Four Levels to Lead Management: Closing the Loop on Marketing Campaigns

Businessman John Wanamaker has been quoted as saying, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." Ever feel like you're in the same boat with your entire marketing budget?

A recent IDC report, "CMO Advisory Best Practices Series: Marketing's Lead Management Process," details what happens when you don't have a good feel for where your best leads are coming from. Like Wanamaker, people know something is working, but they don't know exactly what, and aren't entirely sure of how to figure it out. CRM Magazine explains:

"The report finds that although 50 percent of marketing investment is allocated to demand generation, many companies still lack the set process necessary to understand its effectiveness, a crucial step in reaching the lead management holy grail: complete loop closure."

Spending money without understanding effectiveness is a dangerous game, but you don't have to play it. By using CRM software you can easily build processes to close the loop. It's a tall mountain to climb, but if you start at the bottom and keep at it, you'll get to the holy grail of complete loop closure. Here's my advice on conquering the four levels of lead management:

1.) Measure Campaign Response Rates

This is the most basic measurement you can do and fortunately for marketers can be done completely within the marketing department. Even if you aren't doing A/B Testing for your campaigns, if you gather data on enough campaigns you can soon come to conclusions such as, "Internet Banner Ads are more effective than Yellow Pages" or "Postcards promoting a holiday discount are more effective than postcards promoting just our expertise."

Those insights are good, but they aren't necessarily indicative of future sales. For that you'll need to align yourself with sales, a difficult, but very necessary partnership. Michael Gerard, of IDC, explains:

"...sales and marketing must become more closely aligned both from a strategy perspective and during the lead hand off. 'We see marketing and operations working closer together as one of the key ways companies have strived toward improving that alignment.' The report cites that this union will improve lead transfer process, lead capacity planning, and lead attendance process."

2.) Tie Sales Opportunities to a Lead Source

When I use the word Opportunity, I mean an entity in your CRM system that indicates a potential sale. So, any potential sale should instantly be tagged with a lead source, whether it came from a direct mail piece, a Yellow Pages ad, cold calling, etc... When that sale is made, you can track it back to the lead source. The marketing team should then be able to collect that data and see trends such as, "50% of business came from direct mail, 25% from an advertisement..."

You have your response rates and you have a good idea of what lead sources brought in the most business. You're getting closer to knowing where to most effectively allocate next year's budget, but it would be better still to....

3.) Tie Sales Opportunities to Specific Campaigns

Even better than knowing what type of campaign the lead came from is knowing the exact campaign it came from. Seems like the logical next step, but it adds a degree of difficulty that not everyone wants to take on. Only you can determine if the challenge is worth it, but if you can tie specific sales to specific campaigns, you will no longer be performing educated guesses about the success of your marketing campaigns. You will know for sure and can plan accordingly.

4.) Complete, Sortable Feedback from Sales

If you are able to gather the previous levels of feedback, you have essentially closed the lead loop and reached your goal, but I think you can ask for even more. The previous levels involve gathering feedback on activities that the marketing department has already performed. You get answers to, "What happened with what we did?" but not necessarily, "What should we do in the future?"

Sales can provide detailed information that allows marketing to be more forward looking and better able to target potential prospects. Answering questions such as,"Why are people buying our product?" or "Why are people choosing a competing service?" can help you with future messaging. Answering questions such as, "What type of lead goes the furthest in the sales process?" or "What type of lead closes more often?" can help you in marketing to the right people.

Comments

[Donna Konley]

How do you think about your website marketing? Reactive or proactive? The choice is yours. You can save money and time by starting with a proactive stance to determine what your customer needs and wants from your online offering.
Marketing Campaigns

[Perry]

You're right. When it comes to lead generation, the software can only do so much. A process and proper evaluation of leads should be in place. I have been using this principle for my insurance leads, and though sometimes I missed, it still allowed me to never lose a huge potential revenue for my business.