How to boost the sales pipeline & shorten the sales cycle

In normal markets a few leading companies understand the dramatic boost to their business that an effective and sustained lead generation campaign can bring.  Three main benefits are: shorter sales cycles, higher win rates and more effective use of sales people's time.  Most businesses, for reasons unknown, don't give proper attention to this subject and in a downturn or a tough market an effective lead generation campaign can make the difference between survival and failure.

The stakes then are high; the question is will more companies take steps to implement effective lead generation?  A tough market should be a catalyst for doing this immediately and a core requirement is that both sales and marketing co-operate in every respect of the campaign.  Any resistance from sales about quality of leads and quick follow up or unwillingness of marketing to modify the campaign based on constructive sales feedback will doom the campaign to failure.

3 steps to implementing an effective lead generation and management campaign

1. Understanding the market
   Once objectives for the campaign are defined sales and marketing must agree a definition of the ideal customer -in part by looking at existing customers.  What are their needs, what is their pain (what problem are they trying to solve) what is the job role of the buyer (or buyers), what benefits did they see in the product (or service) that caused them to buy, and what triggered the decision to buy - as opposed to delaying a decision, what they replaced with your product, how did they get to hear about your company.  This will help you shape the value proposition of your product for use in the lead generation campaign. 
   
   Current performance statistics should be agreed prior to the campaign starting including: the number of enquiries to leads, leads to qualified sales opportunities and to orders.  Length of sales cycle should also be understood.
   
   It is a good idea at this stage that the sales and marketing team understand the challenges to success of the campaign which can include: poorly qualified leads which are in reality only enquiries, lack of sales follow up - either at all or quickly, no feedback mechanism either way between sales and marketing, no rating, scoring or common agreement of lead categories and a lack of leadership support
   
   
2. Lead management
   A shared database between sales and marketing is the building block of all campaigns with jointly defined fields of data that need to be held on each customer and potential customer.  Many companies "lose" leads when trying to operate two separate databases and give up synchronizing them which makes effective measurement, reporting and improvement of the campaign impossible.
   
   Marketing and Sales must agree on how to score and categorise leads to ensure that for example early stage enquires are not miss-described as leads and that equally sales ignore a "hot" qualified lead.
   
   
3. Planning & executing a lead generation campaign
   Clear objectives and a "unity of purpose" between sales and marketing are the building blocks of an effective campaign.  Assuming the value proposition is already defined then a set of proof and interest points of it need listing for use in the campaign, not least by inside sales people.  Lead generation operates in today's "noisy" market where we all suffer from too much communication of all types.  This means it must focus in on exciting and interesting benefits to arouse the attention and interest of potential customers.  Next a list of questions can be created which will gather the information from the prospective customer to correctly identify their position in the sales cycle (cold warm or hot).
   
   A wide choice of mediums exist for use in lead generation ranging from the internet, to events, phone calls, PR & Advertising.  Good campaigns often include combinations of several types of medium in order to engage potential customer's attention and eventually cause them to want contact from a sales person.
   
   When customers buy is probably the most neglected aspect of lead generation and is responsible for a lot of wasted time created from premature leads being given to sales.  Leads must be "nurtured" by the campaign until they meet the pre-agreed criteria which dictate they are ready to be passed to sales.  At this point if existing customers are likely to buy more products then care must be taken to address them in a specific way in the campaign.
   
   Finally measurement of the campaign's results with regular and public attention to the campaign by both sales and marketing leaders and a willingness to "performance tune" it based on factual feedback will send a signal to everyone about the importance and value of the lead generation campaign.

For a fuller discussion of this and other best practices of sales leadership our online course called How to protect your topline in a downturn (buy now at 50% off).

Richard Lowe
www.lets-begin.com