A lead record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online represents a potential customer who must be qualified or disqualified as a sales opportunity. 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.
The following diagram illustrates the ways that you can create a lead and convert it to several different record types.
There are several ways that you can create a lead in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online:
- Create the lead manually.
- Convert a campaign response into a lead. For more information, see Follow a campaign response through the marketing process.
- Import leads into CRM from an external file.
After you create the lead, you can convert it into any of the following three record types:
- Account
- Contact
- Opportunity
When you convert the lead to an opportunity, you can also choose to link the new opportunity to the new accounts or contacts you may have created, or to an existing account or contact in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online database.
