Improving Lead Management: Insights from B2B Marketing University

April 12th, 2010 by Jon Garcia | located in Productivity, Tips and Tricks | trackback

Did you know that something like 70% of B2B leads don’t get followed up?  I heard this surprising statistic last week at a B2B Marketing University conference, an event addressing new processes, tools, and staffing strategies to improve marketing and sales activities. The statistic, which reflected results from a B2B survey highlighted at the conference, was so surprising because every sales and marketing organization I’ve ever worked with seems to be working overtime to gather and follow up on leads.

The conference offered these valuable insights as well:

• Buyer behavior is changing dramatically as more product information becomes available online. Prospective buyers are using the Web to create a short list of product companies, and contacting sellers directly (instead of the traditional sales model of companies contacting and nurturing buyers).
• The Internet has altered the types of media buyers use to gather purchasing information. Buyers using print media, for example, to gather information has declined 10-25% while buyer using blogs, white papers, and word-of-mouth has increased over the past few years. This implies that marketers need to shift their media buying to better align with the changes in information gathering.
• Marketing’s role needs to evolve from “batch and blast” (emails) to “lead nurturing” (delivering leads to sales when prospects are close to making a buying decision). This means emphasizing lead quality over quantity, properly qualifying opportunities, and giving buyers the right information for each stage of the decision making process.
• The sales team needs to contribute more to the lead/opportunity management process by providing ongoing, accurate insight and detail about the buyer that can be captured and shared across the sales team (using CRM and business mobility tools, for example). Better insight into the buyer’s decision-making process will give the sales team the support they need to close deals.
• Marketing automation innovations—including content management, lead scoring analytics, sales lead insight tools, campaign management, web analytics, and closed-loop analytics—can be used to more accurately target potential buyers with educational content appropriate to each stage in the decision-making process.

The conference ended with a panel discussion of sales professionals from companies that had revamped their lead management processes. My favorite takeaways from this discussion included:

• Most of the work in improving lead management happens outside of software.
• Implementing changes in phases is best. As one panelist put it: “Trying to fix everything at once is like trying to boil the ocean.”
• Improving the lead management process is well worth the effort. Panelists cited increases in sales revenue of 15-30%.

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