Intelligent Demand Generation / eTrigue Corporation

A recent post to the LinkedIn Lead Generation and Nurturing group by Beau Bratton raised the question “How do you think your contact rates would differ, if you called a lead in 15 seconds instead of 5 minutes? What about after the first hour?”

This is a question that I often get asked by customers.  The eTrigue real-time lead alerts that come via email when a prospective customer is on your web site open a whole new dimension to the sales process.  It’s more than just will I connect? It’s also should I connect and if so how far should I go?

For Beau’s question, how would contact rates differ;  there have been multiple studies that find you are typically ten times more likely to contact a prospect or customer in the first half hour of their engagement of your website. This is one of the primary reasons that Intelligent Demand Generation or Marketing Automation solutions like eTrigue make sales teams so successful. A real time email lead alert with the visitors contact information, history of their overall engagement with your company, as well as the current visit details including all of the pages visited today will arm your sales team with the information to have an informed call.

Given that your company will be top of mind with a visitor; your sales team is also much more likely to have a positive engagement which will improve the likely hood that your rep can effective qualify each visitor.
To the second question, should I make contact, how quickly and how far should I go? it depends? I know I know… that’s a big help.  This question was recently addressed in a recent blog by Mike Damphousse on his Smashmouth Marketing blog: Web Leads – Pounce, Pause, Nurture or Wait? http://ww2.etrigue.com/lp/BLOG/B2damphousse.html

You can read more there, but I think that the one thing that is often overlooked… The relationship with a new prospect is a delicate dance.  Typically, a series of interactions that build the relationship by continually offering value combined with additional qualifying works best. Having the opportunity to interact with highly successful sales teams on a daily basis, my suggestion is to POUNCE! But Pounce lightly. If you make the call, you have started the relationship. You have a 10X better connect rate so that saves precious sales time and reduces overall cost of sales.  In addition if that call is an introduction, a quick question to see your offering is in their sightline and finally a close with a promise to follow up with some quality information to help them make a better decision regarding your product you have had a successful call.

They know who you are, you have given them something the helps them to build a relationship, and finally you understand their timing. This is the most important aspect. How aggressive you are all depends on timing. If they were looking at you to justify the purchase of another product, you had better get in there. If they are three months out, put them on a moderate drip program, and if they are way out, nurture slowly and follow up with a periodic qualification call.

Here is a link to an eTrigue lead alert. Are you arming your sales team with the tools they need to be successful?
http://ww2.etrigue.com/lp/BLOG/b2alerts.html

Earlier this week I had the same conversation I have with prospective customers over and over again:  “We have a lack of cooperation between the sales and marketing teams — how do we align their initiatives to create a sales funnel where both organizations contribute and are accountable for driving revenue?”

It’s comments like these that drive home the point that over 80% of B2B organizations acknowledge a lack of synergy between the sales and marketing organizations according to a just released study from the Aberdeen Group:  “Lead Lifecycle Management: Building a Pipeline that Never Leaks.”

This is one area where the implementation of the right marketing automation tool can actually force sales and marketing to work together and focus battling the competition and not each other.  The research showed that Best in Class (BIC) organizations were almost twice as likely to use lead management tools compared to Laggard organizations.

And from my perspective, when it really comes down to it, Lead Lifecycle Management is all about more sales via better lead management through automation! The need to increase sales is the driver and the solution is automating the lead generation process.

The report found that top pressures driving change in demand generation processes are: Increase top line revenue (62%); increase lead to sales rate (55%); and increase the return on marketing investments (30%).
With regard to automation,  the top two strategies being employed by companies to improve the bottom line are segmentation for more effective targeting and the development of formal nurturing programs. Aberdeen’s research also found that BIC organizations are more likely to embrace strategies to segment and target more effectively (60%) and develop formal nurturing programs (45%)as compared to Lagers with (43%) and (35%) respectively.

Aberdeen provides some real world guidance to help your organization develop more effective lead management programs. Bottom line:  companies need to generate and qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles and increase revenue.  Neither marketing nor sales can do this alone.