Five success factors to increasing lead conversions

Leveraging your campaign inquiry list is an essential best practice to successfully converting leads into sales. Not only does it convey you are interested in quickly satisfying a target prospect's needs, it positions your team to close more sales-ready prospects who are further along in the decision-making process. Measuring your progress over time can help you focus internal resources toward the core of your marketing efforts, but only if you truly understand what motivated a customer to inquire and how you can maximize the opportunity.

Here are five success factors that can directly increase your campaign lead conversions:

1. The most recent prospect inquiries tend to be the most valuable and viable to lead nurturing campaigns. As time passes, content becomes less valid in general due to changes in prospect responsibilities and demographics. A dialogue that was once important to a prospect may no longer be fitting or a purchase decision may have already been made. Stay on top of who has recently requested information about your brand! Consistently reach out to these prospects during the first three-to-six months after inquiry.

2. Use lead scoring methods to qualify the level of influencer your prospect is. By keeping your best salespeople in front of more customers who are closest to purchase decision, your marketing department will enhance lead conversion potential dramatically. Ask both behavior and demographic questions in your inquiry form and scorecardrespondents based on decision-making drivers (e.g. resources, authority, need, and timeframe). Cross measure the mediums that generate the most inquiry activity and analyze your tactics to create an efficient, ROI driven marketing engine.

3. Recognize that messaging relevance directly enhances lead conversion. Are you communicating what problem your brand will solve in the prospect’s lives? Many prospects stop listening to your message because they believe you do not understand what their needs are. Create a message map by professional role for email nurturing campaigns! For example, a CEO who responds to your campaign will have a very different company-wide strategic focus than a Marketing Manager entrenched in the day-to-day tactical programs of a specific vertical. If an inquiry hasn't responded over time, check if your content is properly segmented by audience to provide clear value at first glance.

4. Make sure you effectively promote to the nature and the source of your leads. For example, if a lead came from a trade show where a target prospect realized your brand offering first-hand, consider sending a product sample and a limited time purchase offer in your first lead nurturing campaign. Not only does this re-engage the prospect to what they experienced in your booth, it allows you to measure the effectiveness of your promotional offer across multiple events and test which tactics generated the greatest number of lead conversions.

5. Calibrate your lead generation process so that it closes the feedback loop. Many leads go cold simply because a prospect did not quickly receive the attention necessary to aid in the purchase decision process. Set a predetermined timeframe to reach out to your prospect after the first inquiry to understand how long it took for your team to make contact and if they were satisfied with the service received. Asking follow up questions can make sure your internal team did everything possible to maximize the opportunity while it was in progress.

Finally, using lead management software can directly amplify the success of each campaign. Thin client SaaS platforms like NitroMojo have real-time dashboards that cross analyze market-based responses to each marketing event. This will allow your management team to understand successes as they happen and make strategic changes much more quickly, keeping your team ahead of the competition searching for the same valuable conversion opportunities.

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Scoring leads critical to sales and marketing success

Lead scoring is the methodology of ranking an incoming consumer inquiry from a marketing event based on critical success factors to closing the sale. The rules of engagement may change from company to company based on the voice-of-the-customer but they have the same common goals: to best identify where a prospect is in the purchase cycle and create urgency for sales teams to contact prospects in order of those who have the most urgent decision making needs.

There are many benefits to scoring incoming leads from customer-centric criteria. First, sales associates have a limited amount of resources and time available at their disposal. By aiding the sales team’s ability to analyze the best opportunities that are the most likely to result in a sale, marketing management increases positive collaboration between all teams. In short, when a sales associate believes marketing understands how to drive their business, there is more likelihood they will buy in at a greater rate of speed, directly influencing the success of the program.

Second, a marketing team must maximize its potential to create events that consistently get the best sales associates in front of more customers who are sales-ready. This scenario presents the greatest likelihood of growth: leverage the most efficient use of company resources that generates the greatest marketing contribution to sales revenue. The sales team is a critical asset to marketing resource management: are you helping your team to accurately qualify prospects so they can maximize their time spent selling?

Finally, the initial conversion rate of an incoming lead plays a critical role in determining the potential for customer lifetime value. If a customer views your company as responsive to their needs, there is more likelihood they will purchase from you and have a greater loyalty response to future marketing events. This directly increases your channel pricing power and allows you to promote at a consistently higher price point instead of using heavy discounts programs that reduce margin. The ability to reduce follow-up marketing costs in retention programs is critical in building customer lifetime value.

When creating your rules, assess purchase decision drivers into a measurable scorecard. Recognize the sphere of influence the prospect resides in through campaign landing page questions. Simple behavior questions can also help in the scoring process, such as questions that involve product motives and patronage motives. Anticipate the needs of your target customer and the positive feelings your value proposition must conjure up to initiate a response. Have a clear call to action that encourages a passive user to inquire about how you solve problems in their world.

