BUSINESS PAPER
Uncover The Gold: A Business Case Study
for Best Practices in Lead Management
Business Insight You Can Use
Executive Summary
In the beginning, someone raises a hand and says Yes—tell me more. From that
moment on, a company becomes engaged in one of the most critical functions that
impacts sales success: lead management.
It's an intricate, complex process spanning both marketing and sales professionals.
In order to make sure leads are properly targeted, distributed, tracked and acted upon,
companies need a unified system that makes the entire process more visible and
collaborative. From initial marketing campaign planning right through lead qualification,
this paper explores how one Pivotal customer—the LCD Products Group of Sharp
Electronics—has invested in marketing automation technology to ensure that their
marketing and sales teams more efficiently recognize and act swiftly on the most
profitable opportunities.
Change is sweeping through marketing organizations everywhere. Expectations
are rising—give us more, better quality leads, more quickly—while budgets and
headcounts shrink. The mandate of doing more with less has never been more
apparent, and pressure is increasing for marketing teams to draw a direct line drawn
between their activities and the bottom line. The good news for marketing professionals
is that lead management technology, one of the key tools that demonstrates marketing
value in the charts and statistics that executives demand, is now widely available.
It's no longer merely the "Fortunate 500" who can afford to buy and implement this
powerful capability, and have marketing teams that are intensely, quantitatively
accountable. As lead management strategies—and the processes and technologies
that bring them to life—come within the reach of mid-sized and smaller businesses, the
value proposition and timeliness of these tools are becoming irresistible to those who
need to prove their worth.
Over the next few pages you will learn how lead management best practices and
technology have transformed how a division of Sharp Electronics generates, distributes
and manages leads for better sales success. We'll also examine why more companies
are joining the trend, raising the lead management bar to sharpen how they identify
and win new opportunities.
Marketing Today Enter Lead Management
Traditionally, marketers have been 'ideas' people, It is not just the idea of lead quantity that has come under
experimenting with creative ways to generate leads and scrutiny. It's lead quality.
create awareness. For some time, it was accepted that
the benefit of marketing would be soft and qualitative Rather than asking how many leads were generated,
in nature—we know half of our marketing activities are executives are asking for conversion rates, or what
useful—we just don't know which half. We know marketing proportion of leads resulted in closed opportunities.
is necessary, we just don't know how good we are at Answering this question means analyzing the entire lead
it. Until today, ROI-based reporting had long been an lifecycle—from how the lead was generated to how the
inexact science. But as our collective understanding and lead was distributed to sales and what happened once
visibility improves, what we see alarms us. Leading market it got there. Teams are accountable to show investment
research firms have recently released studies suggesting return and solid performance at every step, and over
that the vast majority of all sales leads—up to 70%—are time, to show quantifiable improvement. As executives
never acted upon because they don't reach the right ask tough questions, lead management technology gives
person at the right time. marketers the visibility and the answers they need to
consistently show they're on the right track.
This is a sobering reality for marketers everywhere.
Lead management is the process of rapidly and
effectively creating, nurturing, distributing and analyzing
Operational Account Ability leads. The ultimate goal? To increase the likelihood that a
lead will convert to a qualified opportunity and then a new,
Has Arrived satisfied customer. To implement a lead management
The ultimate goal of any marketing department is to strategy, marketing and sales must work closely together.
generate qualified leads for sales, who then converts them
For best results, a lead management system must
into customers. The rate at which deals close is the final
converge the right people, processes and information
yard stick by which every marketing investment should
at various stages:
be measured—but it's not easy. In the past, the ability
to track the cause and effect of marketing campaigns • Identifying hot leads and automatically route to direct
has been very elusive, resulting in no ability to clearly sales or channel partners
determine true ROI for marketing initiatives.
