I
challenge you to prove that your company has the understanding, skills,
patience and drive required to consistently attract and nurture new prospects
and recycled leads to sales ready status. My guess is that you spend time and money trying
to generate “ready to buy” leads, but this usually fails. So, as you move on to the next knee-jerk sales
campaign you ebb further away from believing in the advantages of adding sound
marketing principles to your company’s core competency resume.
I
believe that “ready to buy” leads have a lower %GP than sales opportunities
that were originated by your marketing process. “Ready to buy” buyers have already done the
legwork and are now looking for the lowest priced product that meets their
needs.
Generating Marketing
Qualified Leads Is A Patient Process
If
your only KPI is “ready to buy” leads, response rates will be low because
prospects won’t notice your message since it is aimed at buyers who want to speak
with a sales rep. Instead, if your KPIs measure
effectiveness in working recycled leads, attracting prospects who are ready to be
educated about your products and services, convincing suspects to learn about
the benefits of solving a problem, along with capturing “ready to buy” leads,
you will be on track to profitable results by consistently implementing a
highly effective marketing plan.
Each Marketing
Funnel Stage Requires A Different Approach
Attract
prospects by blending direct and indirect tactics. Nurture them with the respective educational,
solution and product content that creates mindshare for when they are ready to
advance to the next stage of your marketing funnel.
Leverage Marketing Automation Technology
Continuously
fine tune your CRM database through progressive profiling of marketing funnel
entries by incrementally collecting contact and account information along with
triggers that hint that they’ve updated their buying stage.
It
is not economically feasible to flexibly staff your contact center to be in
sync with peak and ebb lead generation volumes. Mitigate this dilemma by investing in a MA
system that follows rules-based criteria to qualify and respond to inquiries
and to nurture and score leads. Contact
center professionals will find their job to be more rewarding if their role is
to nurture qualified prospects to sales ready status.
Do you have the patience and drive necessary to invest in
this competency?
By John Bernardi