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Capitalize on low hanging fruit by making your product easier to buy

Close your eyes and imagine that you're one of your customers. You're busy. You're stressed. The big question is…are you frustrated?

With unprecedented access to information and product choices, today's consumers are less patient and less brand loyal than ever. If you're product is not easy to purchase or your sales process is frustrating, then there is a good chance customers won't take the time to do business with you. That's a whole lot of potential revenue down the tube.

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7 Best Practices in Lead Management

How to build greater marketing ROI and increase sales revenue

Authored By: Deborah Miller Pierce
Principal, MillerPierce: Developers of NitroMojo lead optimization engine

Lead Management-The Missing Piece

"We spend 85% of our marketing budget trying to generate leads and sometimes
don't even have an accurate count of how many leads were generated not to
mention if any follow up was done. What a waste!"
- Frustrated Marketing Director from Fortune 100 Company

U.S. companies spend over $8 Billion each year on product marketing. Yet only 10% of these companies invest in a process for efficiently capturing, responding to and managing the sales leads generated by marketing efforts. That disconnect manifests itself in numerous ways - poor relationships with customers or distribution partners, decreased ROI, and substantial losses in sales. In fact, it's estimated that companies could increase sales revenues by a conservative 13% simply by implementing good lead management practices.

In addition to increased sales revenue, good lead management practices offer more subtle long-term benefits.

Companies can increase brand perception by building good customer relationships through the lead management process. For example, the response to a customer request for a product sample or catalog made at a tradeshow - if that request languishes in the pocket of a sales reps, the relationship with that customer may suffer. However, if follow up is made immediately, a company can increase credibility with the customer by showcasing good service at all points of the sales process.

Getting leads instantaneously to appropriate channel partners can also strengthen the sales line in multiple ways. Manufacturers can show channel partners they're working to increase business for everyone by sending channel reps pre-qualified sales leads as evidence of a commitment to the partnership. Being able to then track the outcomes of those leads enables the manufacturer to keep sales reps and channel partners accountable for lead outcomes, thereby strengthening their professionalism and performance.

So why, if there are so many benefits to utilizing a lead management system, have so many companies failed to do so?

Companies' issues with lead management primarily revolve around how leads are captured, qualified, responded to and distributed for follow-up - and how subsequent communications and measurement are executed. Solving these problems can be difficult, due to the lack of resources available in most marketing and sales departments and the administration required to consistently deploy sound practices. Even when a company knows it needs to better manage its leads, it may be challenging to get mind share devoted to the effort.

Lead management isn't nearly as glamorous or as visible as creative development or promotional marketing. Most companies need help to define lead management issues in addition to assistance in implementing a solution. The NitroMojo lead optimization engine provides all the tools marketing and sales departments need to re-engineer the lead management process. The thin-client system is built on seven best practices that MillerPierce, the developers of NitroMojo, have developed for more than ten years of lead management experience.

Best Practice: Collect consistent lead information in one centralized location
Ensuring all leads are housed in a centralized location is the first critical practice of effective lead management. Accumulating lead response data in one centralized data format allows companies to accurately measure lead performance across media, easily access respondent lists for additional marketing activities and standardize the lead follow-up process for your sales and channel partners. All too often, companies have silos of lead data - individual spreadsheets saved at random, boxes of paper leads from trade shows left in the corners of offices, business cards stuffed in sales reps pockets. When there is not a standardized and effective way to account for and follow-up on leads, then the investment in lead generation activities is lost.

When there is not a standardized and effective way to account for and follow-up on leads, then the investment in lead generation activities is lost.

It's not enough, however, to have a collection of mismatched information. To ensure the accuracy of this data collection, all data fields on lead collection devices need to be in consistent formats. For example, if a web site Contact form contains a size of opportunity indicator such as "How many employees are in your organization?" and the answer options are:

Less than 100, 100-249, 250-499, 500+

Then the same answer options must be used for this question on a trade show lead form.

Lead collection forms should also be standardized for any contact information fields. In a database, fields for contact names are typically separated into first and last names. The fields for title, company, address line 1, address line 2, city, state, zip code, and country are likewise separate. This convention is used so that when marketers create a letter or other type of marketing communication, that communication can be personalized with the contact's first or last name, street address, city, or other element.

Any convention followed in database configuration should be used in printed or online forms, as well. This means providing separate lines for first name, last name, as well as fields for title, company, etc. and ensuring consistency throughout all forms.

Best Practice: Track all leads to a unique campaign
The ability to track any leads to a specific campaign or event is a critical step in marketing performance management (MPM) and in analyzing which messages and/or media resonate most with prospects and customers.