• Actively engaging the remaining leads and nurture them
And the pressure is on. In a recent report, Boston-based through the pipeline to eventual sale
research firm Aberdeen Group revealed that marketing
departments are just now being held to demonstrate the • Tracking leads to closure and evaluate the ROI of
same level of quantitative value as other departments. marketing campaigns
"The era of operational accountability has arrived," states
the report. "Coupled with the maturation and growing • Integrating the external channel including value added
effectiveness of marketing technologies, [a] focus on resellers (VARs), other resellers and strategic partners
quantifiable performance promises to accelerate • Integrating offline qualification resources such as
a measurable shift of an organization's marketing call centers
spend away from traditional media-based advertising
processes and towards technology-centric, interactive Let's examine the marketing process of one Pivotal
marketing services.1 customer—Sharp Electronics' LCD Products Group. We'll
look at how the above lead management milestones were
Marketers are now judged by the same criteria as other met both before and after they implemented marketing
line-of-business managers and executives. They are automation technology, and see how this new tool
held accountable for their spending, their headcounts transformed their marketing model for more successful,
and their contribution. "The time has come to automate more visible results.
a broader collection of enterprise wide marketing
processes," suggests the report. "Fortunately, the Sharp Electronics' LCD Products Group, based in New
necessary supporting technology is now available to Jersey, began using marketing automation in June
enable marketers to streamline traditionally manual 00. According to Fred Krazeise, Director of Strategic
processes and to better target communications to Marketing at Sharp's LCD Products Group, his company
appropriate audiences." began to look at its lead management planning,
execution, distribution, nurturing and several years
ago. It was part of a marketing approach focused on
helping Sharp VARs and channel partners "win and keep
customers for life."
1 From What Works: Best Practices in Marketing Technologies, Aberdeen Group, February 003
CDC MarketFirst | Business Paper
Defining Lead Management
Before we move into the story at Sharp, let's examine the five key stages of lead management. For better or worse, sales
success and the ability to demonstrate ROI is directly impacted by how effective marketing teams are at the following:
Lead Management: Closing the Loop with Marketing and Sales
1. Lead Planning & Generation 3. Distribute Leads
This stage consists of planning the entire campaign— Lead distribution consists of ensuring leads reach the
determining lists, developing messaging, selecting the right person at the right time.
medium, setting the timing, planning the marketing
project, then specifying lead qualification and distribution There are many distribution systems—according to
mechanism with Sales. territory, product, lead source, level of urgency, or new
vs. existing customers. They can also be escalated if, for
example, they have a short timeframe to make a decision,
. Qualify Leads or a ready-approved budget, or if they have a particular
In this stage, leads are qualified, scored and processed urgency or a high value associated with them.
according to pre-determined criteria.
With the right technology infrastructure, companies
Typical lead process points and 'flags' are defined, can automate the distribution of leads according to
including qualification questions and process, distribution predetermined criteria. This removes the burden from
rules, lead scoring (specific definitions of A, B and C-level support staff, and ensures that leads really do reach the
leads), components and duration of the sales cycle, how right person at the right time.
to deal with atypical or out-of-profile leads, and ownership
of each stage of the process.
4. Nurture Leads
Once lead qualification criteria are determined, they can Lead nurturing allows companies to remain in touch with
be automated. For example, surveys can pose questions longer term leads until the lead is ready to be advanced
like, "Does this prospect have a budget in place for a into the sales cycle.When the lead is closer to making a
product like ours?" purchase, it can be passed on to sales.
When this information is known, the lead can be passed Nurturing—the process of progressing a lead from an
to sales as a 'hot' lead requiring rapid follow-up, or a 'cold' 'unqualified' to a 'qualified' state worthy of devoting your
lead requiring further nurturing and communication. marketing resources—is an often neglected step in the
lead management process.
CDC MarketFirst | Business Paper 3
5. Measure and Evaluate Programs management—teams need to go beyond meeting lead
quotas, and focus on what it will take to close the loop
The last stage of lead management is to close the loop and foster sales success.
on results. Post-campaign analysis and reporting is the
key to demonstrating success, or perhaps identifying Leads feed into the top of the sales funnel as a result
how a marketing approach could be improved. By going of marketing campaigns. Then, they are distributed to
through a detailed planning process at the outset, teams pre-sales professionals for qualification, and finally to the
are clear as to what is to be measured at each step, and sales team for closing. Only once a lead has moved far
have visibility into how similar campaigns have performed. down the funnel do sales professionals begin working to
When the ROI and cost per lead from each campaign close the most qualified leads. However, many companies
is accurately reported, patterns can be identified which have holes in their sales funnel, through which leads and
help marketing teams to do more often what is proven opportunities can slip and be lost.
to work well.
