Taking the Mystery Out of Qualified Lead Generation

For some companies, being able to generate qualified leads and turn them into sales can seem a mystery at best. Unfortunately, without these leads, these companies and perhaps even your sales team are wasting their marketing dollars and time. A detailed lead generation plan will take the mystery out of the process.

Increase Your Qualified Leads with a Detailed Plan

Your plan should include the following:

  • Building a Measured Process
  • Developing Your Lead Scoring
  • Knowing Your Target Audience
  • Understanding Your Sales Cycle
  • Improving Your Conversion Point

Build a Measured Process for Your Lead Generation

Too often, in today's digital marketing climate, companies take the approach of throwing their marketing dollars at the wall to see what will stick. Having a measured process and a detailed plan to capture qualified leads enables you to know your target market as well as an understanding of your own sales cycle.

Adding in lead scoring and a way to tie sales to marketing will go a long way in increasing your qualified leads and finally, your sales.

Develop Your Lead Scoring

Starting with the understanding that not all leads are created equally, you need to develop a system to score your leads. For example, I use a score of one to five. I know that a lead with a score of one is not a good fit for my business, so I will not spend a great deal of time on it.

On the other hand, a score of five tells me that this lead is a hot prospect. Scoring allows me to put my efforts where they will do me the most good. I detail this more in my 1st LinkedIn Marketing Book: Branding & Sales: The LinkedIn Way, in the Chapter on Lead Scoring. You can view a free sample of the book on Amazon.

Know Your Target Audience

Knowing your target audience is more than simply knowing who they are. You also need to understand:

  • Where are they
  • How they buy
  • What the corporate decision tree looks like
  • How are they influenced
  • How long it takes to develop a relationship

For example, Old Spice, determined that their audience enjoys humor and spends time on YouTube. Last year, they began a YouTube campaign for their body wash which increased their sales a staggering 55% in just a three month period. We know we measure sales by quarter in the B2B world. This example shows the impact of appropriate social media sales efforts on sales quarterly quota.

Understand Your Sales Cycle

While your marketing team may be marketing experts, they may not know what the sales team needs to drive sales. There is an easy fix for this. When your marketing and sales teams work together, you can find the necessary balance between the sales plan and the digital marketing plan.

Improve Your Conversion Point

Very often, a stumbling block to qualified leads is your conversion point. Whether it is a website or a social media outlet or some combination, it must include what your potential client is looking for.

For example, if your target audience is a partner in a mid-size law firm that has a say in bringing outside trainers into the company, they aren't scouring the web to find you. They have someone else doing that job with criteria they have provided.

This means your conversion point must meet this criteria to have any hope that your potential client will move further down the sales cycle.

Having a detailed lead generation plan upfront will ensure your digital marketing hits the mark. By investing the time in the planning stage, the marketing and lead generation will fall into place effortlessly. In my next post, I will go into detail about how to develop a lead generation plan.

Great article. Valuable information.

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