This requires that marketers pre-determine each campaign that will be monitored for lead generation. A campaign can be an independent event such as an email campaign or an integrated event that includes direct mail, trade show and email. How companies set-up campaign metrics depends upon the objectives of campaign measurement.

To ensure accurate measurement, campaign set-up should consistently contain all pertinent information such as the type of the medium, product or service promoted, medium name, publication dates and possibly additional points of identification. This information should be included in the lead information that is distributed to sales reps and channel partners. Reps' complete knowledge of what caused prospects to "raise their hands" in interest will significantly increase the results of sales follow-up efforts.

Best Practice: Fulfill information or sample requests within 24-48 hours
As discussed, the first phase in implementing effective lead management practices is streamlining the process for getting lead information into the database. Capturing and quickly processing lead information is fairly easy when leads come in from the Web, telephone or email links. With the right resources and processes in place, trade show and business card leads can be included in this centralized location. Trade show and business reply cards can be a bit trickier, but not impossible.

"Amazing our customers with the speed and quality of our lead follow-up is a major part of our brand experience."
Keitha Kessler, Marketing Manager, Ergo Products - Ansell Healthcare

The second phase of effective lead management is to ensure the speed and quality of information provided to customers who request it. Again, the right resources and processes are key.

Customers are increasingly dissatisfied with irrelevant and boiler plate information. They want information that is personal and applies directly to business issues. No longer are standard form letters addressed to "valued customer" acceptable to the market. Adding the extra level of personalization can mean extra cost. Is it worth it?

MillerPierce, the developers of NitroMojo, has studied this issue extensively through proprietary tools it developed for its clients. The firm found that improving the speed of response to customer inquiries, personalizing information and ensuring customers get what they requested (or an explanation as to why the request isn't possible) typically increases sales conversions and order amounts between 10-23 percent. Considering the fact that the average cost to generate a business-to-business lead is $100, spending another 5 percent to implement better fulfillment practices for the additional ROI is an obvious choice.

Best Practice: Immediately forward leads to sales or channel partners
Another way to significantly increase close rates and revenue is by having sales reps or channel partners follow-up on customer responses within 24 hours. By utilizing a lead management software system, complete lead data can be emailed instantaneously and accessed through a multitude of mobile devices. This ensures that no matter what the medium or the campaign, respondents to marketing efforts do not fall through the cracks.

MillerPierce research shows that for every day a lead is ignored, the conversion rate decreases .75 percent. In today's competitive business environment, companies can't afford to let leads sit for over two weeks, losing 10.5 percent of the conversation rate. Automatic routing of leads with an expectation of quick follow-up is vital.

Best Practice: Re-connect directly with customers and prospects in an appropriate time frame
Effective lead management systems give companies the ability to automatically follow up with customers and prospects through an e-mailed survey. In these lead management systems, results of the customer surveys are routed internally so improvements can be made in marketing, sales and product development. Automatically re-connecting with customers and prospects through a lead management system achieves four objectives:

• Measuring marketing ROI based on customer feedback. This process provides an audit of the information that has been provided by the sales force and channel partners as to the closure rates and revenue generation of the leads marketing has brought in.
• Monitoring the competitive environment. If the company is losing sales to competitors, customers and prospects can find the answer as to "why?"
• Achieving a continual stream of product satisfaction data. Feedback from customers and prospects is essential in the product development cycle.
• Engaging customers in an open dialogue. This continuous communication helps companies build relationships over time. In today's business environment, relationship marketing and selling is more important than ever before.

Developing and implementing this practice begins with determining the time frame in which customers and prospects will receive communication. For some businesses it is within 24 hours; for others it may be four months. The communication is typically sent via email to lead contacts with email addresses, but can also be a manual process for those without email addresses. In some cases, a follow-up phone call makes the best business sense. The tone of the communication is in line with customer service, not sales. Customers and prospects must know that the follow-up is being done to assess the company's response to their requests and find information about why a sale was or was not made. It's essential to communicate that the connection is being made to better serve them.

"Having a continual pulse of your marketplace is not an option, it is a vital necessity."

In the fast paced, highly competitive marketplace of today, having a continual pulse of your marketplace is not an option, it is a vital necessity. Businesses can no longer afford to rely on information gathered in a yearly satisfaction survey. A year from now will be too late.

Best Practice: Monitor sales follow-up activity
Let's make the assumption that each lead a marketing team generates costs a company $50. Let's also assume that each internal sales rep or outside channel partner receives 50 leads per month from these marketing efforts. Using this scenario the company invests $2,500 per month to generate leads for each sales rep. Yet, most marketing departments and sales managers have no idea what happens to leads once they are passed off to their sales people. In a day and age where every dollar must be accounted for, it's not an effective business practice to invest $2,500 of a budget and not know where it's going.