It is an expensive endeavor to move a lead through the
funnel and into sales. By the time a sales rep is assigned
Step One: to engage with a prospect, that prospect needs to be
deeply qualified.
Lead Planning and Generation
Planning a successful campaign begins with a strong If a 'cool' lead is sent through prematurely, valuable
sense of what has and hasn't worked in the past with sales resources can be wasted. Smart lead planning and
a particular audience. It also starts with lining up the tracking ensures that the most thoroughly qualified leads
necessary resources and processes to handle the leads are given the green light to move forward, and also helps
when they come in. This is at the heart of today's lead marketing to advance the most profitable leads at the
optimal moment.
The Solution: Integration
In the illustration above, the funnel on the left shows a a particular audience. It also starts with lining up the
traditional sales and marketing organization. The funnel necessary resources and processes to handle the leads
on the right shows an organization with automated lead when they come in. This is at the heart of today’s lead
management. As you can see, a lead management management — teams need to go beyond meeting lead
system works on the front-end to target, sort, qualify and quotas, and focus on what it will take to close the loop
flag leads properly, which makes for a smarter and more and foster sales success.
cost-efficient sales cycle engagement. The lead spends
more time being engaged by lower cost marketing Leads feed into the top of the sales funnel as a result
programs and qualification initiatives and is only passed of marketing campaigns. Then, they are distributed to
to sales when the likelihood of closing is at its greatest. pre-sales professionals for qualification, and finally to the
This allows sales to maximize their return by only sales team for closing. Only once a lead has moved far
interacting with qualified leads. down the funnel do sales professionals begin working to
close the most qualified leads. However, many companies
Planning a successful campaign begins with a strong have holes in their sales funnel, through which leads and
sense of what has and hasn’t worked in the past with opportunities can slip and be lost.
CDC MarketFirst | Business Paper 4
It is an expensive endeavor to move a lead through “At Sharp Electronics we are using CDC MarketFirst to
the funnel and into sales. By the time a sales rep is further differentiate ourselves from other manufacturers
assigned to engage with a prospect, that prospect needs in a highly competitive environment,” he says. “It gives
to be deeply qualified. If a ‘cool’ lead is sent through us the ability to take the Sharp LCD product message
prematurely, valuable sales direct to end users and create awareness, preference
resources can be wasted. and demand for our products throughout our dealer
Since deploying Smart lead planning and network — an essential strategy to building long-term
CDC MarketFirst, tracking ensures that the most relationships.We began to see results within three weeks
thoroughly qualified leads of using CDC MarketFirst. Now that I have it, I can’t live
Sharp has enjoyed: are given the green light to without it.”
• An increase in the number of sales move forward, and also helps
leads from 6,500 in the whole of marketing to advance the
001 to more than 8,000 in the first
seven months of the system’s use
most profitable leads at the Step Two: Lead Qualification
optimal moment. The LCD Product Group at Sharp began using CDC
• 85% reduction in cost per lead
— from $388 per lead in 001 to $58
MarketFirst in June 00 after a three-week deployment.
