Lead Response Research

Lead response management is the combination of business practices and software solutions to guarantee that all newly generated leads are contacted as quickly as possible after that lead is generated. It also entails the effective contact and conversion of that lead into a valued customer.

The driving economic principle behind lead response management is ROI. ROI stands for return of investment. Synonymous terms are rate of return (ROR), rate of profit, or just the return. The return of investment is the ratio of money gained, or lost, in an investment relative to the amount of money lost. The profit or loss calculated as the ROI is what motivates all business decisions.

Lead generation is an investment for a company. It takes time and effort to gather or create leads, not to mention money. Thousands of dollars may be spent on Marketing, SEO, and purchasing leads to give organizations the contacts they need to make sales. Related to lead response management, this return of investment becomes important in determining if the leads generated are worth the amount of money invested in them. Lead response management is designed to increase the return of investment and increase overall profit.

Lead response management includes numerous different responsibilities within lead management. These include lead generation, lead capture, lead scoring, lead routing, lead distribution, lead qualifying, and lead tracking. Because lead response management is encompasses so much, and since it is influential on the overall success of a remote sales business, the independent research company Incoho performed a in depth research of web site response practices.

Incoho made inquiries, using a fabricated identity, on five hundred and twenty-six web sites from four hundred and sixty-nine separate companies through web-based forms. They tracked all responses they received.

Incoho used the initial findings of a joint study between InsideSales.com and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the ideological framing of their research. The MIT study found that odds of contacting a lead increased one hundred times if the attempt to contact that lead happened within five minutes that the lead was generated as compared to contacting them with in thirty minutes. It likewise found that those leads contacted in the five minute window were also twenty-one times more likely to be qualified. A third relative finding by MIT is that each attempt to contact a lead after twenty hours of generation became increasingly less productive.

In Incoho’s study each web form submitted was filled out and submitted five separate times on five separate days. Their goal was to observe what percentage of businesses would follow the lead response practices that MIT identified as being the most efficient at increasing ROI.

When the results were compiled 45.1% of companies never responded to the web form submissions. Of those who did respond nearly all of them (47%) responded by email, and on average not until fifty-four hours after the initial web form was submitted. Only 15% of the inquiries were responded to within the ideal five minute time frame.

Lead response management software aids inside sales companies in being one of the few businesses to respond to leads within the optimal first five minutes. Lead response management software assists in all of the tasks previously mentioned that are associated with lead response management, but they’re especially useful in three ways:
1. Automatic lead qualifying
2. Automatic lead routing
3. Effective lead tracking

Automatic lead qualifying recognizes a potential lead. This is done by having all forms on a company web site upload into the CRM. Within seconds of filling out a form the software checks to see if proper contact information is provided and compare the query against other leads in the system. The management software separates duplicates from new sales leads, and allows sales agents to call the leads that are most likely to become a conversion.

Automatic lead routing is the process in sales lead management where those newly acquired and qualified leads are sent straight to available sales agents. This prevents leads from becoming uninterested during the hours they wait for a representative to call them. It also insures you contact the lead before a competitor within the important first five minutes.

Effective lead tracking is required for those leads who do not convert immediately. By keeping in touch with those leads it increases the chance of a conversion from that lead in the future. This is called lead nurturing. Lead management software tracks previous contact attempts, the results of those contacts, and can automatically perform a long-term email campaign with those unconverted leads without taking more man-hours from the organization.

Lead response management can be simple with well designed lead response management software. The research shows it’s incredibly effective and produces a high return of investment on leads generated. Remote sales companies using lead response management software see increased profits compared to those who do not.