Lead Management/SmartGrowth
According to a study by SiriusDecisions, 52% of B2B marketers say
lead generation is their #1 problem. As an agency specializing in both
online and traditional lead generation campaigns, that's nice to hear.
But when you talk to them, they're actually struggling something
entirely different. Almost without exception, when you talk to
marketing VPs about what they're really trying to solve, it has
nothing to do with generating more leads or even improving the quality
of the leads they generate:
- "I don't know what happens to the leads I give the sales force."
- "I can't tell what sources generate the best quality leads."
- "My salespeople/my channel don't follow up on the leads I give
them."
- "My salespeople want all the leads in their territories, but
there's really too many for them to pursue."
- "My CRM system doesn't work."
- "My conversion rates of leads to opportunities is
inconsistent/too low."
When we meet with sales and marketing VPs at companies both large
and small, they are plagued with sales and marketing integration
issues. More than anything, sales process issues, and the handoff of
leads from marketing to sales, is the paramount challenge B2B
companies face today, and their recession has only exacerbated that
problem. It's not that we don't have enough leads; in truth, we're
just not doing a good job of finding the diamonds in the rough,
converting them to opportunities, managing the process, and tracking
the results, so we know what works and what doesn't. Seems simple. And
some of us even admit it, according to the SiriusDecisions report,
where 10% of marketers did in fact admit that "sales process issues"
were their #1 concern. So now that the emperor's lack of clothes has
been revealed, that creating more leads and more leads isn't the
ultimate objective, what to do? Three steps:
- Conduct detailed sales process interviews with both customers
and salespeople to uncover how the process is working, and identify
gaps
- Re-engineer the process in collaborative sessions with sales and
marketing decision-makers
- Install/retrain/re-engineer marketing automation and CRM systems
in order to accurately track and report back on lead generation and
sales conversion activities.
We didn't say three simple steps. This is hard work, which is why
so few companies really solve it. It's not a question of lead flow, or
technology, talent, personalities or boundary issues between sales and
marketing. It's all of the above.
We use our Lead Management mapping, Voice of Customer
Interviews
and SmartGrowth Assessment Process to address these issues and
put clients on a path to growth.
See sample lead generation
programs.
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