Lead Process in Salesforce: How to Create a Lead in Salesforce?

What is a lead in Salesforce?

In Salesforce, a ‘lead’ represents an individual or organization that has shown interest in your products or services but hasn't yet been qualified as a potential customer. ​​In Salesforce, leads are the starting point for the sales process. Once qualified, they can be converted into opportunities, accounts, and contacts.

Understanding the lead process in Salesforce

A lead process in Salesforce, then, encompasses the journey from capturing this initial interest to converting the lead into a sales opportunity. A good lead process ensures you systematically capture, nurture, and assess leads. 

This, in turn, creates handoffs between marketing and sales teams. That kind of alignment is vital for a number of reasons — not least, it improves response times and optimizes conversion rates, as well as maintaining data integrity.

In short: proper lead management in Salesforce allows businesses to track engagement and target prospects much more effectively! If that sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry! Luckily, CRMs like Salesforce have a ton of tools and automation features for:

• Sales lead qualification
• Tracking
• Assignment

Many of them do the hard work for you. But that doesn’t mean you can leave it all to AI; understanding how to set up and use these tools effectively is key to improving sales outcomes and maximizing revenue.

We’ll come back to that later. For now, let’s better understand the Salesforce lead object.

Understanding the Salesforce lead object

The lead object in Salesforce is a standard object that stores information about potential customers who have shown interest in your products or services. It serves as the starting point for the sales process, capturing essential details about prospects before lead qualification tools are used to determine if they can be converted to opportunities or contacts.

Some of the key fields that make up a lead record include:

• Name -  The name of the lead, usually consisting of a first and last name.
• Company - The organization the lead works for or represents.
• Email - The lead's email address, which is crucial for communication and nurturing.
• Phone - The lead's phone number, allowing for direct contact when necessary.
• Status - Indicates the current state of the lead, such as "Open," "Contacted," or "Qualified."
• Lead source - Specifies how the lead was generated, such as through a web form, trade show, or referral.

If you’d like to automate lead tasks and maintain an instant data flow throughout the sales process, you can use automation templates from Bardeen:

Create Salesforce leads from LinkedIn people search

Bardeen Enrichment + LinkedIn Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Salesforce lead creation from LinkedIn is time-consuming. This playbook automates the process by scraping LinkedIn people search results and creating new Salesforce leads with enriched profile data.

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Playbook Details

Create a Salesforce contact from the currently opened email

Bardeen Enrichment + Google Mail Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Manually adding email contacts to Salesforce is time-consuming. This playbook extracts contact info from an open email, enriches it, and creates a new Salesforce contact – no copying and pasting required.

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Playbook Details

Now it’s time to see how to create a lead process in Salesforce with a step-by-step guide.

Lead process in Salesforce: how to create a new lead in Salesforce

Sure, Salesforce offers lots of handy automation capabilities, but it’s still a good idea to know how to create a new lead in Salesforce manually. Luckily, it’s pretty straightforward.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to manually create a lead in Salesforce:

1. Navigate to the Leads tab: Log in to your Salesforce account and click the "Leads" tab from the main navigation bar.
2. Click 'New': In the Leads section, click the "New" button to open the lead creation form.
3. Enter lead information: Fill in the lead's details, such as name, company, contact information, industry, and any other relevant data.
4. Assign lead owner: Specify who will manage this lead. Salesforce can automatically assign leads based on predefined rules. Or, you can manually select a user.
5. Define lead source: Indicate how you obtained the lead, such as through a website form, trade show, cold call, or referral.
6. Set lead status: Choose an appropriate status (e.g., New, Contacted, Qualified) to track its progress through the pipeline.
7. Save the lead: After entering all necessary information, click "Save" to add the lead to your database.

You may be asking, ‘why would I ever need to create a new lead manually?’ Well, manual lead creation is particularly useful in scenarios where:

• You receive lead information directly from a prospect during a sales call or meeting.
• You need to capture unique or specific details about a lead that may not be available through automated forms.
• You want to ensure the accuracy and completeness of lead data before entering it into Salesforce.

If any of the above resonates and you need to create leads manually but would still need automation that’s natively available in Salesforce, you can try Bardeen’s pre-built templates to:

Create a new Salesforce opportunity

Salesforce + Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Logging new opportunities in Salesforce is time-consuming. This playbook automates opportunity creation in Salesforce, letting you input key details and create the record in one click.

