LeadLife Bundles Services with Marketing

LeadLife Bundles Services with Marketing Automation >http://bit.ly/rTI899

Whitepaper – Changing Expectations: The

Whitepaper – Changing Expectations: The Future of Lead Management http://bit.ly/AASSCz

Do you face issues including resource co

Do you face issues including resource constraints, shrinking budgets, limitation of time and lack of content – http://ow.ly/8Khfd

LeadLife helps B2B co improve process/bo

LeadLife helps B2B co improve process/boost engagement from an average of
2% to 15%+ with automated nurturing campaign http://bit.ly/wOrE9Z

LeadLife helps IT consulting firm build

LeadLife helps IT consulting firm build lead management program improving results by more than 100%. http://bit.ly/zxwVCO

The Importance of Tracking Leads

Tracking metrics throughout the lead lifecycle is important to most companies, and it is especially trying for those with long sales cycles. Having to wait 12-18 months before revenue is generated to learn which, if any, of your marketing campaigns are working can be a long time. Not to mention the process is further complicated by the fact that rarely does one campaign take full responsibility for moving a lead along the cycle it’s often a combined effort of multiple marketing touches.

Tracking lead interaction through all campaigns is critical. What are the important milestones in between that showed lead movement? Yes, there are milestones or key metrics that you can measure to determine the likelihood of campaign success long before revenue hits. These metrics give insight into how well marketing tactics are going, and whether adjustments need to be made to the campaign.

Automate Your Process

Lead management systems can help marketers increase the productivity of their lead generation programs by automating many processes, while also providing tools for tracking and measuring campaign effectiveness. By implementing lead management systems, marketers can gain huge efficiencies through things like automated landing page creation and lead scoring that identify those leads that are ready to be sent to sales. Such systems also provide automated nurturing processes that can help to develop leads into “sales-ready” prospects over time.

To explain more fully, inquiries or suspects that have not yet entered the buy cycle would be a waste of costly sales resources and would not be welcoming of a salesperson’s phone call. Today’s lead management systems enable marketers to more easily discern when leads are ready to be passed to sales and which leads can benefit from automated nurturing activities such as drip marketing until they are ripe to be worked by sales. This increases the likelihood of leads transforming into closed sales for greater revenue performance.

“Listen” to what they “do” instead of what they “say”

Fastest or Safest?

I am working with an airplane sales company that is faced with this challenge.  They sell the fastest single engine airplanes in world and the safest single engine planes in the world – both undisputable claims. 

There is also a huge price difference.  However since airplanes are not “essentials” (unless you have the aviation addiction which is why we become pilots), price is not really the ultimate issue – kind of like the saying “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”. 

The aircraft salesman I am working with is one of the best salesmen I have ever met. One of his key challenges is to know where his prospect is really leaning so he can reinforce their buying criteria rather than causing confusion in their decision or dissatisfaction with the product that best meets their needs (as they understand them) – either way, the “cash register” does not ring.

To clarify this sales “challenge”, let me give another example.  Harley Davidson sells performance bikes (like the V Rod), “bar bikes” (like the Fat Boy), and heavy, long range touring bikes (like the Ultraglide).  The Harley sales rep has to be very quick in his assessment of his walk-in prospects if he is going to make a sale – the buyer of any one of these bikes is not very interested in the other options – as different as swimming, tennis, and golf are – and yet all three are -sports.

So what am I recommending to help the airplane salesman establish his prospect’s interest, i.e. score and track their behavior so that he knows how to pitch his prospects to a successful sales outcome?

My first recommendation is to make minor changes to the seller’s website. The goal is to display links to “more” information so that the prospect’s digital fingerprints tell us how to effectively sell them based upon their specific interests. 

1. The main pages will establish the clear choice with unambiguous questions like:

– Are your typical flights more than 300 miles and thus speed is a critical criteria?

– Are you a beginning pilot who needs a forgiving airplane (safety)?