In the illustration above, the
per lead in 00 The product’s powerful yet intuitive campaign
funnel on the left shows
management capabilities enable Sharp to manage
• The ability to make new dealer or a traditional sales and
one-to-one, direct campaigns allowing the company to
territory changes in minutes, instead marketing organization. The
of days drive dynamic, personalized, and relevant information to
funnel on the right shows an
prospects and customers. With the system’s ease-of-use
• The fact that call center script organization with automated
and flexibility, marketers can quickly make changes
changes can be made in less than lead management. As you
to the system, such as adding surveys to outbound
a day, rather than taking weeks can see, a lead management
telemarketing campaigns.
system works on the front-end
to target, sort, qualify and flag Far too often, marketing teams focus on generating large
leads properly, which makes for a smarter and more cost- numbers of leads, but fail when it comes to qualifying
efficient sales cycle engagement. The lead spends more those leads. By making effective use of marketing
time being engaged by lower cost marketing programs automation tools, together with an appropriate lead
and qualification initiatives and is only passed to sales management strategy and process, it is possible to bridge
when the likelihood of closing is at its greatest. This allows the gap between quantity and quality.
sales to maximize their return by only interacting with
qualified leads. The ideal result is a high number of qualified leads that
are likely to convert into sales. Leads will be uneven
To bring a lead management system like this to life, sales or of indeterminate quality if the strategy, process and
and marketing teams need to work together to create a technology used in qualifying them is inadequate. An
lead processing plan. Together, they should define: unqualified lead will distract sales representatives with
• Qualification questions and processes low-value leads, while high-value leads languish at the
bottom of the pile getting cold. ‘Raw’ leads can also
• Lead distribution rules distract the additional resources, especially if you use a
• Lead scoring: specific definitions of A, B and C-level live person to call into a lead that has a high chance of
leads being cold or non-pursuable.
• Components and duration of the sales cycle With proper lead qualification, leads are captured,
• How to manage atypical leads or out-of-profile leads collected and consolidated. Then they’re enriched with
any existing data the company may hold about the
• Ownership of each stage of the process
prospect (Marketing automation solutions can help amass
Once the lead process is defined, marketing automation progressive profile data and large amounts of behavioral
powers both the planning and execution of campaigns. data in activity logs, surveys, and other vehicles).
This technology streamlines workflow planning and
resource allocation, provides the infrastructure to execute Finally, leads must by qualified and prioritized — either
campaigns rapidly and make changes dynamically, and manually or in an automated fashion according to
to test campaigns in real-time. predetermined business rules. Lead prioritization —
or “scoring” — will determine how leads are distributed.
Fred Krazeise, Director of Strategic Marketing at Sharp’s
LCD Products Group, worked with his sales team to Lead qualification, since it triggers which path a lead
identify the best lead process. Then, he employed the takes (whether the lead is passed to sales, moved into
CDC MarketFirst technology to give his marketers the a longer-term nurture campaign, or dropped), is critical
tools they needed to make it happen. to sales success. It’s all about timing, and being able to
identify when a lead is ready to buy. In the early stages
CDC MarketFirst | Business Paper 5
of reviewing its lead handling and management process, received, what happened to them? Were they even
Sharp surveyed the buying history of a representative followed up? Sharp discovered that 58% of leads sent to
sample of prospects, and they made a fascinating dealers and VARs were never followed-up.
discovery. Of the prospects tagged as “cold” leads, 58%
of them actually did make The problem with manual lead distribution is clear.
a purchase of a Sharp LCD Different processes are always required for different
With CDC MarketFirst, product within six months channels; however, and that with manual processes there
of making contact with was not only technology failure but lack of coordination
Sharp has experienced: and integration. Moving to a marketing automation
Sharp. The consequences
• 1000% increase in the number of of this mistake were huge — solution helped the company to re-engineer the process
qualified leads on the strength of the technology, eliminating many of
consider all the opportunities
• an 85% decrease in cost-per-lead. that were lost. The only reason the manual elements and providing a framework for
prospects made a purchase is co-ordination and integration. They gained visibility into
because they took the initiative marketing’s impact on the end result: closed deals.
to engage with the company, rather than the company
In addition to giving Sharp powerful campaign
being proactive at the right time. The question for Sharp
management capabilities, CDC MarketFirst also
was then, “how much revenue did we let slip through, by
enables the company to significantly improve its lead
not reaching out to prospects that needed us?”
