Improve Sales Lead Generation via Marketing Analytics Part 1: Four Steps
When it comes to improving sales lead generation results, using marketing technology without analytics expertise and business acumen results in a numbers glut devoid of action items. And analytics expertise without leveraging technology results in uninformed “what ifs” and conjecture.
It is only by combining the two that organizations can successfully drive sales lead generation performance improvements, and this blog is the introduction to a three-part series focusing on marketing analytics as a critical success factor in delivering the right number of more highly qualified leads.
I was greatly appreciative to be named the Analytics Marketer of the Year at the 2011 Tech Marketing Awards ceremony presented by the Technology Association of Georgia. This award was made possible because of our team’s ability to develop and apply marketing analytics innovations that improve operational efficiencies and deliver to clients the qualified leads they need.
When PointClear engages with marketing and sales executives at technology, healthcare and BPO services companies with complex offerings, the primary objective of our sales lead generation, lead qualification, and lead nurturing services is to help them close more deals at higher deal sizes.
Regular marketing analytics reviews are critical success factors supporting our mission. Embedded in every client program, they help us identify the right prospects and convert them to qualified leads. They also optimize sales lead quality, lead rates, lead velocity and resource productivity.
I’d like to make a comment on the role of technology in our marketing analytics process. We have invested in or internally developed applications that address functionality related to CRM, database management, call center productivity and marketing automation. Yet no single application—and not even all applications together—can provide the answers that drive desired process improvements. Rather, technology is being used as the underlying platform and the assist that enable in-depth analysis.
Following are the processes or lever types that make up best-practice marketing analytics reviews.
1. Data tracking, aggregation and measurement
A comprehensive sales lead generation contact strategy employs a multi-touch, multi-media and multi-cycle approach that continuously reaches out to decision makers across a number of sales cycles to deliver qualified leads. Applications should be used to track the number and frequency of touches, aggregate information, and align data points with outcomes.
2. Assessment and recommendations
The analysis phase is where business acumen comes into play. Raw metrics should be reviewed and probed for links among seemingly unrelated findings. Apply expertise in data interpretation and create alternative “what if” scenarios. This process results in the identification of recommended courses of action that are likely to improve sales lead generation results.
3. Segmentation and testing
The next step is to employ market segmentation, prioritizing and testing to identify prospects more likely to buy—as well as buy at larger deal sizes. Based on our findings in the assessment and recommendations phase, we segment prospects into “cubes” of like companies based on the relevant variables to be tested. We then contact the discrete segments in a series of identical outbound tests.
4. Validation and full deployment
As results of the market segmentation tests come in and confirm improved program traction, roll out the enhancements in a new, higher-level execution cycle to generate additional qualified leads.
This continuous program improvement driven by marketing analytics results in more qualified leads that lead to revenue-generating results faster and more efficiently.
I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about these ideas with Todd Schnick on his IntrepidTV program recently, and here is the video of our conversation:
Here are time marks for several key areas we discussed:
2:30 min—The definition of sales lead management.
4:15 min—How analytics are used in lead generation.
1. Performance of our programs for the client.
2. Provide clients with marketing intelligence.
3. Identify areas and/activities to help prospects close faster.
5:45 min—Data categories and how we gather and use them.
1. Static data about prospects.
2. Environment of an organization.
3. Prospect behavior—hits the client’s website, visits a tradeshow, etc.
12:30 min—How to overcome objections to tracking so much data and the positives that result from it.
15:00 min—How analytics can help bridge the gap between sales and marketing.
17:20 min—How analytics will change things in the next 5 to 10 years.
In blogs two and three in the series, I’ll provide specific examples of how the use of marketing analytics results in improved sales lead generation (Part 2), as well as share findings from measuring and assessing combined program results (Part 3).