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Playbook Details

Qualify a lead from Salesforce and create a Salesforce contact

Apollo.io + Salesforce Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Qualifying Salesforce leads is time-consuming. This playbook uses Apollo to get lead data, assesses qualification based on your criteria, and creates Salesforce contacts for qualified leads automatically.

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Playbook Details

By manually creating leads, sales professionals can maintain a high level of control over the quality and relevance of their prospect list building, ensuring they have the information they need to nurture and convert prospects into customers effectively.

Save time on repetitive tasks. Automate sales prospecting with Bardeen and focus on engaging with leads.

Automating lead process in Salesforce with web-to-lead

The web-to-lead Salesforce feature allows you to capture leads directly from your website, automating the process and ensuring immediate entry into your CRM system. Does your business generate leads through online inquiries, sign-ups, or gated content downloads? If so, you’ll find web-to-lead in Salesforce particularly useful.

Here's how to set up web-to-lead in Salesforce:

1. Access Web-to-Lead Settings: In Salesforce, navigate to Setup > Feature Settings > Marketing > Web-to-Lead.
2. Enable Web-to-Lead: Ensure the feature is enabled to start creating web forms.
3. Create a Web-to-Lead form in Salesforce: Use the form generator to select the fields you want to include (e.g., Name, Email, Company, Phone Number, Industry).
4. Generate HTML code: After configuring the form, generate the HTML code provided by Salesforce.
5. Deploy on your website: Embed the HTML code into your website's contact page or landing pages.
6. Configure lead assignment rules: Set up rules to automatically assign leads to the right sales representatives based on criteria such as location, industry, or company size.

Et voilà! That’s how to create a web-to-lead form in Salesforce. Now, when visitors fill out this form, their information is automatically captured as a new lead in Salesforce. This will save you lots of time, as well as ensuring:

• Integration with your website, allowing you to capture leads from any page.
• Automatic data synchronization between your website and Salesforce, ensuring your lead data is always up-to-date.
• Customizable form fields and layout, enabling you to capture the specific information you need for your business.
• Reduced manual data entry, saving time and minimizing errors in your lead management process.

For no-code Salesforce lead automation, you can try Bardeen:

Get social profiles of a Salesforce contact

Clearbit + Salesforce Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Researching Salesforce contacts on social media is time-consuming. With one click, this playbook pulls a contact from Salesforce, uses Clearbit to find their social profiles, and displays the links for easy viewing.

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Playbook Details

Create a new Salesforce lead based on LinkedIn message content

Bardeen Enrichment + LinkedIn Automation

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How does this playbook work?

This playbook will create a Salesforce lead based on the content of LinkedIn messages and LinkedIn profile information for the most recent message received on the LinkedIn messaging page.

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Playbook Details

Create leads in CRM from LinkedIn Post commenters

Bardeen Enrichment + LinkedIn Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Prospecting on LinkedIn is time-consuming. This playbook automatically creates new Salesforce leads from LinkedIn post commenters, pulling key data from their profiles.

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Playbook Details

Using the Salesforce API for lead automation

So, now that we’ve covered how to create a web-to-lead form in Salesforce, let’s look at another great feature. The Salesforce API allows you to automate lead generation in Salesforce from external systems or applications, optimizing your lead management process.

Here's an overview of using the Salesforce API for automated lead creation:

1. Authenticate your application with Salesforce using OAuth 2.0. You'll need to create a connected app in Salesforce and obtain a client ID and client secret.

2. Once authenticated, make an HTTP POST request to the Salesforce REST API endpoint for creating leads, typically in the format:

https://your_instance.salesforce.com/services/data/vXX.0/sobjects/Lead/

3. Include a JSON payload in the request body with the lead fields you want to populate, for example:

{

"FirstName": "John",

"LastName": "Doe",

"Company": "Acme Inc.",

"Email": "john.doe@example.com"

}

4. Set the appropriate headers in your API request, including the Authorization header with your access token and the Content-Type header as application/json.

5. Send the API request and handle the response accordingly. A successful lead creation will return a 201 Created status code and the ID of the newly created lead.

