Scoring Leads – Measuring the “Warmth” in the Marketplace
Because of the Internet, marketers today view lead generation from a different perspective. By using lead generation metrics, marketers can analyze the leads they accumulate as well as score them for future sales development and growth. Scoring leads is a methodology that rates leads in order to determine the kind of interest a product or service is drawing from a company’s target audience.
Leveraging Your Marketing and Sales Efforts
This type of method then can help you determine how fast you need to approach prospects about your product or if they still need to be nurtured or developed. Because scoring is important to a company’s bottom line, it’s an essential practice for any firm that wants to increase its ROI and leverage its marketing and sales efforts on the web.
The Early Bird Catches the Worm
Time is of the essence when responding to leads by phone that are captured on a web page or through an email response. Although it does not affect the number of sales that are closed, sales representatives generally have better success when they contact leads in the early AM, or between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 in the morning. As the day progresses, the closing rate slowly begins to decline before elevating slightly between 4:00 pm. and 5:00 p.m. in the evening.
Lead Management Survey Qualifiers
A lead management survey conducted by Dr. James Oldroydand a collaborative lead response study performed by the professor and InsideSales.com led to some interesting findings. The researchers wanted to know what marketing approaches were the most efficient in increasing site visits and what features of an offer encouraged a visitor to sign up on a site. In addition, the researchers asked at what point companies abandoned contact attempts and what tools were used that impacted qualification rates.
A Quick Follow-up is Crucial to a Higher Close Rate
This survey answered a number of questions, all which showed what content was the most useful in lead generation and what follow-up techniques were the best methods to use for converting leads. Again, salespeople who followed up by phone in a short span of time saw better results than when they waited. For example, those individuals who responded in 10 minutes versus 30 minutes increased the number of qualified leads by just over 4% and their close rates were 2% higher. So, once a customer fills out a form on your site, it’s important not to dawdle but to make contact.
The Metrics Used in Generating Leads
Online marketing programs, which prove to be effective, already have measurements or metrics in-place. When they set up measurements, they ask three key questions:
- What is being measured?
- When is it measured?
- How is it measured?
The Metrics Used to Derive Lead Generation Statistics
So, when you’re setting up the algorithm for measuring lead generation, you have to gauge the percentage of revenue that is originating from your marketing efforts and is attributed to your sales pipeline. Therefore, you have to factor in the cost per lead and inquiry. In turn then, you need to take the cost of acquiring leads by the number of inquiries as well as divide the number of leads into the total cost for a marketing campaign.
Assessing the Statistics
It helps to know some of the marketing vernacular or acronyms when measuring the aforementioned results. For example, the MQL is the marketing qualified lead, SAL is the sales accepted lead, and the SQL is the sales qualified lead. Lead generation statistics then can be assessed by:
- Determining the amount of time an inquiry converts to an MQL
- Determining the parameters involved in converting an MQL to an SAL
- Discovering how and when an SAL leads to a SQL
- Considering when an SQL becomes an opportunity
Measuring the Effectiveness of a Lead Generation Campaign
Focusing on the above results enables the online marketer to see how effective their campaign is proceeding across the sales and marketing channels. By using this approach, they can generate even more leads, increase the volume in the sales pipeline, and better align their sales and marketing functions with lead generation software.
Blogging and Social Networking: More Positive for Sales
The content that is produced online can have a positive or negative effect in sales close rates. According to survey results, blogging and social networking produced more sales while pay-per-click (PPC) ads had fewer close rates.
Content that Leads to Sales
Customers, who received a price quote or proposal request, also ended up buying a product or service before those customers who had signed up for a newsletter subscription or webinar, or who had requested a white paper. In fact, a company that offers an eBook, price quote, or proposal request often sees far more sales produced than a business that supplies a white paper in order to produce leads and generate trust.
Reviewing the Quality of Your Leads
Needless to say, the above measurements must be incorporated into an online marketing program if a company wishes to realize a continually good ROI. However, before you make the aforementioned assessments, you also have to look at some of the major challenges that impact lead development. Lead quality is an important component, if not a top priority, when you are sourcing prospects.
The Buying Process is Different Today
Because there is so much information available to buyers today, there is also a dearth in a customer’s attention span. Customers can research information online and, therefore, do not need to be “sold” in order to make a purchase. When information was scarce, buyers were often uneducated about a service or product and had to rely on the salesperson to “sell” them on the features or amenities.
Create a Digital Presence to Generate Higher Quality Leads
Therefore, to keep leads “warm” today, it’s important for a business to create a digital presence online. That’s why it’s essential for a company to develop a solid strategy of generating leads – one that will build trust with its client base and spark interest in the purchaser before they talk to a member of the sales team. You don’t want to depend on cold-calling then for building leads. It’s better to obtain the leads online in order to see a higher ROI.
Become an Information Leader in Your Field
Therefore, the way to keep your leads from getting cold is to become a trusted expert in your field. By publishing worthwhile content, you also establish a leadership image based on intelligence – all which will help you turn leads into paying customers.
Nurturing Leads Means Generating Trust
Unfortunately, many companies do a credible job when it comes to capturing leads, but they simply can’t keep them. The leads then are eventually ignored or snatched up by another company. However, you don’t have to worry about a “warm” lead suddenly going cold if you nurture your leads, or concentrate on building a relationship with your prospects that is based on respect and trust.
MOFU Techniques
By using middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) techniques in developing content, you’ll soon convert a new “warm” lead into a prospect that is ready to buy. Every marketing campaign today needs to include these methods in its program in order to show how their products or services work. Because most marketers find that their leads turn cold during this point in the sales process, it’s important that you concentrate on nurturing your leads when you’re in the middle of the funnel.
Types of MOFU Content
Some of the MOFU content you’ll want to include are:
–Reviews and testimonials. Buyers today want to see what other people have to say about a product or service. As a result, reviews and testimonials steer a customer, so they start to feel assurance, thereby causing them to eventually develop a relationship with a specific brand.
–FAQs. People often have questions about a product or service that a testimonial or review may not answer. Therefore, FAQs are essential in inspiring confidence and spurring buyer activity.
–Case studies. Case studies are used to review how other customers benefited by using a product or service and, therefore, nurture a lead, enabling the prospect to see the advantages of buying from your company.
–Buyer’s Guides. In order to direct the buyer toward the end of the sales funnel, you need to convince them that your product or service is superior to your competitor’s. A buyer’s guide not only enumerates a product’s or service’s features; it permits a buyer to better understand what to expect when they make a purchase.
–Videos. Videos, too, pique the interest of the prospect, so they are more motivated to buy. Marketers who use videos to successfully promote their brand combine data that is marketing-based with educational information about what is being sold.
Look at Your Target Market to Develop Quality Leads
According to a benchmark survey conducted by the marketing research firm, Marketing Sherpa, CMOs in organizations today want their marketing programs to be structured so they can increase their measurable ROI and maximize the marketing-sales funnel. They also want to obtain a better insight into their audience’s preferences. Obviously, their goals and priorities are well worth noting. It’s these kinds of objectives that keep a lead nurtured and retained or from getting cold.
References:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/lead-generating-website/
http://www.lenskold.com/content/LeadGenROI_2012.html
http://www.insidesales.com/resources
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