In Pursuit of Qualified Leads

Ask most executives what their sales teams need in order to sell more in this challenging economy, and most will say they need more leads. Ask the same question to a sales person, and you’ll very likely get a different answer.

Sales people don’t want more leads; they want more selling time with qualified leads.

So how do you determine where to focus marketing efforts to ensure better qualified leads?

Here are a few strategies:

1) Based on historical sales data, segment your markets to identify which prospects have been most likely to buy from you.
2) Determine which targeted marketing approach has been most successful at reaching those individual prospects (web, outbound calls, direct mail, etc).
3) Develop messaging that will capture attention and motivate these prospects to engage with you right now.
4) After launching the marketing campaign, track the disposition of those leads to determine which segments are responding most often and which marketing efforts are generating the most leads.

The truth is only 10-15% of all potential prospects are in need of your products or services.

Like panning for gold, the prospecting and qualifying process helps you find the right ones to focus your revenue-generating sales people on; and just as importantly, reveals which companies not to waste time on.

Organizations that can quickly and cost effectively separate the real opportunities from the resource drains are the ones winning today.