Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads

Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads A GlobalSpec White Paper July 2004 Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 1 Introduction As a marketer, you know leads are only as good as your company’s ability to respond appropriately and track them through the sales process. If you are experiencing any challenges in managing leads or need to increase your number of highly-qualified leads, this paper will be of particular interest to you. It reviews a number of best practices for responding to different types of leads and managing leads through the sales cycle. It also introduces several marketing options that can generate highly-qualified leads and brand exposure, while offering features to help you improve lead response and tracking capabilities. This information can help you increase the number of leads you receive, the number of leads you convert to sales and the ROI you gain from marketing programs. Five Steps to Help Manage and Increase Leads Companies achieving a high rate of conversion of leads into sales share a number of characteristics. Invariably, their sales and marketing organizations work closely together and communicate well with each other. In short, Marketing and Sales are on the same page. Marketing knows: Sales knows: o o o How to generate leads How to respond to and qualify leads How to effectively distribute leads to Sales o o o The origin of the lead The importance of following up on leads How to track leads through the sales cycle GlobalSpec has identified five steps to help your sales and marketing organizations work more closely together, improve lead management processes and increase the number of highly-qualified leads you get: Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 2 Assign a person, or team of people, responsibility for managing and tracking leads Access, evaluate and respond to leads on a timely basis Distribute leads appropriately to sales people, resellers, distributors, etc. Track the status and whereabouts of every lead throughout the sales cycle Understand and use your marketing options to reach more potential customers and achieve greater ROI on your programs Step 1: Assign Responsibility to Ensure Success If a person or team of people are not responsible for managing leads, it’s not uncommon for many leads to “fall through the cracks,” leading to lost sales and wasted resources. Managing and tracking leads can be the responsibility of either the marketing or sales department, depending on your organizational structure, or it may reside in an integrated marketing and sales position. Responsibilities under lead management may include: Ensure leads are responded to in a timely manner. Leads are like fresh produce: they spoil quickly. Leads left to wither will cost you revenue. In a recent GlobalSpec User Satisfaction Survey, 19 percent of users stated they received no response from suppliers they contacted. On the other hand, 74 percent stated they did buy or were likely to buy from suppliers they contacted online through a Request for Quotation (RFQ) or e-mail. Clearly, you cannot achieve sales unless you respond to leads. Ensure leads are responded to appropriately. There are two aspects to this: (1) knowing how a lead prefers to engage with you, and (2) evaluating the type of lead and its importance. For example, you need to recognize a hot lead ready to buy versus a lead needing more information over time and not wanting to be pressured. Otherwise, you might be too aggressive and scare off the latter, while the former, feeling ignored, buys from a competitor. You’ll likely lose both as potential customers! Know how to get leads into your contact management system or a spreadsheet such as Excel. Otherwise your ability to distribute and track leads is severely impacted. All processes become manual, leads get lost, no one knows the status of a lead and fingers get pointed. Getting leads into a spreadsheet and tracking them doesn’t have to Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 3 be complicated if you plan ahead and gain agreement with your sales force about reporting leads that turn into sales. This can be done on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis using a simple report. Know who is responsible for qualifying and distributing leads. In some organizations all leads go directly to sales people or distributors; in others, marketers qualify leads first. You should also have a back-up plan to prevent leads from getting stale when the primary individual responsible for qualifying and distributing leads is not available. Know who should get any given lead: an individual sales person, territory manager, reseller, distributor, etc; and how to pass a lead to that person. You need to develop a plan with the sales arm of your business for distributing leads. For instance, long-term prospects might be handled internally, hot leads might go to larger distributors, and smaller distributors may receive leads on a geographic basis. Assign accountability for tracking leads through the sales cycle and knowing the status of any lead at any given time. This is critical as it is the only way you can accurately measure the quality of leads, effectiveness of marketing programs and the ROI you achieve. Step 2: Access, Evaluate and Respond to Leads Checking new leads on a daily basis is an important habit to cultivate. A hot lead can turn into a sale that same day — or can be lost to a competitor. Studies have shown speed of response is the single most important element in converting a lead to a sale when the prospect is actively engaged in the buying process. Speed also reflects positively on your organization: clearly you have your act together.1 However, not all leads are ready to buy at that moment and responding quickly does not mean you should respond aggressively. Understanding the type of lead and how you got it can help you craft an appropriate response. Understanding and Responding to Internet Leads Internet-generated leads have a number of distinguishing characteristics. For one, they vary widely in quality, depending on their source, how motivated the prospect is and how much information you have on them (see Figure 1). 