Info Mgmt, Lead Qual, Supplement

SECTION 4.1 – INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

This first step in improving the Lead Management process is to ensure consistent treatment of lead information when leads come in from multiple sources or channels. Leads come in many shapes and sizes: an inquiry on the web, a phone call, an in-person meeting at a trade show, or a sign-up list at a seminar or webinar. Each of these sources represents an opportunity for a future purchase, or an opportunity to waste the valuable time of the Sales Force.

When the process is broken, Marketing finds itself maintaining multiple lead ‘databases’ typically on numerous spreadsheets, word processing documents, and even scraps of paper left over from a trade show. With every new lead list, such as a stack of business cards collected at a seminar, Marketing repeats the time-consuming process of manually segmenting leads by geography and forwarding the information to the Sales Force. The result, at best, is a confused and manual process where leads are followed up slowly and inconsistently.

An optimal process utilizes a central lead database to address two critical elements of success: data consistency and process latency (i.e., ’lead age’). A single database can also help manage duplicates and identify phony leads. A single clean leads database is a critical step and serves as the foundation for the overall process improvements.

SECTION 4.2 – LEAD QUALIFICATION AND SALES FORCE BUY-IN

While it’s true that not all leads are created equal, it’s also true that not all leads are, in fact, leads. Leads that are poorly qualified waste the valuable time of the Sales Force, potentially resulting in future ‘dropped’ leads as Sales loses respect for Marketing’s lead generation efforts. Proper lead qualification is the best way to separate garbage from valid inquiries and inquiries from purchase-ready leads.

Without the resources or expertise to objectively qualify leads, Sales reps are left to prioritize each lead based on their own individual experiences. One sales rep might give top priority to leads from large companies, another to key accounts, and yet another to prospects who clicked ‘ready to purchase now’ on a survey form. The remaining leads are perceived as having low value and dismissed or acted upon days or even weeks later. However, no lead can be qualified on a single criterion. Prospects have different purchase time frames, so even though a prospect does not want to purchase immediately, it does not mean that the lead is without value.

The Sales Force becomes much more productive if they receive a subset of all leads that have been pre-qualified and identified as ready for a selling conversation. Proper lead qualification enables Sales to productively spend their time closing, not subjectively culling through disorganized lead information.

Lead qualification removes invalid or duplicate leads, setting the stage for classifying those leads according to their readiness and ability to purchase and enables all leads to be managed effectively. Note that ‘effectively’ isn’t the same as actively. Some leads that enter the qualification process are unlikely to ever make a purchase. The effective way to handle these leads is with lower-cost follow-up, such as adding them to outbound email campaigns. This leaves sales staff free to focus on leads which are more likely to make an immediate purchase.

SECTION 4.3 – SUPPLEMENT LEADS FOR SALES PRODUCTIVITY

The third step in upgrading the process is to supplement leads with additional information. When lead information is enhanced, Sales Force productivity increases because the Sales Force spends less time researching the lead to fill in missing data. Some sample data attributes include:

• Purchase —Has the prospect purchased before? Which products? With what recency and frequency? Who was the Sales rep? Have there been issues?
• Activity —What level of interest and engagement has the prospect exhibited in the past: visited web pages, downloaded content, served as a reference, is a member of opt-in emails, attended seminars or webinars, etc.?
• Company (and Industry) —What are the prospect’s and industry revenues, no. of employees, no. of potential users, growth rate or pain points?
• Prospect Profile —Is the lead a purchaser, influencer, none of the above? Is the prospect known by the company?
• xGraphics—What insights can be gleaned from the prospect’s geographic, demographic or psychographic information?

The more relevant information added to a lead profile, the more likely that lead will receive the most appropriate treatment. Note that ‘appropriate’ treatment may be more or less aggressive follow-up based on the lead score.

Link to the next article in the sequence: Lead Management 4.4 – Scoring Leads & Identifying Value

Author

David Bartenwerfer is the founder and principal of Quantum Consulting and Technology. QuantumCT helps product and marketing organizations get smarter and prove, predict and optimize impact and ROI with economic and financial modeling that employs customizable algorithms and technology leading to fast and lasting insight and action. Mr. Bartenwerfer has over twenty years’ experience in the High Tech, Internet, Telecom, Media, Financial Services and Retail industries and holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering with minors in applied mathematics and economics from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. For further information, contact the author at davidbartenwerfer@quantumct.com.