Lead management is a set of methodologies, systems, and practices designed to generate new potential business clientele, generally operated through a variety of marketing campaigns or programs. Lead management facilitates a business's connection between its outgoing consumer advertising and the responses to that advertising. These processes are designed for business-to-business and direct-to-consumer strategies. Lead management is in many cases a precursor to sales management and customer relationship management. This critical connectivity facilitates business profitability through the acquisition of new customers, selling to existing customers, and creating a market brand. This process has also accurately been referred to as customer acquisition management.

“Lead management is the process of managing leads, constantly and equally.”

A Lead Management process generally follows the following steps:

1. Lead generation - Engagement in a wide range of advertising media
2. Inquiry Capture – Responses are captured which create a Customer inquiry, the lead Or respondent's information is recorded
3. Inquiry filtering - Recorded information is then tested for validity
4. Lead grading - The filtered leads are prioritized and ranked as per their potential
5. Lead distribution – The leads are allocated to marketing or sales personnel
6. Sales contact - Contacting the leads for prospective business transaction
7. Lead nurturing – All the contacted and not contacted leads are followed up
8. Sales result – The desired result of a sale

“Lead management is the process of capturing leads, tracking their activities and behaviour, qualifying them, giving them constant attention to make them sales-ready, and then passing them on to the sales team.”