Prospect Management Part 2: MQLs, SQLs, Scoring…What?
September 19th, 2008 | Dave BaileyProspect Management is the process of qualifying and nurturing leads that have been generated through Inquiry Management. These are the leads that are not yet ready to be passed to your sales organization but have potential for future business. They have demonstrated interest in your company or product. These are the majority of leads that are typically generated by your marketing program efforts.
Consider this: Not every lead generated online deserves a phone call as the first step in the follow-up process! Remember, people research online for a reason. Just because they downloaded a white paper or attended a Webcast does not necessarily mean they are ready for a phone call from you. There needs to be a transition from online research activities to offline interaction. One approach could be to use video, chat, or blogs to assist in that transition. This “virtual” interaction is a way to keep the buyer in control but start the process of that one-to- one interaction.
In the prospect management stage, leads are qualified, scored and processed according to pre-determined criteria that examines budget, authority, need and timeframe. When this information is known, the lead can be passed to sales as a priority lead requiring rapid follow-up, or a lead that needs further nurturing and communication.
Prospect Management best practices include:
- A system to capture and consolidate prospect data — and qualification criteria — in searchable fields for reporting and future targeting
- A systematic approach to “active” prospects that are being qualified and the “passive” inquiries that are being nurtured. Defining content for each type is critical to success
- Communicate with prospects to qualify and quantify the opportunity
- Create a systematic nurturing system, and make it as targeted and personalized as possible, but with the ability to scale as needed
- Nurturing can be done through multiple touch points; i.e. online, events, phone, etc.
- Nurturing system can be structured by contact, company, interest, title, behavior, etc.
- Measure time to MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), to SQL (Sales Qualified Lead), to appointment scheduled for every lead
Lead nurturing allows you to maintain contact with longer term leads until the lead is ready to be advanced into the sales cycle. When the lead is closer to making a purchase, it can then be passed on to sales.
What are you doing to manage and nurture leads that works particularly well? What have you tried that didn’t deliver the desired results?
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Thanks for the reminder that not all leads need a call right away from sales, particularly when the prospect’s activity is just online research. What specific guidelines would you give to determine whether a phone call from sales is premature?
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Well, this may not be the exact answer you were hoping for but, it depends. There may be “special situations” that warrant going right to a phone call. For example, if you have a major account program in your sales organization, sales may want to control all communication with new or existing prospects within those accounts. I think in general though you should look at behavior, data that you gather, and the type of content the prospect has or is reviewing.
By behavior I’m referring to frequency of visits, how many downloads and in what period of time. Someone who has looked at a couple of white papers and attended a webcast in a 30 day timeframe, I think you can approach to have a good conversation. To extend that, if you are also gathering information about their current/future project (budget, authority, need, timeframe…) depending on the information you gather, this could also dictate a call if, for example, someone is making a decision in 30 days.
Finally, reviewing and keeping track of the type of content would lend some insight into where the prospect is in the buying cycle. For example, someone downloading a whitepaper on a topic that discusses a problem like Understanding Bottlenecks and Bandwidth Management in the data center, could be in the early stages of research. Versus someone downloading trial software is more likely working off of a shortlist and in the evaluation and decision stage of their buying process. I’m starting to get into lead scoring methodology which really warrants another blog series posting. I hope this helps.