No Lead Left Behind

Thanks for the Sales Lead! Now What?

OK, so you’ve done your job as a marketer.  You have a lead that you’ve grabbed and nurtured from vague interest to “sales ready”.  You are now ready to hand that lead off to the Sales organization. So, off it goes, and your job, other than knowing whether the lead is closed or not, is finished.  Right?  Not so fast.

Even assuming that your sales and/or dealer organizations are properly trained in lead follow-up and closing sales, you can (and should) do more.  Every lead travels a slightly different path on its way to becoming sales-ready.  Just like you try to design your nurturing campaigns in an effort to achieve “one-to-one” customized communications, the follow-up effort should be similarly customized.  For example, if the trigger to escalate a lead to “sales ready” is a series of systematic visits to your website, consider providing input to the sales resource about how to approach that lead. It’s probably not a good idea for the sales person to contact that lead and say “Thanks for visiting our website this morning, are you ready to buy?” Prospective customers don’t necessarily get a good feeling when they are reminded that their behavior is being tracked.  Instead, the sales person may want to introduce themselves as the local resource and then begin inquiring about their needs.

It’s probably not realistic to assume most sales or dealer organizations can remember how to approach different leads with the perfect follow-up message.  However, with the automation options available today, you should consider providing very specific guidance on how to follow-up certain leads based on their source, history and escalation triggers.  You can deliver leads not only with an activity profile, but also with scripting hints to optimize the follow-up messaging.  And you can build in additional triggers to assist the sales people or dealers with the timing of their follow-up activities.  Think of it as a nurturing campaign for the sales folks.

Get known not only for providing great sales leads, but also for giving great insights on lead follow-up!

JT McDonald