My core value to my clients is increased revenue. My ability to do this differentiates me in the marketplace.
My clients sell complex B2B solutions which means they sales process requires a number of steps and the final decision is usually done by one person based on the input of a number of different individuals.
One of my major deliverables is new customers. People who may buy are called Prospects, when they become interested in the product, we call them a lead, and if they have Budget, Authority, Need, and Desire they are called a Qualified Lead. This is Lead Generation and most clients want to initially focus on this.
My discussions follow a typical path. They are very concerned with Return On Investment (ROI) of any marketing program that we design But, when I ask about how they measure ROI, things get interesting. While they may have CRM systems, they usually don’t have a rigorous measure for lead generation.
I was wondering if this experience was limited to the people I deal with or was a general problem.
So as is typical when researching something, I posted a question on LinkedIn to see what people had to say. I have a large LinkedIn network – almost 5,000,000 people. So the question was seen by lots of different people.
LinkedIn Answers works like a knowledge base that gets added to by different people. The flow is great, because each answer adds to the previous answer and people add to the content with their own personal experiences and stories. While their are sometimes differences of opinion, but only if you ask the question in such a way as to request choices.
The results are in keeping with my experiences. While lead generation information seems to be captured by most companies, the ROI is difficult to measure for two critical reasons.
- There is a question about the reliability of the data. The general feeling is that if its left to the sales person, it may or may not get entered. If its is entered, the data frequently is adjusted to reflect positively on the sales person rather than on its accuracy.
- The number of touches and the value of each touches made in the sales process effects the result. It is almost impossible to track all the touches and then to decide which are the key ones.
Now that we have decided ROI can’t be measured with current systems – what should companies do today?
- Lead Generation programs should only measure the cost of new leads in the system.
- Lead Generation programs should have a built in system to qualify prospects.
- Lead Generation systems should have non-sales people managing and entering the data.
- CRM should focus on qualifying each leads rather than stressing the number of leads
- A separate process should ensure that qualified leads are followed up and not lost.
- Everything takes time – you can not measure the success of an effort in the short term
If we take this approach, the ROI measurement becomes measurable and obvious.
- Measure how qualified the prospects were.
- Measure how long a prospect took from the touch to the sale.
This insight came from the expertise expressed in the LinkedIn Answers. I have summarized the best answers in this report Lead Generation – What do people do? The raw answers can be found here.
- This is not the current state of world. I believe that companies thcomIn any case, the lead generation system must
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This is an interesting article about lead generation. All web sites should have some kind a capture page to capture lead information. I like the info. Keep up the good work.