Does anybody have any best practice suggestions for using DL to track and follow-up on large numbers of leads (Internet leads, especially)? For example, my goal is to get the leads into DL and use phone/email to connect with the lead and discern their timeframe and motivation. But getting to the point where you can get them to write back or speak with you so you can get that information is usually a multi-step process. With large numbers of leads, it can be daunting, and a lot of leads fall through the cracks.

Currently, here's my process:

If I have a phone number, I call. If I get a machine, I leave a message introducing myself and offering my assistance. Very low pressure. I immediately follow up with an email saying I just left a voicemail, and would it make sense to schedule a time to talk on the phone. If I don't hear back, I email again in a couple weeks, and then a couple weeks after that. If still no response, the lead is abandoned, though they continue to get monthly market stats by email indefinitely (I do end up hearing from people *way* down the line because of the market stats). The problem I find is that after the initial contact, I'm either waiting to hear back or waiting to send them another email in a couple weeks.

If I don't have a phone number, it's basically the same process except it's all by email.

Does anyone have a killer DL process they'd like to share?

Does anyone know of any good books on the subject of converting Internet leads, or leads in general?

Thanks!

I've been thinking about your question. Here is what I've come up with.

First a little advance setup:

Create a list of keywords that correspond to the stages of activity that are needed. (Edit the list to work as you do)

First Contact
First FU (FU means Follow Up)
First Email
Additional Email
Close Sale

Create and name a set of Smart Lists to correspond to the above Keywords.

Rename Extra Field 1 to "Last Action". This will be used to record the date the last action was completed. That way you know when 2 weeks has gone by and it is time to send the next email, for example. (Don't use Extra Date fields for this - they cannot be set in a bulk edit).

Now set up each Smart List display so you see the necessary contact info, i.e. Name, Company, Email, Phone. Less is more though! Be sure to include Extra Field 1.

Now when a new lead comes in assign it the first keyword: First Contact (You can do this in Bulk Edit mode to a whole group of new leads if a lot come in at the same time.)

Now in the First Contact smart list you've got your work cut out for you. This list has all of the new leads you need to call (or make an initial email to if no phone number).

After this first call or email is accomplished, change the keyword for the contact or contacts to the next needed action, i.e. First FU, or First Email, etc. Also change the Extra Field 1 to Today so you know when the last action was completed.

Every day you would go through these smart lists to see which leads need an action. This decision can be based on the Extra Field 1 too. So for instance if you are looking at the Additional Email Smart list you can see the Extra Field and decide when to follow this action.

After each action is completed re-assign the keyword to denote next action appropriately. So the contact moves from Smart List to Smart List as the actions proceed.

I'm just trying to give you the kernel of the idea here. There are lots of ways for you to customize this to your workflow.

Thanks for the well thought out reply, Howard. I'll chew on this for a while. I haven't been making much use of keywords so far because I've been trying to keep the number of attributes I use to manage opportunities to a minimum. For example, I'm prone to forget entering something in the extra field and/or to forget to update the keywords.

One thing I was thinking about trying is making the initial activity set that I assign include all the anticipated FUs. For example: Day 0 introductory call; Day 14 FU Email #1; Day 28 FU Email #2; Day 42 Abandon Opportunity? (I always try and include a final task in activity sets that tell me to decide what to do when the set is done, such as apply another activity set). That way, the most common scenario is accounted for. And the last task is a trigger for me to make a decision on what to do with the opportunity based on factors like whether I've connected with the person, whether they've emailed back, and how actively they're searching for homes (I can see their activity on my site through an admin interface; some users never come back and others are very active). The reason I hadn't done this is the future FU tasks are dependent on the result of the prior FU task.

People must have systems they've implemented and refined to do this with DL. This is, after all, the nature of lead management. I'm just interested to know how people have set up DL to handle their lead management.

Activity sets can be useful, but the limitation is that you can't assign them en masse for each new set of leads that come in. They must be assigned one set at a time to each lead. If there are a lot of new leads that would be cumbersome.

Hopefully I've at least given you something to "chew" on, as you said.

Another important limitation of Activity Sets is that each task can only relate it's trigger date to the beginning of the set, not to the completion of the previous task.

Agreed, activity sets as implemented have serious limitations, which is why I've been reluctant to go back to using them for this and why I might end up using a system as you proposed.

I would *love* it if DL could make the tasks created through activity sets relative to each other and if activity sets could be assigned to individual opportunities en masse. I've seen that feature request mentioned on these forums before.

I'm just waiting for the important work of getting Sync Services out the door before I start my next wish list campaign. I know AJ and the other folks at Marketcircle are listening!

Here's another little explanation on something I wrote above:

I suggested using the Extra Field 1 to record the date of the last completion. You may have noticed that I didn't suggest using Extra DATE Fields for this. The reason is the Extra Date Fields were somehow left out of the bulk editing options and I thought that if you were operating on a lot of contacts at once it would be much more useful if you could set that date in the Bulk Edit window.

So soon that will go on my wish list: That the Extra Date Fields be added to the available fields for bulk editing. (BTW, the Extra Date fields are available to Smart Lists).

Although using keywords to mark stages in a workflow is a workaround, it seems not the correct way to model the data, especially when pipelines exist.

You should probably create Opportunity instances with an associated pipeline, changing the stage of the pipleline as activities merit the milestone (stage).

Agreed, pipelines seem the correct way to go. It also helps me avoid cluttering my task list with individual follow-up items that would result from using activity sets. I sure do wish DL could allow me to bulk edit opportunity pipelines, though! Between having to assign pipelines individually, and then assign activity sets individually (I still assign activity sets for other items), there are way too many steps when importing opportunities.

I too think that Pipelines would be a good way to go, but not for a large number of leads all at once. Without the bulk editing feature, and without the ability to create an individual opportunity for a large group of new leads all at once, I would find it way too cumbersome. My suggested methodology is based on the requirement that each step can be accomplished with bulk editing and applied en masse to a large number of new leads.

When we reach the point that all data is bulk editable, and that we can choose a group of contacts and create individual objects for each of them separately (and thus operate on and track them all separately), then I would consider different approaches.

If you find an approach that works for you, well by all means use it! There are many ways to skin the cat in Daylite.