How to Define the Lead of Your Company's Dreams

HOW TO DEFINE THE LEAD OF YOUR COMPANY'S DREAMS Generating good leads for your database is like finding good matches on a dating website - you can't meet everybody, so you've got to come up with a way to screen. Don't waste your company's time on leads who are probably duds – invest in leads who could last a lifetime. FIRST OF ALL: WHAT IS A LEAD? Leads are people who could be You should consider people good leads when.: customers – they re still playing the field, or they're unhappy with the 1. THEY FIT YOUR COMPANY'S CUSTOMER PROFILE THEY START TO 2. EXHIBIT BUYING BEHAVIOR relationships they're in. But what makes any particular lead worth your time? EVERY COMPANY HASA DIFFERENT IDEA OF THEIR IDEAL MATCH, BUT HERE ARE SOME SMART PLACES TO START. You can't just pick a lead rating system The best place to start is with a universal lead definition... To put it bluntly: if sales doesn't think the lead is qualified, it ain't There are two elements to a lead - demographic and psychographic.….. Your definition of a leaxd will depend on from out of a book...You have to define the system with your sales partners, based on where the sales organization is your company, where you're selling, and who you're selling to. qualified. now and what they need now. ! DANIEL BURSTEIN ! TRISH BERTUZZI CRAIG ROSENBERG - Director of editorial content MECLABS President & chief strategist at The Bridge Group Sales and marketing expert/founder of the Funnelholic blog .. ...... ... HOW DO YOU QUALIFY A LEAD? DEMOGRAPHICS FIRMOGRAPHICS What's your company's "type"? Demographics are quantifiable Firmographics deal with the lead's company, rather than his identifiers which can shape your campaigns (in both B2B and or her individual identifiers. Firmographics can consist of: B2C industries) and help you target your programs, such as: COMPANY GENDER COMPANY SIZE TITLE COMPANY LOCATION COMPANY REVENUE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE NUMBER OF DIVISIONS PERSONAL EMAIL VS. CORPORATE EMAIL NUMBER OF PRODUCTS/ SERVICES SOLD EDUCATION (B2C) GEOGRAPHIC MARKETS AGE (82C) SERVED INCOME (B2C) INDUSTRY PRODUCTS ALREADY OWNED BANT This stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline - basically, a lead's stage in the buying process. If a lead seems like a good fit, his or her BANT score should be the next step in determining a good match. Budget Authority Need Timeline [L6] CAN YOUR LEAD AFFORD YOUR PRODUCT DOES YOUR LEAD HAVE THE AUTHORITY DOES YOUR LEAD HAVE A PROBLEM THAT WHAT IS YOUR LEAD'S PURCHASING OR SERVICE? HOW MUCH DOES HE OR TO PURCHASE YOUR PRODUCT? IS HE YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE CAN SOLVE? TIMEFRAME? DOES IT ALIGN WITH YOUR SHE HAVE BUDGETED FOR THE PROJECT? OR SHE THE DECISION MAKER? SALES CYCLE? SALES AND MARKETING LEAD ALIGNMENT The most important part of defining a good lead is that sales and marketing agree on the definition. As a marketer, you don't want to introduce your sales team to leads they won't like- sales might take their number, but you know they'll never call. It's hard to agree on what makes a good match, but here are some tricks for agreeing on the lead of your entire company's dreams: Meet. Get key stakeholders from Ask the hard questions. both teams in a room, and Ask the hard questions. Which prospects 1. 2. talk until you've agreed on are the sales team actually speaking to, and a list of must-have qualities. what types of buyers are actually closing? Decide how good is "good enough". Maybe there are some leads your 3. A sales team won't love, but are still worth following up on. Decide on some deal-breakers. Get it in writing. Who does marketing consider Now that you have your 4. 5. a bad lead, and who does sales definition, write it down consider not worth their time? and abide by it. Iterate. As your company shifts and grows, your definition of a good lead will 6. change, so be ready to review and adjust your definition. There are plenty of leads out there, but not every lead is perfect for every company. Use this guide to determine what you're looking for, and it'll be that much easier to deliver quality, qualified leads. WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT QUALIFYING LEADS? DOWNLOAD THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO LEAD GENERATION AT WWW.MARKETO.COM/DG2LG Marketo