Sales Leads Generation |
Posted: February 13, 2015 |
Sales leads generation can be one of the most underestimated sales activities in a business in terms of cost,time and resources needed. Building a sales pipeline regardless of how fast or slow the sales process can be,is a the stark reality before the actual sale or purchase happens (even if your business is on-line). All businesses should have a mapped out process of generating leads (visitors, inbound,outbound,on-line, events,shows, etc) and depending on the sales cycle to nurture these leads to turn suspects into prospects into sales. The point is before any sales transactions happens, a business needs a healthy and continuous pipeline of new prospects in the form of traffic, targets lists or contacts to sell to. Generating sales leads to power customer acquisition is a daily challenge for most companies and according to Forbes Magazine, more than 60% of marketers polled in a marketing survey on marketing challenges said their greatest marketing challenge for the year ahead was generating more sales leads to drive the sales engine, and approx. two-thirds (63%) reported that their marketing mix either doesn’t meet forecasted sales demand or they’re unsure of whether their mix of lead generation tactics is effective. Also some 40% of those polled cited accurate measurement and attribution of on-line digital marketing as their biggest challenge. To some surprose, a quarter (26%) of respondents said they do not track leads to any marketing program at all or they only attribute leads to one program so making the lead to conversion metirc difficult to work out. The old saying about “They know half their marketing spend works but not which half” seems to still ring true more than ever. Generating sales leads and traffic can be costly (clicks, CPL, sales hunters) so the business needs to educate everyone that without lead generation there is no sales pipeline, effecting customer acquisition rates and impacting on sales growth. The term "Smarketing" should be introduced, meaning it is the role of both the sales and marketing teams in a business to boost sales leads and reduce the cost of filling the sales pipeline funnel. Smarketing means attacking lead generation on two fronts, on-line marketing (push,pull,inbound, lead nurturing) and good old fashioned sales work as lead generation cannot be the function of marketing alone. However, lead generation is more than just implementing passive activities like social media, inbound marketing or on-line marketing tactics, the lead generation effort must work hand-in-glove with the sales teams work including hunting activities around social selling, customer acquisition and channel development. Successful companies know how to build a lead generation machine then fill the sales funnel with qualified prospects. Most small companies fail not because of product or they can’t sell but because they can’t build big enough sales funnel in a timely,cost effective way to work the sales process to drive revenue. There are multiple lead generation tools and resources, for social selling there is LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Owler and other business forums. For on-line inbound lead generation, communities like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr can deliver leads. Cost per Lead The cost per lead in customer acquisition needs to be measured across all the channels, the goal is to try and work back which channels delivered not quantity of leads or lowest cost per lead but the channel which delivers the best lead to conversion cost. An example of this is while the good old fashioned trade show might be considered very effective in generating high-quality leads, they are also expensive and what is the lead to conversation cost?. So build a lead generation process, score or segment every lead, cost every lead and educate all the sales team that when they get handed a lead it has cost the business money to get to the point of just talking. Smarketing is the future of lead generation, where sales and marketing own the leads generated and both are measured o nthe lead to conversion rate.
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