1 “How to Qualify B2B Leads,” John Coe, Direct Marketing Associates, www.b2bmarketing.com Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 4 Figure 1: The quality of an Internet lead is related to the amount of information you have. The most highly-qualified Internet leads are from prospects who have gone through a search, discovery and thought process to find you. They are likely to compare you to other vendors and expect comprehensive, easily accessible and up-to-date information about your company, products and services. Also, your prospects are on Internet time and expecting a quick response to their inquiry. However, that doesn’t mean you should always immediately pick up the phone and call the lead to ask for an order. Sometimes the appropriate response is more subtle. For instance, a buyer-initiated request for quotation (RFQ) requires an immediate and specific response including pricing and terms to help you close a sale. On the other hand, a lead from someone who downloaded product literature may still be in the information-gathering phase. This person, although very much a qualified lead, may require a period of nurturing to determine their needs, budget and time frame for making a purchase decision. Often, if you know how a prospect has initiated contact with you, you can better determine the appropriate response — one that will more likely lead to a sale. Following Up with Leads: Best Practices There are a number of best practices you can follow to increase the likelihood that you will realize a sale from a lead. Suppliers can further qualify prospects by asking questions such as: Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 5 What is the time frame of the project? What stage of the project are you in (early design phase, nearing production, etc.)? What is the application for this product? How will it be used? Where will the product be shipped to? E-mail is often an effective response mechanism in cases where the prospect hasn’t proactively reached out to you regarding a specific product, but rather may be making a general inquiry about your company, products and services. Here are some tips for using e-mail to your advantage: Don’t think of e-mail as a quick and informal note. An e-mail represents your company’s brand and image. It may be the first impression a prospect has of you. Make sure your response is tailored to the inquiry. You might develop several pre-formatted e-mail templates to respond to different types of inquiries, but be selective in their use. Treat an e-mail like a typed letter on company letterhead: use correct spelling, write professionally, be brief, be sure to proofread. The subject line of your e-mail is important. Make sure it identifies who you are and is relevant. Keep the subject line to seven words or less if possible. Add all of your company contact information as well as the name and contact information of the individual responding. Provide links in the e-mail allowing the prospect to find additional information on your Web site or in your online product catalog. Step 3: Distribute Leads for Proper Follow-up Lead distribution is an internal process requiring close communication and integration between sales and marketing people and systems. You need to access, review, prioritize and determine where a lead should go — to a particular sales person, territory manager, reseller or other person — and then get it there, often via a network contact management system or e-mailed spreadsheet. When distributing leads, it’s important to engage the sales reps/distributors by sharing everything you know about a lead such as when and where it came from, how qualified it is and buying time frame. You should also set expectations for follow- Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 6 up. Does this lead need to be contacted today? What is the optimal way to initiate contact? The answer often depends on the source of the lead and its quality. In addition, you need back-up processes in place in case the sales rep assigned to the lead is unavailable and the lead requires immediate action to help close a sale. The better you can audit your lead distribution processes, the better you can manage leads through the sales cycle and achieve a greater ROI on lead generation programs. You should seek out marketing programs to help facilitate the distribution of leads. For example, GlobalSpec provides leads online and offers an email forwarding feature as a fast and convenient way to distribute a lead to anyone in your organization no matter where they are located (see Figure 2). E-mail forwarding allows you to send a lead report and add comments of your own, based on your knowledge of the prospect’s needs. If it’s a hot lead, you’ll want the sales rep, manufacturing rep or distributor to know immediately. Figure 2: GlobalSpec’s e-mail forwarding feature lets you quickly and easily add comments and pass a lead to anyone in your organization. Step 4: Track Leads Through the Sales Cycle In some organizations, leads get handed off to a person in the sales arm and marketing never hears about it again. How do you know if the leads you generated turned into sales? Or consider this: what if you decide a marketing program isn’t working because leads do not turn into sales after three months — yet the typical sales cycle for your organization is six months? Lack of understanding and tracking leads through your sales cycle may cause you to mistakenly abandon your best marketing programs! Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 7 The most comprehensive way to track leads is to have a central database or spreadsheet of leads. Anyone who has contact with a lead — a marketer, sales person, technical support, customer service, telemarketer — can update the lead record with new information, enabling those with access rights to see it, understand the status of the lead and take appropriate action. The action might be contacting the lead, sending additional information or setting an appointment to close the sale. Tracking leads does not have to be complicated. You can list the leads in Excel and show who received them and when. You can add a few columns to your spreadsheet to track lead status, sales orders and other pertinent information. Tracking leads through the sales cycle helps you catch leads that might fall through the cracks and enables you to calculate ROI for your marketing programs. You’ll know how many leads are converted to sales and, if your tracking is thorough, you’ll know the reason why a lead didn’t convert: whether it was a competitive product, a change in the prospect’s needs or even an internal breakdown managing the lead. Step 5: Understand and Use Your Marketing Options It’s almost impossible to manage leads through the sales process if you are unsure of the nature of a lead, its origination or its quality. Unfortunately, many marketing programs today produce unqualified leads or leads lacking comprehensive information. Faced with such challenges, suppliers and manufacturers must invest wisely in marketing programs proven to deliver highly-qualified leads. Unprecedented Opportunity for Suppliers GlobalSpec has created The Engineering Search Enginesm, the definitive place for suppliers to connect with engineers and technical buyers seeking technical product and engineering-related information. Presence on GlobalSpec offers suppliers unprecedented opportunity to reach their target audience, increase their visibility, promote their brand and gain highly-qualified leads and significant ROI. GlobalSpec has a registered user base of more than one million engineers and technical buyers — exactly the qualified target audience suppliers are looking for. GlobalSpec’s complete marketing and branding program places your company, products and services in front of the engineer and technical buyers at the precise moment they are looking for products and services. As a supplier or manufacturer, GlobalSpec offers you the following marketing advantages: Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 8 A fully searchable, comprehensive catalog of your products and services engineers can access through multiple search options, including searching their preferred way by specifications. Contextual presentation of your products and services when they match a user’s search criteria, increasing the likelihood of capturing a highly-qualified lead. Product announcements and billboard banners offering an opportunity to showcase new or relevant products to a highlyfocused, targeted audience already expressing interest through their browsing and search behavior. An opportunity to publish application notes and technical articles, increasing your visibility and expertise in the engineering community. The ability to provide access to your CAD files and drawings. Users downloading CAD drawings usually are nearing a purchasing decision, resulting in a highly-qualified lead. Full contact information for leads including knowing exactly what product, service or technical area each prospect is interested in. With GlobalSpec leads you know how to respond as you gain contact information and intelligence on what the prospects were looking at. Access to leads in real-time while prospects are still motivated and have your company/products in mind. At any time you can instantly download and forward GlobalSpec leads and track your brand exposure activity. Easy-to-use reporting tools to help you track performance and respond quickly to leads, increasing the likelihood of closing sales. Educational materials including marketing planning kits and e-mail and Internet marketing tips, helping you make the most of your marketing budget and efforts. The biggest advantage of marketing on GlobalSpec is it pays off. Suppliers and manufacturers gain increased exposure, highly-qualified leads and measurable ROI. Lead Management: Proven Strategies for Managing and Increasing Leads 9 Conclusion GlobalSpec is committed to helping you achieve the greatest possible ROI from your marketing efforts. Our complete marketing and branding program is designed to help you maximize your company’s brand exposure and the number of highly-qualified leads you receive. Sound lead management practices combined with a strong portfolio of GlobalSpec marketing options can help you increase sales and ROI from your marketing investments. On GlobalSpec, you reach the right audience at the right time: engineers and technical buyers using The Engineering Search Engine to actively search for products, services and companies meeting their specific needs. For more information about marketing on GlobalSpec, please call toll-free 800.261.2052 or 518.880.0200. ©2004 GlobalSpec. All rights reserved. GlobalSpec, the GlobalSpec logo and SpecSearch are registered trademarks and The Engineering Search Engine is a service mark of GlobalSpec, Inc. P/N 60011 7/04