Poll your sales team: Would they rather receive three well-qualified leads from marketing next month, or 15 cold ones? Well-qualified leads will win every time.
Even with sales cycles lengthening and becoming more complex, a 2011 SiriusDecisions survey of B2B sales and marketing leaders found that top-performing companies are using business intelligence technology to approach the sales pipeline with an emphasis on identifying higher-quality leads.
The concept may seem counter-intuitive, but less, better-qualified leads are actually easier for sales to work with:
- Sales representatives have busy calendars. Filling them up with calls or meetings with non-qualified leads is a waste of time and resources.
- Cold calls or reps that come off as too aggressive too early in the buying cycle may turn off potential customers that are not ready to make a purchase decision, ruining chances of future sales.
- When marketing is able to hand a lead over to sales with a complete history already established, it leads to a shorter process for the rep, and shorter sales cycle overall.
- Sales can tailor messaging to leads that have qualified themselves, making each interaction more effective.
“Too many raw, unqualified leads can create a clogged marketing and sales process and an unhealthy sales funnel.” —Why Your Sales Force Needs Fewer Leads, PointClear, LLC
Today’s marketing and sales business intelligence technologies—including web analytics, call tracking, and CRM systems—enable marketers and sales reps to work together to maintain a tighter pipeline-to-quota ratio and grow sales.
Complete Analytics Qualifies Marketing Leads
Spending on online advertising specifically aimed to generate leads has grown by $12 billion in the last four years. Once you have a lead’s attention, tracking activity and scoring leads is made simple through comprehensive analytics that measure online and offline activity.
Web Analytics
Consumer buying habits indicate that overall, 43 percent of consumers go online to research before buying. This number increases for technology purchases, as well as other complex purchases.
Track online activity to target your most qualified leads. If marketing can remove the qualification process from sales’ plate by placing leads into a nurturing program, assessing actions, and profiling the most qualified prospects, it can confidentially deliver a narrow list of well-qualified leads (and their lead history) to sales.
Call Tracking
Web analytics are great, but all is lost when a lead picks up the phone. When a lead calls, he or she is taking a proactive step in the decision-making process, and you should have the technologies in place to track and report on these prospects.
Integrating call tracking with marketing activities through one-to-one and Javascript integration, you can monitor offline lead activity, including how leads found you and what prompted them to call. Analyze these reports to score and qualify leads that reach out to you by phone.
CRM Systems
What tools are best used to house lead history, and combine efforts of marketing and sales? A sound customer relationship management (CRM) system is a necessity to make the process between marketing and sales flow effectively.
Track lead timelines, history, actions, touchpoints, demographic and firmographic information, who’s responsible for the lead (sales vs. marketing), and more with CRM software. You can also use a CRM to evaluate and prioritze all leads in your database.
Good Lead, Bad Lead.
Another challenge for marketers is defining a qualified lead. Once you have compiled your lead history, what should you look for, and what information should you provide to sales?
What determines a qualified lead will change for specific business cases, but here’s a list to get started. Consider these parameters when building lead forms so you have the information needed to evaluate:
- Budget
- Decision-making timeline
- How the lead found you
- Lead history, interactions and touch points
Have you found success with a “less-is-more” approach to sales leads? Share your experiences in the comments below.
