Follow a lead from creation through closure
Published: January 1, 2008
You can use leads to manage potential sales from the point at which you become aware of a customer's interest through the successful sale. Lead records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM represent potential customers who must be qualified or disqualified as a sales opportunity.
There are several ways that you can create a lead in Microsoft Dynamics CRM:
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Create the lead manually.
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Convert a campaign response into a lead. For more information, see Follow a campaign response through the marketing process.
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Import leads into Microsoft Dynamics CRM from an external file.
After you create the lead, you can convert it into the following three record types:
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Account
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Contact
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Opportunity (associated with an existing account or contact)
If you convert the lead to an account or contact, you can include additional, detailed information about the person. If you convert the lead to an opportunity, you can use the opportunity record to store information about this possible sale to a specific potential customer who already has an account or contact record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Depending on the success of the sale later, you can then close the opportunity as either won or lost.
The following diagram illustrates the ways that you can create a lead, convert the lead to several different record types, and then close the lead through an opportunity.