management processes and enhance support of its
distribution network. In fact, by using CDC MarketFirst, the
Step Three: Distribute Leads company has completely realigned the manner in which
sales leads are captured, ranked and distributed to its
Time is of the essence when a customer is ready to buy. resellers. In less than three weeks of using the solution,
Any delay may mean losing a sale. After all this effort, can Sharp generated, qualified and distributed 96 percent
companies afford not to distribute leads effectively? of the entire previous year’s leads to its top dealers and
resellers. They have also achieved a 100 percent follow-
Lead distribution is more than simply e-mailing or faxing
up on those leads, giving them an unprecedented lead
leads off to sales teams or channel partners. Lead
conversion rate, which means more business for everyone
distribution consists of routing leads to the appropriate
involved, and better, faster service to end customers.
member of the sales team — or channel partner — based
on predetermined rules. Not only to the right person
— but at the right time. Step Four: Nurture Leads
Now that it uses CDC The distribution process Not everyone is ready to buy the first time they hear about
MarketFirst, Sharp found: should include venues for the a product or service. Many are only in the early stages of
sales team to interact with the purchase process when they enquire — and they can
• more than 90% follow-up rates on
leads, up from 4% those who have assigned the be passed over by sales teams eager to pick only ‘low
leads to them. They may need hanging fruit’ prospects who appear to want to buy quickly.
• 96% of the entire previous year’s further information or lead
leads were distributed to top dealers The best lead management practice is to nurture leads
enrichment. Likewise, they are
and resellers within three weeks of over time by segmenting them by product, service
using the solution contributing back by entering
new insights, prospect and purchase readiness, targeting them with further
interactions and deal status communication relating very specifically to their interest
into the company’s customer relationship management — and then tracking their responses and promoting
(CRM) system. Then, both marketing and sales teams them to a higher level of sales opportunity at the
should be able to track the progress of leads as they appropriate time. Throughout this nurturing process, all
progress through the sales cycle. communication with the prospect should again be held
in the CRM solution. Marketing automation enables this
For Sharp, moving forward meant taking a hard look critical business function that supports, encourages and
at how the company had been distributing its leads assists the creation of business processes and strategies
— and what might be done to distribute them more around nurturing and developing customers.
effectively. Leads were manually distributed to dealers
by fax, depending upon their ranking. This was not the As the Sharp Electronics example clearly illustrates (58%
most effective distribution mechanism. Technology could of leads flagged as ‘cold’ bought on their own initiative
— and often did, fail — with fax machines running out of within six months), a cool lead today may be a hot lead
paper, transmissions getting lost or buried under others, tomorrow. Leads such as these require a longer-term
or transmissions getting stuck in the fax machine’s relationship — just because a customer doesn’t want to
memory buffer. But even worse, there was no clear buy right away, it doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy
view into what was happening on the other end of the at all.With automation, customers can be nurtured in
fax machine. Even if leads were successfully faxed and a cost-effective manner. And nurturing a cool lead to
a hot lead is less expensive than working from scratch.
CDC MarketFirst | Business Paper 6
With CDC MarketFirst, Sharp has experienced an
unprecedented lead conversion rate of the leads that were
Step Five:
considered cold in the beginning due, in part, to long-term Measure & Evaluate Programs
customer nurturing and development.
In a recent report, Gartner estimates that “enterprises
“Before marketing automation, we typically qualified leads routinely spend 10 percent to 30 percent of their revenue
by telephone. That’s how we would get information from on marketing and sales activities, without being able to
most dealers about the resolution or nurturing of a lead,” demonstrate a positive return on investment from those
says Krazeise. “Now, we qualify leads electronically and investments.
by further telephone conversations.
