Lead

What it means

A lead is a contact who has shown interest: filled in a form, rang, e-mailed, downloaded a price list. What separates it from a random contact is that there is a reason to get back to them.

Quality differs. A lead that left only an e-mail address and one with a stated need, budget and timeframe are different things - mixing them in the statistics means not knowing how marketing is actually performing.

A lead is not always a brand-new person. An existing customer asking about another service, or a former client who shows interest again after leaving, is a lead too. Reports keep these groups apart, because they convert at different rates and cost different amounts to win, and mixing them distorts the results of new campaigns.

How it works in practice

Every lead belongs in the CRM with its source, date and next step. The source is what later makes it possible to say which channel produced business and what a customer cost to acquire.

The strongest driver of success is response speed. The difference between replying within the hour and the next day shows up in the conversion rate more than the content of the offer does.

For an accounting firm, a typical lead is the director of a new s. r. o. asking about the price. Before we send an offer, we ask how many documents there are per month, how many employees and whether the company is VAT registered. Without this the price would only be a guess, and we could not judge whether the enquiry suits us.

What to watch out for

A contact collected without privacy information is a GDPR problem and is a liability in the database rather than an asset. And tracking lead counts without tracking closed deals leads to expensive advertising with handsome numbers.

Leads that a salesperson keeps in a personal inbox or phone leave with that person. When the employee goes, the company no longer knows who was promised an offer and who is waiting for a reply. Communication history therefore belongs in a shared system, not in personal notes, and contacts are handed over explicitly during offboarding.