Leads might look similar on the surface, but they can vary tremendously. CRM software tells you what you need to know about individual leads so you can treat them appropriately.
Customer lifetime value
Someone might buy a lot of your products, but not be very profitable. Likewise, someone might only place a small order every now and again, but bring a decent profit to your business. While measuring customer lifetime value is often overlooked, tracking it accurately is one of the most important things a business can do.
A lead’s customer lifetime value will tell you how much money you’re spending on each lead and how much money they bring to your business. You can then cut your costs on the non-profitable ones.
Engagement
CRM software can tell you how engaged a lead is. You can look at someone’s email open rates, their participation in your social media marketing campaign, and other metrics. Generally, the more engaged a lead is, the more potential he has to advance in the buying process.
Feedback
You can use a CRM system to get direct customer feedback. One way to do this is to send a survey in your marketing emails.
The software can then organize that information in multiple ways. You can see what each lead said in the survey and adjust your efforts from there.
Likeliness of buying soon
And finally, perhaps the most important CRM metric of them all is the likeliness of a lead buying soon. With this, you can segment your leads into two groups — those likely to buy soon and those not likely to buy soon.
You can then tell you sales representatives to spend more time on the first group. Get the more advanced leads to buy now before you start focusing on the second group.