Sales Lead Management Today

All know the way; few actually walk it. ~Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th/6th century CE.  ⁽¹⁾  His famous words echo today for marketing. 

After the bruising, battering, beating marketers and their companies have taken for the last three years, and with all the seminars, webinars, books, articles and blog posts on how to measure marketing ROI, everyone knows the way to prove the ROI for lead generation programs, right?  So if this is true, and everyone knows the way, why do so few take the walk?    

        (Bodhidharma, woodblock print by Yoshitoshi, 1887.)

I think there is a dose of fear or anxiety over reporting results that might be mixed, and fright that if each lead generation program doesn’t do well, the whole department will be held dreadfully accountable.

Get over it.  

Some programs will be stunning and some not so good; it is the average that counts.   Lead generation programs always work, it’s just a matter of how great a return each brings.   But you can’t take credit for what you refuse to measure.  Get over the fear.  Marketers are creators of wealth and it is time you took your rightful place in the company.  Measure what you manage. 

^{"You can’t take credit for what}

^{you refuse to measure."}

If you can’t walk the walk and be held accountable, you are slated to carry out the life of a mediocre marketing manager.  And please remember, "only the mediocre are always at their best." ²

Does someone have a story about a company that  went from mediocre to successful by measuring what they manage?  Please share (no company names please). 

 

(1) WikipediA

(2) Jean Giraudoux(1882-1944) Diplomat and Writer

Never act until you have clearly answered the question: "What happens if I do nothing?" ~Robert Brault

From a marketing perspective, when it comes to leads (work with me a little here), ‘doing nothing’ means not having a lead management program in place (CRM and Marketing Automation), and not measuring the ROI for the leads you generate.    

If you don’t get a firm grip on both of these areas (lead management and measuring ROI), you are slated to fail and to move from marketing job to marketing job every few years.  

It is said, by whoever says these things, that 80% of B2B companies have a CRM system, and 15-20% have a marketing automation system.    45% or so measure some form of ROI for leads generated.  So the tools are in place or available, it just takes a marketing manager’s gumption to pull the department together and ask, “If we do nothing to prove marketing’s ROI, what will happen?”

From this point forward, if you’ve asked and addressed the question, you will begin a journey made up of successful programs (and a few clunkers) which propel your company’s growth at a much faster rate than your competitors’.  

It isn’t a guess that this will happen, it is a fact.  So ask yourself, “What happens if we do nothing to prove the ROI for marketing?”

5 Key Tactics for Managing Your Leads to Win More Sales

So you are lucky enough to work in an inbound environment and your marketing team is filling your pipeline with leads for you to work and, hopefully, convert into customers. In order to make sure that the leads you get are qualified and ready for that phone call, it’s crucial that your sales and marketing teams work together to devise an effective lead management strategy.

By nurturing unqualified leads with email campaigns that deliver educational offers and opportunities to learn more about your company and your product, your marketing team can essentially guide them through the research stage of your buying cycle and further down your sales funnel. Once these leads have demonstrated a strong interest in your product and a significant likelihood of buying, they should be sent over to sales, so you can delve deeper into the purchasing process and close that revenue.

"Never mistake motion for action,” said Ernest Hemingway

Just generating a bunch of inquiries and leads from different sources…I consider that to be ‘motion.’ ‘Action’ occurs when you have a system in place to ensure 100% follow-up of the results over an extended time (an average sales cycle).

When inquiries are abandoned by sales reps at alarming rates (75-90% are said to be never followed-up by a sales representative), the marketing department has to pick up the chore and finish the lead nurturing job.

I know for a fact - the companies that nurture and follow-up 100% of their inquiries and turn what is “turn-able” into leads sell more than those that don’t; 200%-400% more is not uncommon

There is enough research from the marketing automation companies to know that this is no longer just an opinion but established fact. If you want to get the greatest return on your lead generation ‘spend,’ you have two choices:

Should an inquiry be qualified before it is sent to sales?

 

Every sales representative has gotten Mickey Mouse or Fred Flintstone as a lead. Unfortunately, it points out that no one is minding the store. No one is reviewing leads before they are sent to sales. Many companies want to delete duplicates (that's another story in itself) and competitors before being sent to sales.

To see more cartoons from our Humor Relations Department, all provided by CartoonLink, go to the SLMA site.

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The marketing and sales cartoon is sponsored by HubSpot

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“A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided” …Tony Robbins

At some point the marketing department and everyone in it has to make the decision to start measuring all lead generation activities.  

The trade show manager has the easiest task because all inquiries are in a neat little package from each show and can be tracked with precision.   Other inquiry/leads can come into the company via multiple entry points (web contact is more difficult but not impossible to track).   But a direct mail response can come in via a toll-free numbers, reply card, web contact form, etc.    Regardless, every inquiry is traceable, wth a little help from the prospect, a CRM system and marketing automation. 

The point is, to secure it’s own future,  the marketing department must make a decision and take action to track the source of all inquiries and prove the ROI by individual lead generation tactic.   The most difficult part is making the decision to be accountable.    

Jeff Pedowitz of the Pedowtiz Group said it well on a recent SLMA Radio program (2/16/2012), when he said, “Take a stand."

Take Tony Robbins' advice, take a new action.  Be accountable.  

Would anyone like to share their own success story about proving ROI and taking a stand? 

"Well done is better than well said,” remarked Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin said this about 225 years ago and it is still fresh today. I just didn’t realize how much insight Ben had into marketing. With all of the talk we have heard about CRM for 20 plus years and the progress marketing automation has made for the last ten years, most marketing managers are still not walking the talk when it comes to measuring ROI for marketing lead generation.

James Lenskold the author of Marketing ROI certainly nailed it when he taught marketers how to stop talking about marketing ROI and start proving it. I am sure every marketer would like to hear “Well done" instead of just well said.

The "Ben Franklins" on the right are just a reminder of the payoff if marketing ROI is done right.

Does anyone care to share their own success story about proving ROI?

Every Salesperson's wish for 2012!

 

To see more cartoons from our Humor Relations Department, all provided by CartoonLink, go to the SLMA site.

If you're not a member of the Sales Lead Management Association, join now. Join SLMA

The marketing and sales cartoon is sponsored by HubSpot

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