Lead generation is of course vital for business success. However, many companies are still spending time on ‘bad leads’ that are unlikely to convert. Marketers working for small and medium sized enterprises must deliver maximum return from a tight budget.
John Cheney, CEO of cloud-based CRM vendor Workbooks, discusses five ways they can optimise lead generation activities and boost lead quality.
- Adopt a data-first approach
Marketers have access to huge amounts of data – but this can lead to confusion. Be data-obsessed, but prioritise quality over quantity. To optimise lead generation activities, marketers should consider what data is being collected and why, focusing on two main types: demographic and behavioural.
Demographic data is key to understanding your ideal customer profile, including the business size, industry, and people within it. Behavioural information includes what your prospects and customers are doing, how they engage with you, what channels they use, and what topics resonate.
The combination of demographic and behavioural data can improve personalisation and tailoring of communication.
- Score leads
Not all leads are equal. Is the prospect really your target audience? Are they ready to engage with sales? The quality of the lead can often cause tension between sales and marketing but grading and scoring leads can ease this.
Sales and marketing teams should collaborate to define a ‘good lead’ and grade it against the ideal customer profile to ensure everyone is targeting those of most value.
Leads should be scored on behavioural information. Engagement and commitment can be ascertained by prospect behaviour, for example viewing a blog or attending a webinar. Grading and scoring leads allow for opportunities to nurture them through the purchase journey, upgrading their score until they meet the criteria of ‘sales-ready’.
- Use a common language
Without collaboration between sales and marketing teams, the ability to generate quality leads is limited. A common agreement and terminology around what constitute a sales qualified lead and a marketing qualified lead is a must.
Both teams must build their relationship with regular meetings and a shared agreement on goals, language and approach. When sales and marketing work collaboratively, the quality of leads always increases.
- Monitor throughout
Marketers should track everything. Often, marketing is perceived as a cost and it’s essential to become known as a revenue generator. Once you track and demonstrate value, the marketing team can be seen as an equal contributor, resulting in more trust and potentially a larger budget the following year.
The whole engagement process should be tracked, from the initial website click to the final closure. Visibility of when a deal closed and where marketing contributed demonstrates value and changes perceptions. This can improve relationships across departments and improve sales figures as teams work together.
- Keep improving
Testing and refining activities will maximise their value. For example, A/B testing can optimise the best email format and subject headers for higher click-through rates. Again, the more data you can collect and analyse to make improvements, the better the return on marketing activities.
Use CRM to unlock value
Marketers need high-quality data and insight to optimise lead generation activities and CRM provides this.
A CRM can be tailored to your business needs, making it possible to transform marketing campaigns with relevant, real-time data you need. Using shared tools across the business ensures a single view, a consistent process and an efficient customer journey. Collaboratively graded and scored leads increases the chance of closing the deal.
For marketers, demonstrating value throughout the engagement process is vital to progressing as a revenue generator. CRM may be an investment, but the right solution will offer complete sales and marketing integration to transform lead generation activities.