B2B Lead Generation Blog

B2B Lead management is far from an easy task

Companies that adopt effective lead management processes generate more revenue from their lead generation investment and have overall higher close rates on marketing generated leads than those that do not. But I've encountered very few companies that really do lead management.

What is lead management? Lead management is a multistage process that manages the conversion of sales leads to customers. Some people say it's the process of going from "first contact to close."

In Christopher Hosford’s BtoB Magazine article, he highlights some of the reasons why "Lead management far from easy task."

The article mainly highlight’s "lead scoring and automation," but that’s only part of the solution. Lead scoring and automation support a process of lead qualification, but I would argue that there are more fundamental aspects of lead management that often get overlooked.

Take a moment and think about your lead management efforts... do you see it as process? 

Imagine that your lead management process is a manufacturing operation and your leads are your product. Now imagine that 80% of your product coming off the manufacturing line were defective. In the manufacturing world, where concepts like six sigma are accepted, that kind of defect rate would a blinding sign of a problem (or multiple ones) in the process. Yet, for some reason, in sales and marketing that kind of defect rate is often accepted as normal or acceptable. 

There are numerous business process improvement methodologies that have seeped into companies large and small, but for some reason they are not yet as prevalent in the field of sales and marketing.

This may be because much of selling and buying occurs outside a controlled environment making tracking difficult, however a process can be implemented to track milestones and touch points. Lead management provides a framework for controlling and driving that process.   

Here are the 6 major stages of an effective lead management:

1. Lead Generation (generating inquiries)
2. Lead Qualification (are they a fit? Are they sales ready?)
3. Lead Nurturing (cultivating early stage leads)
4. Lead Distribution (hand off from marketing to sales)
5. Lead Pursuit (sales process and pipeline)
6. Lead Tracking and reporting (closed the loop between sales and marketing)

Do you have your process for each of these steps documented and understood by key stakeholders? If not, start now. You won't regret it.

To give you a hand, I've updated a figure from Lead Generation for the Complex Sale on lead management. (Click above Image to enlarge or Download PDF)

I believe there are two funnels - a marketing funnel and a sales funnel. The marketing pipeline is managing the customer interactions from first contact through to a viable sales opportunity (aka sales ready lead). The success of your marketing funnel directly impacts that of the sales funnel. The bigger and better your marketing funnel, the bigger and better your sales funnel.

Within the marketing funnel, I find that most marketers need to put more attention on the processes of lead qualification and nurturing.

Here are the top three issues:

1. Inquiries are improperly handed off to sales without being qualified.
2. A lead nurturing program has not been implemented.
3. Sales has not been given the means to hand unsuccessful leads back to marketing for further work or nurturing on their behalf.

Like other business process improvement initiatives, lead management must start with the proper mindset. Lead management is a process that can be documented, measured and refined. 

It’s certainly is not easy, so start with the mindset that lead management is a process and make that process as simple a possible. Don’t forget that software does NOT create collaboration. Make sure everyone on in the process has “bought in” and understands their role. Only then will you have the foundation that will support a more complex lead management practices.

Related information:

Here's an in-depth article on lead qualification I wrote for Target Marketing: What’s a Lead?

My recent webinar on multi-touch lead nurturing 

Practical Strategies for Generating Quality Leads Teleclass

I'm doing a bunch of live and in-person speaking events this fall. If you can't make any of them, I'll be a guest of Michael Stelzner as part of his monthly teleclass series.

Michael is author of Writing White Papers and he invited me to do an interactive 1-hour teleclass focused on providing real-world ideas and tactics for lead generation. The class is named "Practical Strategies for Generating Quality Leads." I hope you can join us.

Get class details here

On Alignment between Marketing and Finance

Many marketers are quickly approaching their favorite time of year.  Okay, not really. I'm of course talking about budget time.

When I see the challenge that marketers face when it comes to getting their budgets approved, I wonder why it has to be so hard?

Last year, I highlighted a report  by MarketingSherpa which concludes that marketers need to do a better job capturing and communicating their value.  According the MarketingSherpa research, "...only 17% of B-to-B marketers we queried were sure their CFOs understood the value of lead generation programs."

Last week, I read a short BtoB article by Carol Krol that shows that this continues to be a challenge. Her article summarizes some new research by the Association of National Advertisers in conjunction with Marketing Management Analytics.

Krol writes, "The study found that a relationship between marketing and finance is often lacking. Sixty-one percent of marketers surveyed for the study said there is “some” cooperation between the two departments when establishing metrics and methodologies for measuring marketing ROI, while only 22% said there was “full” cooperation."

Each discipline is vital to the success of the company and they must work together as team. But I believe that most of our colleagues in finance don’t fully understand marketing. It’s not a surprise that financial executives still view marketing as an expense, a.k.a. cost center, rather than viewing it as an asset that creates revenue.

As marketers we need to do more to educate our peers on the value of marketing. We need to act as one team and seek to understand each other better and learn each other’s language. Bottom line: it's the numbers.  So why not begin with that? 

I think the late Dale Carnegie has a great quote in his perennial best seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People that summarizes my point.

He writes, “I go fishing up in Maine every summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream; but I find that for some strange reason fish prefer worms. So when I go fishing, I don’t think about what I want. I think about what they want. I don’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangle a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and say: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?” Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?”

Related post: Budget Wars: Sales & Finance vs Marketing

MarketingSherpa Demand Generation Summit 2007

Click here now to buy a ticket to the Demand Gen Summit and get a copy of my new book: "Lead Generation for the Complex Sale" Register by 9/28 For a $100 Discount

You're invited to join me at MarketingSherpa’s Demand Generation Summit at your choice of Boston (Oct 15-16) or San Francisco (Oct 29-30.) I’ll be speaking on “Blogging, Podcasting, Speaking Gigs, & Book Authorship: How to Generate Leads and Measure ROI as an Authority.”

Some of the other topics include: New B-to-B Search Marketing; Maximizing White Papers, Ezines Webinars & Podcasts; Marketing to Fortune 500; Video, Viral & Web 2.0 B-to-B Marketing; How to Measure & Manage Leads and more.

I hope you can make it. Register here