You and your marketing leads are weak

Sound like fighting talk? Well, before we settle this outside the old fashioned way let me tell you why.

The majority of your leads go nowhere and it is your fault for putting weak leads through to sales and not arming them with the right information to succeed. “Sales is the problem” you say? Hmm…in my experience we marketers should shoulder most of the blame.

My guess is your leads include people at events who entered the prize draw or asked where the toilet was. “Woo hoo, 500 people visited our stand. We have 500 leads!”

Or maybe people who downloaded a white paper once and never came back. Not good enough. You need to segment your leads to separate those that are ready for sales and those that need nurtured by marketing.

Only those that show good buying signals and meet your target customer profile should be allowed to start their, probably rocky, journey with sales. Have some self-respect, your leads reflect on your ability as a marketer.

When was the last time you snatched a lead off a sales rep and took back control? Never? You need to buck up your ideas. Leads need immediate attention or they go cold. While the rep is responding to that RFP your golden leads are sniffing around the competition. Make sure someone proactively has control and it is probably going to have to be you.

When you pass over a lead to sales what does it say? ‘Attended trade show x’? ‘White paper download’? If you don’t arm sales with contextual information about the lead then it is still a cold call. How did they interact at the event? What was the message on the stand/presentation? Who talked to him? What other interaction have you had in the past three months?

Are your leads converting? Are you transparent in your results and showing sales why the leads are good? If not, spending time on following up leads isn’t a good investment.

Leads are expensive and therefore precious, they are the lifeblood of many sales organisations. If you are going to spend money getting them make sure you are ready to work with them throughout their lifecycle in your organisation.