As a web development company, it’s no surprise that we attract clients primarily through our website and other social media channels. Very early on in my business, I researched CRM providers in attempt to find the best lead management software for our kind of business. After trying out a few services, I was left feeling pretty underwhelmed with what was on the market, which was mostly convoluted software that threatened to eat more time than it would save, or half-cooked websites with truly atrocious user interfaces. The answer was simple, build my own.

In a few weeks we created our first version of RainLeads, an online lead manager that streamlined inquiries from our website and various targeted microsites. No manual data entry, all the details were right there to set lead statuses, check off milestones and assign to my sales staff. Over the years new CRMs have come onto the market, but our home-brewed CRM has stayed the test of time for our business. Never having to rely on my staff to manually enter the many online inquiries we receive from prospective clients ensured that no lead was misplaced and that I would have an accurate view of what was happening in our sales pipeline.

This year we followed through with a long-time goal, to adapt our lead management system and offer it to other businesses at an affordable price point. This month we launched www.rainleads.com as the first cloud-based lead management software that provides custom form creation and integration, bringing website, microsite, blog and social media leads into one central location. We were careful to include all the features that have been most vital to our own sales process as well as several more that our clients have requested over the years, including lead and user statistics to track progress, an interactive sales calendar with reminders and iCal/Google calendar syncing, proposal management and pipeline tracking, just to name a few!

One of the most complex and exciting features about this version of RainLeads is the form builder. You don’t need to be a developer to create simple or lengthy contact forms to collect all the information you need to convert a lead to a client. Account holders can generate interactive forms, style them to match their existing website or branding, and easily embed them onto their website, microsites, blog or Facebook page. This brings online inquiries directly into your RainLeads dashboard, but also track valuable information about where the form was submitted so you can gauge the success of your various online channels.

We are just scratching the surface with cool features that we plan to roll out to our RainLeads customers, and I’m excited to keep enhancing our packages, which range from $9 to $49 per month. If you’re looking for a CRM change, or simply looking to start organizing your sales process with a simple but smart lead management software, I encourage you to sign up for a free, no commitment 30-day trial and decide if RainLeads could work for you. We also welcome any feedback and suggestions, so let us know what you’d like to see as well!