Welcome to the first article in our new series on lead generation: Lead Gen in 10. The premise is simple. Quickfire, practical, hands-on exercises that will improve every aspect of your lead generation process.
In this piece, we’ll cover how to define an ideal lead for your business. And how to get marketing and sales to agree on that definition. This exercise is pretty straightforward and won’t take you long, but you will need some of your marketing and sales leaders’ time.
What you’ll need: A pen and pad. A meeting room or video call.
Who you’ll need: The marketing and the sales leaders
Time you’ll need: Between 2-3 hours total
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Marketing might define a qualified lead as someone who clicked a link in an email or signed up for a webinar. Sales might define it as someone who has already decided to buy and is looking for the right partner. This stage is designed to show how different their viewpoints may be.
Avoid ‘leading the witness’ - don’t share the definition you’ve already created as an example. The more open-ended you make this exercise, the more original insight you will generate from your sales and marketing people.
At this stage, you should have three different definitions for an ideal qualified lead. Now, you need to come to a common agreement. Think of this as a reality check for all parties. You want to see how compatible they are, and how you can reconcile any differences.
If both sides come back with totally different definitions, this might seem like a bad thing. In reality, it’s a massive win. By highlighting these differences, you’re giving each side the chance to understand the other. And hopefully, to work towards a shared definition and solution.
For instance, sales may want qualified leads from people who have their chequebook open and a pen in hand, but the discussion needs to focus on how you could identify such people. Similarly, if marketing provides sales with every person who has clicked on an email, do they have the bandwidth or motivation to follow them all up?
What’s often needed at this stage is some kind of pre-qualification engagement to bridge the gap between marketing and sales. The objective here is to learn a little more about the individual's needs, urgency and role in the decision-making process.
This can take many forms, such as a telemarketing call, a well-crafted email nurture stream or an interactive piece of content. For instance, we use our Marketing 360 assessment.
Once agreed, you need to share this definition with sales, marketing and your senior team. Your new definition of a qualified lead should become central to your marketing and sales strategy.
Share it via email, present it to the company at a monthly meeting, hang it on the wall. The important thing is that it’s communicated and referred back to on a regular basis.
We know how hard it is for business owners to find the time to take a step back and review their marketing performance. The Marketing 360 assessment takes just 10 minutes to complete and will give you an objective view of what’s going well and what you should focus on.
Click here to get your Marketing Maturity Score.