What is your definition of a quality lead?
June 20th, 2006 | Marilou BarsamDefining lead quality varies from company to company. Lead quality is one of the key factors when measuring ROI in a campaign. Some companies define leads as respondents that have complete and accurate registration data. Others define leads any respondents that have one valid form of communication (such as email or telephone number). While, many companies define leads as valid based on specific demographics.
I believe any respondent that has shown interest in your solutions and has an accurate form of communication should be considered a good lead. These leads may be in all stages of the buying cycle. How these leads are handled is equally important to the lead quality. When a company does not have a plan in place, there is no way to distinguish a very high quality lead vs a low quality leads. You’ll often find the overall quality of leads increase by applying the steps below. Regardless of what point of the buying cycle, all respondents should be followed up on. A follow-up marketing plan needs to be in place before the campaign launches. Below are some guidelines to improve the quality of your respondents.
1) Ask the ask right questions during the registration process to help segment respondents.
2) Tailor/customize messages to the proper segment
3) Include name of the original offer in the follow-up to generate recall
4) Provide additional offers/incentives to help bring lead through the sales cycle
5) Re-message the leads immediately
6) Avoid generic e-mail follow up
7) Send multiple follow- up emails/offers
July 19th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
The definition of a lead is as old as the sales/marketing battle itself. If marketing generates excellent leads in large quanitities and sales meets their numbers, it could only be as a result of great sales execution. If on the other hand, sales fails to meet their numbers, it will be as a result of the failure of marketing to fill the pipeline with viable leads. We’re in the software business with an average starting engagement of $80,000. We have defined our leads as hot, medium and cool. A hot lead is a prospect with a project, budget and timeline. A cool lead is a person that has identified that they need something like what we sell but have no budget or timeline but are willing to talk. These leads allow the sales staff to st the decision criteria. You can almost bet that a hot lead has had the criteria established by the competition.
July 20th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Thank you for having time to assist, and this is my first time of this kind of Net Business, and i need more support and effort to guide me. and i read to all the comments. just give me how follow every Business that you give me,
Before i put my hands off, i want to tell to all veteranse marketers, i`m a japanese, not fluent in english,after you read this message if your welling to give me.the job i`m welling to do,
Respectfully,
DWakai
August 23rd, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Dave
Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future