As soon as you login to Machines4U, the first thing you’ll see in the dashboard is your recent leads. This will show you the date, the listing they’ve enquired on, the name of the enquirer and how they enquired (i.e. the type of lead they were).

To view all your leads in one place, you can click the “View All Leads” link at the top of this section, or you can go to the “Stats Leads” tab on the left hand side and click on “Enquiries”.

These links will direct you to the “Sales Leads Summary” page, which shows you all the leads you’ve received on your listings. As with the recent leads section, you’ll be able to see what time the lead came through, the name of the enquirer, and the lead type.

Not all leads are made equal. Some indicate a person is ready to buy now, while others show you they’re still in the research phase. In your MyMachines4U dashboard, you’ll see we give you what type of lead your prospective buyer is, so you can follow up accordingly. But what are the different lead types and how does follow-up change for each? Let’s take a look.

Phone Leads

To make sure your potential customers can contact you as quickly and easily as possible, you’ll notice your listings will have CallConnect numbers.

These numbers connect to your nominated landlines or mobile numbers, and help you get more calls!

Phone leads are the hottest type of lead on Machines4U, and are most likely to convert to a sale. So, if your phone rings, or you see phone enquiries in your MyMachines4U dashboard, it’s best to jump on them straight away.

You can check the calls you’ve received against the Phone Leads in your MyMachines4U dashboard at any time. All users who call using your CallConnect number will be logged here, with their phone number (if not private) and call duration.

It’s important to note when a user from Machines4U has accessed your phone number, they can choose to keep their phone details private. This is a legal requirement of our platform. When this happens, you won’t see the phone number details of the user. However, if their number is not withheld, you’ll see their phone details so you can give them a call back asap.

NOTE: Machines4U does not have access to private phone number details, this information is withheld by telcos for legal reasons.

Get 6 quick tips for handling phone leads, here.

Email Leads

Email leads are a written enquiry submitted on the platform and sent directly to your account’s designated email address (that is, the primary email address used on signup). And while they might not be as hot as a phone lead, an email lead is still valuable.

The beauty of using a digital marketplace like Machines4U is capturing those buyers who browse after-hours. And many of these buyers submit email leads, because they know that your sales team won’t be readily available to take their call. Since the busiest time on Machines4U is actually 7PM till 10PM, you could see about 30% of your leads come in after-hours. That’s a lot to get while you’re asleep!

The great thing about email leads is that the enquirer can leave a comment about what info they want from you, which will give you an idea of their needs and how to handle the follow-up.

Find out more about email leads, here.

PDF Leads

A PDF lead is considered more of a warm lead. They’ve put through their details to download your brochure and get the specs of the machine, so it’s likely they’re still researching.

In the MyMachines4U dashboard, you’ll notice a PDF lead will give you the customer’s name, phone number and email address. This buyer might not be ready to buy right now, but you could still follow up and find out if the information you provided was helpful, if they want to know more about the machine, or what they are actually looking for. Remember, the more helpful you are now, the more likely they are to come back to you!

Find out more about PDF leads, here.

Wanted Leads

Another type of lead you can receive is a wanted lead. This is where a buyer has come into the site and they can’t find what they’re looking for, so they’ve put through a wanted lead enquiry.

If you’ve signed up to receive these leads, you can accept them. Be quick though, only the first 5 dealers to accept the enquiry will get the contact’s details.

To receive these leads, all you need to do is go to “Wanted Settings” on the left-hand side, and select the industry and category you want to receive the leads for.

Spam Leads

Within the “Sales Leads Summary” page, you’ll see a tab for “Spam Leads”. Spam leads are lower-quality leads automatically filtered out by the system because:

Although our system is pretty good at filtering these leads out, it’s still a good idea for you to check this tab periodically and make sure you haven’t missed out on a real, genuine buyer.

Now, with so many different types of leads in the system, you might be wondering how you can track their status? Simply click on the status of your lead. In this example, it is “In Progress”, and you’ll receive a pop-up as below:

If you click on the drop-down you’ll see you can change the Enquiry Status from “In Progress” to:

You can also change the opportunity value of the lead. The enquirer may not want to buy your new wheel loader, but may be interested in parts or a service. So as you get to know the customer’s needs, you can adjust this value up and down.

Another thing you can do is put in quick lead notes. This will help you remember what stage the buyer is in. Maybe they’re waiting for finance or need someone else’s verification, whatever it is, document it here.

The final thing that will help you keep track of your leads is the “Mark As Duplicate” button on the right-hand side. This button allows the system to search through the leads and check if there are any from the same user, and merge them together if so.

When it comes to handling your leads, it’s really important you put the right person in front of your prospective buyers. In business, you might think the best thing to do is send your leads straight to a receptionist or customer service representative, but is that really the best choice? Do they know your machinery like your best salesperson does?

So, it makes sense to send your leads directly to your sales people. Afterall, they are the best people to talk to the buyers. By sending your leads to the right person, you eliminate that extra step and will have more chance of getting the close across the line.

Remember: Machines4U is a marketplace and business is competitive. So, you’re actually up against at least 2 other dealers, possibly even more!

Find out more about how to handle leads in this article.

At Machines4U, we know your time is really important, so we screen leads before we send them to you. Other marketplaces tend to send every single lead that comes through—and that might be great for individual sellers, but when they charge cost per lead, it starts to add up.

But what you really want, and what we deliver, is less frequent but higher quality leads. The Machines4U system has a thorough screening process, so you spend less time qualifying and more time closing. But a big part of this is ensuring you put up the right content, so the leads you do receive have the best chance of buying!

So, that’s an overview of the different types of leads that Machines4U can provide. If you want to get more leads, check out this article, or contact your account manager about optimising your listings. In the next module, you’re going to learn all about listing performance and how to maximise yours to get in front of more buyers.