On a recent guest post at the Bridge Group’s blog, author Henry Bruce brings up some research by Marketing Sherpa that states that 75% of all sales leads generated are going to buy at some point in the next 18-24 months.
Think about that for a minute.
A. Only 1 in 4 leads is ever totally non-productive. They may not convert now, or in the time frame the rep wants, but contrary to popular belief, it’s relatively rare for a sales lead to be total garbage. 75% of the active leads in our CRM systems RIGHT NOW are going to buy a product or service in our sector from somebody, somewhere in the next two years. So why not from you/me/us, if we’re the right fit?
B. It also seems to indicate that the need to intelligently score leads is now more critical than ever to prevent waste. 18-24 months is a long time, and no sales rep in their right mind is going to try and keep a prospect “on the hook” for a year-and-a-half. If they’re not buying now, stop wasting effort, the thought process goes, and use a long-term lead nurturing strategy . . . .
At some point, every sales manager on the planet has heard a sales rep gripe about how and when they’re getting their leads.
“Who’s deciding this?”
“Why aren’t I getting more leads?”
“Why aren’t I getting more leads from industry X / hot leads / leads for large accounts?”
Most companies struggle to find and keep a consistent stream of good, warm leads, and handing out a fresh, qualified lead can almost feel like an event in and of itself—but that doesn’t mean a rep asking these questions is out of line.
However the decision is made, the fact is that lead distribution is a selection process. Somewhere along the way, someone is making a decision about how leads are being handed out. Even if the decision is totally random / ad hoc, that’s still a decision . . . .
The Most Powerful (and simple) Lead Scoring Model We Have Tried
16 December 2009 — Ken Krogue
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There are two schools of thought around lead scoring, use lots of data and find correlations or find the datapoint with the most correlation and stick with that. Lots of data is the luxury of companies with lots of smart people and/or expensive software and is better.
For the majority of small or medium companies we like one datapoint.
And that one datapoint is offer types.
Offer types are the kinds of things you offer on your website.
Do you offer free trials or whitepapers? A free trial may be MUCH more powerful than a whitepaper. You see, they are closer to buying something with a free trial than if they are downloading a whitepaper.
We call free trials, pricing, proposal requests a “buying signal” offer.
We call whitepapers, newsletters, ebooks, and even research papers (our favorite) “tire kicker” offers.
Tire kickers promote interest, buying signals indicate need.
Interest is the counterfeit of need. But interest can become need with education and time.
Call your buying signal leads back really fast (like within 5 minutes like our MIT study says), but perhaps don’t bother calling your tire kicker leads back at all, instead you should nurture them until they return and become a […]
