Sourcing new outbound leads is a never-ending endeavor for sales and marketing. Prophesies of cold calling being dead have not come true if only for the simple reason that prospecting through all channels must be on the table to fuel the engine of sales growth. Companies typically procure lead data from four main types of leads: Internally-generated leads: Referrals, word of mouth, events, etc. Intelligence-based leads: Newsfeeds, industry alerts, personnel changes, etc. InsideView is one good example of this, but we believe LinkedIn also fits this mold (the evolution of this is exciting) Special or vertical lists: Trade associations, commerce groups, organizations operating with a geographic charter Compiled lists: The likes of D&B and InfoGroup, including credit files But as any sales or marketing manager knows, simply dumping more records on a sales rep is a thing of the past. Lead nurturing and scoring are the norm, wherein prospects are nurtured until they raise their hands as hot leads, and are then forwarded to sales. In addition, predictive modeling that identifies the most likely prospects based on the “ideal customer” profile must be part of the mix. It’s clear that the prospects at the top of the funnel – the ones you might pay for – are not sales ready. Further criteria and …Read More
Tag Archives: lead nurturing
Caution: Leads may be hot. Handle with care.
When you change your lead scoring and lead delivery using predictive analytics, don’t forget to train sales reps to think different as well. It’s well-known that salespeople don’t qualify leads, they disqualify them. The more leads provided, the faster leads seem to get disqualified and bounced back in the holding queue. Reasons could be due to lack of data (such as invalid or no phone number), bias (“can’t possibly be a large enough deal”), or simply attitudes (“the more I close out, the sooner I will find something that works”). This approach churns through leads, resulting in significant cost of acquisition and processing resources – both human and machine. If your reps’ closeout rate is 50%, your net cost is twice the initial cost! Marketers and sales leaders often respond by finding ways to deliver a greater number of qualified leads faster. Predictive models are often used to score and deliver ideal prospects from a larger universe into outbound lead gen programs. Predictive models increase productivity and the ROI of achieving specific outcomes such as getting appointments or sales, moving newly-acquired customers into repeat customers, and improving cross and upsell. But caution: predictive models may produce leads with characteristics that are …Read More
5 ways sales can benefit from marketing automation
Marketing automation has evolved over the last decade from typically managing a single channel (direct mail or email) to facilitating multi-channel, multi-touch campaigns that are at the core of revenue performance. One valuable aspect of marketing automation tools is to nurture a lead until the prospect is ready to engage with sales. Coupled with the new reality that prospective customers do not contact the sales person until well into the decision process, marketing automation is now front and center to enabling sales to maximize the chance of winning new customers. While lead nurturing and scoring are well-documented uses of marketing automation, we focus here on a few tactical examples of further leveraging marketing automation tools by adding data and analytic capabilities to benefit the sales teams. You can use analytics in marketing automation to: 1. Estimate an early outcome: Early in the sales process, look at pivotal needs that leads and customers might be searching for, and what critical paths they might take within your organization. You can develop and use analytic models to predict what path the prospect is most likely to take. For example, you might be interested to predict that prospects would be likely to ”buy 50+ units” or want to talk about …Read More