Lead Management vs. CRM: How Are They Different?

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Business people have many tools available to them. If you belong in that category, then learning how to use these tools properly should be one of your main priorities. Learning how to make the distinction between those tools is also very important. As a business owner, there are two tools that you will most likely find yourself in need of sooner rather than later: lead management and CRM (customer relationship management).

While those two tools share many similarities, they also differ greatly. Consider this: lead management is often part of CRM, but CRM is never part of lead management.

The former refers to the different techniques that a business owner such as yourself can use to track and maintain his or her sales leads. It is there to simplify the process of acquiring prospective customers through a number of marketing campaigns or programs. Business Dictionary defines lead management as follow:

Complete process of tracking and managing sales leads (prospective customers) from generation of leads to their conversion into sales and long-term relationships. The data generated in this process is used in the measurement of the efficiency of the marketing and sales efforts.

CRM, on the other hand, tends to be much  more complex than this. In simple terms, it refers to a system that is used to manage a company’s interaction with its current and prospective clients. Unlike lead management, CRM has many focuses, from lead management to marketing automation. CRM software such as ClickHook and Salesforces exist to help business owners meet their customer relationship management goals while giving them the opportunity to centralize their data.

Keep in mind, however, that CRM software vary greatly. If you are interested in purchasing such a software but are not sure of how to do so, you might want to refer back to this article.

 

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