexible dialogs: your dialogs should be flexible enough to adapt to prospect answers. This will not only help you qualify prospects more easily; it will help prospects get through the dialog more quickly by answering questions that pertain only to them.
• Use a system that can instantly qualify prospects: a lead management system should qualify leads in real-time with whatever internal ranking you give to prospects. This will ensure that the lead gets distributed to the proper places as soon as they complete the dialog.
• Organize your leads with a CRM system: your lead capture and qualification system should integrate seamlessly with your CRM system, so that all qualified leads can be placed in a central location where your sales force, marketing team and executives have access to them. This should happen instantly so that everyone can see, in real-time, the success of the marketing campaign or react to hot leads.

Lead Distribution

• Instant Distribution: sales people should not have to wait for hot leads to get to them. According to Gartner, “more than 70% [of all sales leads] are never acted on because they do not reach the right person or organization at the right time”. Your system should offer multiple ways for sales people to be notified – SMS, web chat, direct phone calls - should a hot lead complete the dialog and be ready to purchase.
• Instant Management: in today’s competitive marketplace, marketers need to gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns or your lead-capture dialogs instantly. A perfect lead management system offers this capability, as well as the capability to make changes to the campaign or dialog on-the-fly should something not be working.