– Are you an experienced pilot (maybe even a twin engine pilot) who now wants to fly a single engine for the simplicity and lower operating costs but wants the “safety” they have become accustomed to in the twins?

Obviously, these questions will be more subtle, but clicking on one of the questions, branches you down a path of more questions that will further support your criteria or branch you back to the other option.

2. The airplane broker (and the Harley dealer for that matter) can also use their used product inventory to further “let the prospect speak with their mouse clicks” on their true interest. Both of these products attract many people with “champagne tastes and beer income”. If you track the products they are looking at, you can quickly apply scoring rules that will accurately tell you which prospects have the MAN (MONEY, AUTHORITY, AND NEED) to buy your product from those who just want a demo ride (very expensive in both time and hard dollars). Maybe even more importantly, the sales efforts will start with pitching the products and price points that the prospects think are the most important.

My second recommendation is to establish a regular lead nurturing program that sends “interest specific” (tailored to their interests as indicated by their digital behavior) follow on information so that when the prospect is ready to make a decision, the company will be “First in Mind”.

Does tracking the digital behavior of your prospects on your website give your sales reps a competitive advantage?

Lead Nurturing…the New Wave of the Future

Yesterday, I was reading Aberdeen’s new industry analyst report, which discusses the best practices of lead nurturing by exploring the tactics and strategies of top performing organizations. I found it quite interesting that 56% of all respondents surveyed indicated that they lack a formal lead nurturing process.

With 80% of sales closing after the 5th contact, can marketing and sales really afford not to nurture all leads? I think not. It’s time to wise up and realize the importance of lead nurturing and the impact it can have on your organization. By implementing a lead nurturing process, marketing departments can significantly reduce their lead generation budgets and in return maximize their efforts on lead quality instead of lead quantity.

With today’s economic conditions spiraling downward across the globe many organizations are being forced to cut costs and focus on maximizing marketing and sales effectiveness. We can no longer afford to waste money on generating qualified leads to only have them fall through the cracks. So not only is lead nurturing the new Wave of the future, but it is a powerful way that all organizations can help to maximize their lead generation efforts once and for all – finally!

If you’re interested in learning more, download a complimentary copy of Aberdeen’s Lead Nurturing: The Secret to Successful Lead Generation report.

Fifteen years ago, it was okay if you didn’t know who was visiting your website.

Back then, the sales cycle and the buy cycle began at the same time because your sales rep was the broker of your product information. However, today, the buy cycle begins long before the sales cycle with over 80% of all B2B purchases initiated via web search.

As a lead article in the Harvard Business Review points out, the sales cycle is forever changed. In today’s highly competitive “flat world,” you can’t afford not to know who is visiting your website.

Getting prospects to your website is activity – closing business with these individuals is an accomplishment. Without tracking your prospects’ digital fingerprints on your website, you won’t be able to score them properly, and if you can’t score your prospects then you won’t be able to separate the dogs (those who will never buy your products) from the suspects (the people who want to buy your products).

In a recent study by CSO Insights, an industry analyst research firm, found in its 2008 Lead Life Cycle Optimization analysis that there is still a major disconnect between sales and marketing. Sales executives were asked to assess the quality and quantity of the leads they receive from marketing and 51% reported that marketing “needs improvement.” The analysis also revealed that companies who are not implementing a lead management system within their organization could find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage. With today’s economic downturn, can you really afford not to score and manage your incoming leads for sales?

If you immediately turn over all of your web suspects to your sales organization without having a lead management system in place, you could decrease your revenue per sales rep because you are forcing your sales team to chase the dogs that haven’t hit a certain interest level threshold. This is frustrating to your sales reps and annoying to your prospects. By utilizing a lead management system, you can automatically find the “hot” leads based on your definition (whitepaper downloads, product demos viewed, etc.) and send those leads to your CRM system or sales team. By implementing a lead management system within your organization, you will be able to gain a deeper understanding of how lead scoring can increase your marketing ROI while maximizing your sales resources.