Create well-run lead management with the identify and qualify leads business process area

Applies to: Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Data, Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection

This article provides an overview of using Dynamics 365 to identify and qualify leads, and therefore drive sales pipeline growth and revenue. Well-run lead management encompasses generating, nurturing, scoring, and qualifying leads to feed the sales pipeline.

The lead management process starts by identifying leads from various sources, such as marketing campaigns, events, inbound inquiries, and referrals. Dynamics 365 enables automated lead capture and creation, to gather leads from digital interactions. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Sales can work together to score and nurture leads over time, through tools such as predictive lead scoring and targeted content campaigns. Customer service also plays a role by capturing and routing leads from support interactions.

After leads are identified and enriched, the next pivotal process is lead qualification and conversion. Sales reps use lead attributes and behaviors to determine sales readiness, based on fit, interest, and timing. Qualified leads can then be converted into sales pipeline opportunities for further nurturing toward a sale. Dynamics 365 provides integrated tools for Customer Insights and Sales to seamlessly transition through the lead lifecycle.

Proactive lead management is vital for driving sales growth. Dynamics 365 enables data-driven automation and collaboration between teams to maximize lead generation and conversion. A structured lead lifecycle helps ensure that no potential opportunities are missed. Although processes can be refined over time, early establishment of an effective lead management framework sets the stage for sales success.

Key stakeholders

• Marketing: Generate and nurture leads.
• Sales reps: Qualify and convert leads.
• Sales operations: Manage the lead process.
• Customer service: Provide product support.

Identify and qualify leads flow

The following diagram illustrates the identify and qualify leads business process area.

Each solid gray rectangle on the diagram represents an end-to-end business process. The solid blue rectangle represents the business process area. The diagram shows the subprocesses for the business process area. The arrows on the diagram show the flow of the business process in an organization. If a subprocess can lead to more than one other subprocess, the parallel subprocesses are shown as branches.

Guided by the upstream run marketing campaigns process, this area influences downstream processes such as pursue opportunities and estimate and quote sales.

1. Identify Leads: Locate potential customers.

   • Marketing campaigns, events, inbound, and referrals.
   • Automate lead creation.

2. Disqualify Leads: Remove non-viable leads.

   • Disqualify and close leads.
   • Reopen closed leads.

3. Manage the Lead Identification Process: Oversee how leads are identified and managed.

   • Configure predictive scoring.
   • Define the lead experience.
   • Detect duplicate leads.

4. Qualify Leads: Evaluate leads, and move viable leads further along the sales process.

   • Prioritize leads by using predictive scores.
   • Convert leads to opportunities.

Benefits

• Increased lead conversion rates

  Better identification and scoring maximizes viable leads for conversion.

• Improved sales productivity

  Qualified, sales-ready leads reduce prospecting time for sales teams.

• Shorter sales cycles

  Nurturing and prioritization minimize delays, for faster pipeline flow.

• Enhanced data quality

  Complete lead records with enriching data from various sources.

• Targeted follow-up

  Lead scoring in Dynamics 365 enables effort to be focused on hot leads first.

Overall, Dynamics 365 provides robust tools for maximizing leads and pipeline growth.

Next steps 

If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to help with your business processes for identifying and qualifying leads, you can use the following resources and steps to learn more.

1. Define sales strategies

2. Run marketing campaigns

3. Identify and qualify leads (the article that you're currently reading)

4. Pursue opportunities

5. Estimate and quote sales

6. Manage customer relationships

Related information

• Superdrive your lead generation (video)

• Product overview Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys

• Product overview Dynamics 365 Sales

• Manage leads

• Qualify and convert leads to opportunity

• Prioritize leads through scores

• Find definitions of terminology that is used in content for identify and qualify leads in the Glossary of terms in Dynamics 365 business processes article. For example, this glossary includes the following terms:

  • Lead
  • Lead and opportunity management
  • Lead conversion
  • Lead enrichment
  • Lead nurturing
  • Lead score

Contributors

This article was authored by:

• Kody Wildfeuer | FastTrack Solution Architect