Term definitions

[Eric Davis]

Hello everyone:

I'm trying to understand some of the terms used by FFC's main sections
in order to document them for new users. Are the following terms correct?

* Campaigns - Marketing plans to generate leads and opportunities
* Leads - Prospects that may become an account and an opportunity
* Accounts - Existing company clients
* Contacts - Individual people
* Opportunities - Needs identified for accounts

Thanks.

--
Eric Davis
Little Stream Software
http://www.LittleStreamSoftware.com

[Shimon Amit]

Maybe one suggestion:

Opportunities - Potential sales and pending deals associated with accounts or contacts.

Shimon

[mike]

This is a great topic. Here's how I see it:

> I'm trying to understand some of the terms used by FFC's main sections
> in order to document them for new users.  Are the following terms correct?
>
> * Campaigns - Marketing plans to generate leads and opportunities

The primary goal of campaign is to generate leads. The opportunities
come into play later (once you qualify the lead). Typically leads
represent transient data with high rejection rate (fake names, etc.).

> * Leads - Prospects that may become an account and an opportunity

Once you've got a lead your next step is to try to qualify it. Good
leads get converted into contacts, bad leads are rejected, and spam
gets deleted.

> * Accounts - Existing company clients

Not quite. Think of an account as a company. When a lead passes
qualification and becomes a contact you would typically create an
account using the company name. An account (a company) can have
multiple contacts -- people who work for or represent the company.

> * Contacts - Individual people

That's correct, individual people usually representing sales account
in one way or another.

> * Opportunities - Needs identified for accounts

I agree with Shimon's definition: Potential sales and pending deals

associated with accounts or contacts.

Hope this helps.

Michael
http://www.fatfreecrm.com

[Francois]

From my point of view, it would make a difference, see a level in the
use of the term "lead".

I would say there is 2 levels of "leads":

1) The first contact with the company. One could describe a number of
levels (suspect, prospect, lead, ...) following the progress of the
qualification.

2) Then there is a granularity by campaign level.

Let say we are a company that sells 2 products : A + B

We are running a first permanent campaign used to recruit new
customers to sell product A.
We've set-up an adwords campaign with appropriate landing page, etc.
Here the current usage in FatFree CRM of the term "lead" is entirely
satisfactory.
We qualify the contacts as they come.

Now I want to create a 2nd campaign to sell my product B.

In this campaign B, I will combine existing and unknown contacts.

In the existing contacts, I can use:

- Customers who bought product A
- Prospects who have not yet purchased the product A, but who showed
real interest (open every email sent, click on email links, ...)
- Recruit external leads (unknown contacts => suspects to transform
into prospect, ...)

Despite their first status after campaign A (customers, prospects)
these people are all defined as my "target leads" for campaign B.

And I'll gradually be able to qualify them based on their actions and
their level of interest.

In analyzing data afterwards, it will allow me to build dedicated sets
of data (segmentation) based on specific criteria:

- Geolocation
- Gender
- Recent activity in our website
- Average basket attached to the product A (if we sell more products
than in my example)
- Etc.

And with theses news set, I would generate a dedicated campaign
(bonus, promotion, special offer).

[John Moody]

In traditional CRM, a Lead would become either an Account or a Contact - it's a person or company you don't do business yet.  (Or at least that was the way we used it when I was stuck in Siebel-hell.)

- John

--
John Moody
MentalVelocity - Web development specialists
360-941-5218
jo...@mentalvelocity.com
http://mentalvelocity.com

[Eric Davis]

mike wrote:
>> * Campaigns - Marketing plans to generate leads and opportunities
>
> The primary goal of campaign is to generate leads. The opportunities
> come into play later (once you qualify the lead). Typically leads
> represent transient data with high rejection rate (fake names, etc.).
>
>> * Leads - Prospects that may become an account and an opportunity
>
> Once you've got a lead your next step is to try to qualify it. Good
> leads get converted into contacts, bad leads are rejected, and spam
> gets deleted.

So it looks like my confusion was because I thought of Leads
differently. I thought of everyone as a contact and specific contacts
will have leads (on projects). Since my business is very low volume, I
probably will not need to use leads at all.

>> * Accounts - Existing company clients
>
> Not quite. Think of an account as a company. When a lead passes
> qualification and becomes a contact you would typically create an
> account using the company name. An account (a company) can have
> multiple contacts -- people who work for or represent the company.

That makes sense if a contact has been qualified.

>> * Opportunities - Needs identified for accounts
>
> I agree with Shimon's definition: Potential sales and pending deals
> associated with accounts or contacts.

I like that too. I'm going to try and shorten it a bit to "Potential
sales for accounts and contacts".

> Hope this helps.

Very much so, thanks. I'll try to clean up the patch and submit it soon.

[John Moody]

It would be a good idea to add a "blank slate" (that only shows when the tab has no records) to each of the tabs (Accounts, Opportunities, etc.) that explains what should go in that tab.

[Eric Davis]

John Moody wrote:
> It would be a good idea to add a "blank slate" (that only shows when the
> tab has no records) to each of the tabs (Accounts, Opportunities, etc.)
> that explains what should go in that tab.

Agreed. John, could you post a feature request to Lighthouse for this?
A screenshot of the demo data should be a good starting point.

[mike]

> So it looks like my confusion was because I thought of Leads
> differently.  I thought of everyone as a contact and specific contacts
> will have leads (on projects).  Since my business is very low volume, I
> probably will not need to use leads at all.

Yes, I anticipated that not all people would need tasks, campaigns, or
leads. I'm going to address that through user preferences where you'll
be able to hide the tabs that you don't need.

Michael.
http://www.fatfreecrm.com