A lead management program provides a way for
We have a separate campaign that we run within CDC companies to measure and see that ROI — and learn
MarketFirst that automatically sends out follow-up e-mails what’s working, and what isn’t. Analysis feeds backs into
to nurture prospects. All of our literature requests, for planning for the next marketing campaign, and the whole
example, are now fulfilled automatically. People don’t cycle starts again — smarter.
have to walk down to the
mailroom. Now they send With marketing automation, all of the data required
With CDC MarketFirst, out product information to conduct that analysis is collected in real-time while
Sharp enjoys: electronically through CDC campaigns are underway. As leads are qualified, as
MarketFirst, much more easily, they are distributed, and as sales are booked. Rather
• 75% reduction in literature fulfillment
expense conveniently, and than relying on data that comes in a long time after the
cost-effectively.” fact — or is highly subjective — management, sales,
• 5% reduction in advertising marketing, finance and call center operations can quickly
expenses
For lower-priority leads see what is happening within marketing and sales cycle
• nearly 100% follow-up on leads, and prospects, marketing at any point in time — and feed back what they learn into
giving it an unprecedented automation gives Sharp and strategic and business process improvements.
conversion rate
its channel partners easy-to-
use programs for nurturing CDC MarketFirst’s powerful and intuitive campaign
campaigns that will keep prospective customers engaged management capabilities enable Sharp to manage
and informed. Keeping track of all leads, whatever their one-to-one, direct campaigns allowing the company to
current interest level, is an integral part of Sharp’s overall drive dynamic, personalized, and relevant information to
plan to manage each lead throughout the customer prospects and customers.
lifecycle and maximize sales opportunities.
In addition to giving Sharp powerful campaign
CDC MarketFirst has also helped Sharp reduce literature management capabilities, CDC MarketFirst also enables
fulfillment expenses by 75 percent by giving the company the company to significantly improve its lead management
the tools to quickly and electronically respond to customer processes and enhance support of its distribution
requests for product collateral. Fulfillment requests can network. In fact, by using CDC MarketFirst, the company
either be generated in the call center via agents, or by has completely realigned the manner in which sales leads
customers or prospects on the website. Once the request are captured, ranked and distributed to its resellers.
is submitted, CDC MarketFirst automatically fulfills the
Previously, Sharp would send out a lead to its dealer
literature order and sends out a personalized e-mail
network, but was slow to receive any feedback on what
with the appropriate PDF, ensuring a consistent brand
happened to that lead. Since deploying MarketFirst, the
experience in process.
company now has several mechanisms in place so that
their dealers can make requests and provide feedback to
Sharp immediately using the web, e-mail and call center.
This has allowed Sharp to be more nimble in responding
to its dealer’s needs.
2 From Gartner, Inc.: “Lead Management and Reporting”: Claudio Marcus, October 3, 2002
CDC MarketFirst | Business Paper 7
Conclusion
Companies that follow lead management best practices
powered by marketing automation can expect to increase
their return on every lead generated. By managing the
process from the first stages of planning through the
qualification, distribution and nurturing process, marketing
teams gather meaningful data on what works, and
what needs improvement.
This continuous process
Results Recap: Marketing of planning, execution and
Automation at Sharp evaluation ensures that ROI
is maximized on marketing
Electronics
activities and prospects
• 1000% increase in the number of are engaged right up to the
qualified leads purchase decision.
• More than 90% follow-up rates on
leads, up from 4% Implementing lead
• Nearly 100% follow-up on leads,
management best practices
giving it an unprecedented lead through marketing automation
conversion rate, which means reduces the cost of marketing,
more business for everyone fills the sales pipeline faster
involved, and better, faster service with better quality leads, and
to end customers grows revenue. So every
• 85% reduction in cost per lead marketing organization can
— from $388 per lead in 001 to $58 finally discover the real gold
per lead in 00 amongst their leads.
• An increase in the number of sales
leads from 6,500 in the whole of
001 to more than 8,000 in the first
seven months of the system’s use
• An unprecedented lead conversion
rate of the leads that were
considered cold in the beginning
due, in part, to long-term customer
nurturing and development
• 96% of the entire previous years
leads were distributed to its top
dealers and resellers in less than
three weeks of using the solution
• The ability to make new dealer or
territory changes in minutes, instead
of days
• The fact that call center script
changes can be made in less than
a day, rather than taking weeks
• 8% reduction in advertising
expenses
• 75% reduction in literature
fulfillment expenses
For more information, please visit www.marketfirst.com or call +1 877-748-6825.
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