Here's a basic Python code snippet demonstrating lead creation using the Salesforce REST API:

‍

import requests

url = "https://your_instance.salesforce.com/services/data/vXX.0/sobjects/Lead/"

headers = {

   "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN",

   "Content-Type": "application/json"

}

data = {

   "FirstName": "John",

   "LastName": "Doe",

   "Company": "Acme Inc.",

   "Email": "john.doe@example.com"

}

‍

response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=data)

if response.status_code == 201:

   print("Lead created successfully")

   print("Lead ID:", response.json()["id"])

else:

   print("Error creating lead:", response.text)

‍

By using the Salesforce API for sales prospecting automation, you can:

• Integrate Salesforce with your existing systems and applications
• Automatically create leads from various sources, such as web forms, chatbots, or third-party services
• Ensure data consistency and accuracy across your lead management process
• Reduce manual data entry and streamline your sales workflow

For more advanced automation, you can automate lead management tasks such as scraping emails and creating personalized cold emails using AI.

Benefits of an automated Salesforce lead process

Although it’s important to know how to, say, create a web-to-lead form in Salesforce, or how to create a new lead in Salesforce manually, don’t neglect the platform’s automation tools. 

Automation is a key driver of productivity in lead management. That’s because by automating routine tasks, you can:

• Reduce manual data entry - Automatically capture and input lead information from various sources into Salesforce.
• Ensure timely follow-ups - Automate email outreach, reminders, and notifications to keep prospects engaged.
• Improve data accuracy - Use automation to prevent human errors and maintain a clean, up-to-date database.
• Optimize sales workflows - Enable sales leadership to focus on high-priority leads, improving efficiency and conversion rates.

In short, it comes down to better, streamlined results with less effort from you. And if that leaves you more time to focus on building connections with prospects, that’s a great asset!

Best practices for lead process in Salesforce

Using Salesforce tools is one thing; using them effectively is another. To maximize the effectiveness of your lead process in Salesforce, consider the following best practices:

Automate Salesforce lead processes with Bardeen playbooks

Creating a sales lead in Salesforce is crucial for tracking potential customers and efficiently managing your sales process. While manual entry is effective for singular leads, automating this process with Bardeen can significantly enhance productivity, especially for businesses dealing with a high volume of leads.

Automation ensures that every potential lead is captured and managed systematically, reducing the chances of human error and increasing the speed of lead processing.

Here are a few examples of how Bardeen can automate lead creation in Salesforce:

The first template we’ll look at uses OpenAI to extract contact information from an email and create a Salesforce lead, perfect for quickly capturing lead information from email inquiries:

Create a Salesforce lead from the currently opened email

Bardeen Enrichment + Google Mail Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Converting email contacts to Salesforce leads is time-consuming. This playbook extracts contact info from an open email, enriches it, and creates a new Salesforce lead – automatically, without switching apps.

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Playbook Details

Next, here’s how to automate capturing leads directly from LinkedIn, improving the process of transferring potential leads from LinkedIn to Salesforce without manual data entry.

Create a Salesforce lead from a LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn + Salesforce Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Prospecting on LinkedIn is time-consuming. This playbook scrapes data from a LinkedIn profile, splits the information into relevant fields, and automatically creates a new lead in Salesforce.

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Playbook Details

This final automation creates a new Salesforce lead automatically when a specific label is added to an email in Gmail, ideal for organizing and prioritizing leads based on email interactions.

Create a new Salesforce lead when a label is added to an email

Bardeen Enrichment + Google Mail Automation

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How does this playbook work?

Capturing leads from Gmail is time-consuming. This playbook monitors your inbox for labeled emails, extracts social links, and automatically creates new Salesforce leads – no manual data entry required.

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Playbook Details

With such playbooks from Bardeen, you can automate repetitive tasks, ensuring your Salesforce leads are always up to date and allowing your sales team to focus on more strategic activities.

Our conclusion about managing leads in Salesforce

When it comes to creating a watertight lead process, Salesforce has it all. However, its many tools and features take some getting used to. But you have options; if you want to create a new Lead in Salesforce, for instance, you can either do it manually, or you can set up web-to-lead in Salesforce.

Automated lead management tools—including Salesforce web-to-lead—are the best way to significantly cut the time you spend on your lead process and ensure consistent data accuracy. 

So spend some time getting to know Salesforce features and other integrated tools. Bardeen, for example, can help you automate lead workflows quickly and easily with minimal input from you.