Monitoring follow-up activity is not about being a "big brother" to sales people. It's about being accountable for the results of a marketing investment. Gaining trend information on conversion rates, pipeline timelines, campaign effectiveness and more is a critical component of lead management. This information doesn't come without monitoring a lead's progression through the sales process.

Best Practice: Build on-going relationships with lead contacts
Customers and prospects are bombarded with marketing messages on a daily basis from the entire gamut of mediums. A great way to break through that clutter on a permanent basis is to make your marketing communications a dialogue rather than a monologue. Not only do response rates go up, loyalty also surges.

If a company implements the above best practices effectively, it will have built a comprehensive and centralized database of lead contacts and can begin this relational communication strategy. By segmenting the database and driving unique marketing efforts, companies can illustrate that they have "met" the contacts before, know a little bit about them and their needs and provide them only relevant information and special offers.

MillerPierce's client experiences have overwhelmingly shown that response rates are typically 300 times greater when prospects are engaged in a dialogue. Sales conversion rates can be even more impressive.

Conclusion
Companies can take advantage of significant opportunities to better target marketing messages, increase sales revenues, build their brands and create customer loyalty simply by implementing these Seven Best Practices in Lead Management.

"I like the fact that you are responsive to inquiries. Thank you for caring about my opinion!"

Customer Quote from lead follow-up - Best Practices in Lead Management

About NitroMojo

NitroMojo is a thin-client lead optimization engine software that contains the essential functionality that marketing and sales people need to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently.

Marketing teams can create campaigns through various media, track the leads brought in through each campaign, measure ROI, score leads based on various factors and forward those leads to the sales people or distributors who can make the sale happen.

Sales managers can enable workflow processes with their internal teams and distribution channels, measuring the progress made toward closing deals. They can project sales targets and know who is and who is not performing. Sales team members easily see their hottest leads, update contact records with vital information, request fulfillment from marketing, see who else in the organization is contacting their leads, forward leads to distributors and measure, in real-time, the success of their distribution channels.

While some lead management systems only capture data about the leads, NitroMojo automatically gets feedback from the leads with its patent-pending Voice of the Customer technology. This feedback from the market can dramatically improve the sales and marketing process, even helping to win back deals that may have been lost.

And unlike CRM systems that require cumbersome implementation and management, as well as multi-department involvement, NitroMojo can be implemented for and by the people who need it. The NitroMojo team of technical experts and sales/marketing consultants will listen to how your processes work and customize the product to fit your needs - all for a price that sales and marketing leaders can afford.

When marketing and sales teams have this functionality at their fingertips, they'll be able to:

• Identify the performance of any media or any campaign, tracking cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale and return on investment. This information can better arm marketing teams to respond to the changing needs of the target.
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of inside, direct and distributor sales forces and help improve performance of all three.
• Receive prospect feedback on products, customer service and the sales cycle
• Ensure that valuable leads are never lost through the marketing and sales processes

NitroMojo was developed by building on the proprietary lead management tools that MillerPierce, a full service marketing firm, had established for its clients for more than ten years.

The Case for Investing in a Voice of Customer Program - Part 1

In B2B marketing, is your distribution channel "playing ball" with you? Reporting back the outcomes of leads they've received? Selling your products? Protecting your brand? Did I hear you say, "NO" or maybe that was a, "Gee, I have no idea!"

You spend bucks in developing ads, placing them in vertical trade pubs, going to trade shows, executing direct mail campaigns, etc. Add to that the cost for the inside/outsourced talent to pull it off. When it's all said and done, the marketing folks have quite a chunk of change they've been entrusted to spend wisely (generate sales and reveal ROI metrics).

Then, the leads come. They are distributed to the captive sales rep who owns the opportunity, and the sales rep decides to dish some of the tasty leads off to the best-suited distributor. But, really, how well-suited is the distributor?

Is the sales rep sure that the distributor won't pull the old "bait and switch?" In other words, the distributor pushes the lead to buy a competitor's product because the competitor is offering the SPIF of the month. Or, better yet, does the internal sales rep know if the distributor partner is even picking up the phone to call or sending an email to follow-up with the opportunity?

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Don't make them wait

You spend your precious marketing dollars on exhibition space, collateral, give-aways and travel to a large tradeshow. Your efforts produce record breaking lead numbers. Now what? Are the leads housed in a spreadsheet somewhere for follow-up sometime? If marketers, in conjunction with their sales teams, don't have a solid plan for tradeshow follow-up it's likely that a good portion of money spent on the tradeshow was for not.

Most marketing managers are so focused on lead generation and brand development that they give little thought to what communication is sent to prospects after they have responded to a marketing event. But once you have spent the dollars to generate that lead, doesn't it make sense to ensure the prospect has an exceptional experience during the rest of the sales process?

Read the rest of the article here on the MillerPierce website.