The importance of lead scoring and follow-up can make or break conversions
Every lead is not a bite. Every inquiry is not a prospect. And just because a business spends time and invests marketing dollars in “lead generation” there’s no promise of filling the sales pipeline.
The good news is, you can target your lead generation efforts, focus on capturing quality leads and nurturing true prospects, and achieve the customer attraction, retention and sales goals you have in mind. Your business can do all of this—if you have a focused strategy.
Having been in the lead-generation business since our company’s inception, Dentalcompare has been privy to lead generation best practices over the past decade. We would like to share a few essential tips for you to consider.
So, what exactly is involved in generating high-quality leads? Here are some pointers on how to:
- Capture your target audience
- Score leads effectively (inquiries vs. prospects)
- Determine the right follow-up strategy
- Convert leads into sales
Capture Quality Leads
When it comes to lead generation, quality trumps quantity. You can obtain thousands of names to fill your list of leads, but if they are not marketing qualified leads (MQLs) or better yet sales qualified leads (SQLs), then you’ve got a lot of lines cast in a pond with no fish. With these unqualified leads sales efforts often end in frustration—and no sales, and the sales team begins to distrust all leads the marketing team sends their way.
So how does one generate a MQL or SQL? Lead-generation is big business and comprises a significant part of any marketing budget. There is no shortage of articles written on this topic, and numerous strategies have been created to attract leads. What all of them have in common is that content attracts interested people, and the more enticing and rewarding the content you provide, the more likely a prospect will engage deeply enough to become a lead. The more your content meets your prospect’s need, the better the chance he or she will give you the contact information you need to follow up, nurture that interest and close a sale.
Rank Leads: Who’s A True Prospect?
Lead scoring is a method of ranking leads to determine their sales readiness. Lead scoring is based on whether a buyer is a fit for your product or service, how interested the lead is in what you have to offer, and the buyer’s stage in the sales process.
Some leads require much more nurturing than others. And some SQLs, like the ones you may have received from the Dentalcompare Product Directory, require little to no nurturing at all. By effectively scoring and ranking leads, you can invest time and resources in true prospects—the dental professionals who fit your company’s buyer profile.
Getting this right is essential before moving on to the lead nurturing and follow-up steps. Countless articles have been written on this topic as well, and it’s a topic deep enough for its own Insights article. However for now, here’s a link to a great list of lead scoring resources that can get your scoring system running on the right track.
Determine and develop the appropriate nurturing and follow-up strategies
Once your leads have been scored, you will need a plan for how to move lower scoring leads along until their scores place them in your SQL category and they can be handed off to your sales team. Just as each lead represents an individual opportunity, your nurturing strategies must be individualized to meet these prospects where they are and excite them about your products and services.
Companies that excel at lead scoring and subsequent nurturing and follow-up generate 50% more viable leads at a 33% lower cost, according to Forrester Research. So there’s a clear ROI for implementing effective nurturing and subsequent lead follow-up best practices.
So where to start? The advice trend is to start simply. Using the data from your lead scoring exercise, the next step is to develop nurturing campaigns that keep your audience engaged. Remember this is a process, and actions taken by both you and your prospects throughout your nurturing campaigns will determine the next course of action.
Many lead nurturing campaigns use content as their cornerstone with different content formats, styles and areas of focus developed and deployed to prospects at the various stages of the buying cycle. This content should not be focused on making the sale, but instead should aim to educate your audience, and position you as their resource through valuable, informative, helpful and engaging articles, videos, infographics and in-depth publications.
Experience with your scoring system and prospects who become leads at different stages should guide your efforts to develop a finely tuned nurturing system. It’s important to understand how to differentiate the leads that need more time and information and those ready for a call from a salesperson. A lead captured from a webinar registration is ready for one follow-up path that eventually leads to your sales team, while a lead submitted via the Dentalcompare Product Directory might be ready for a sales call right away. It’s all about understanding how and why your lead decided to give you his or her name and contact information.
In the experience of many Dentalcompare customers, and in the finding of lead follow-up studies we have conducted, leads from our Product Directory are often SQLs. Our research and anecdotal evidence from companies generating leads through the Dentalcompare Product Directory shows that Dentalcompare’s audience finds the site most useful when a lead gets a timely response. Those companies that contact each Dentalcompare Product Directory lead in less than 48 hours obtain the highest close rates on those leads.
Not following up on leads is a waste of resources and a bad way to address your prospects, and the importance of this is magnified when leads have higher scores. We encourage all of our listing partners to follow-up with a Dentalcompare Product Directory lead in a timely fashion, as they are generally sales-ready.
Fulfill Your Promise: From Sales to Customer Service
It’s worth it to put a solid lead management plan in place that includes integrated marketing: touching customers in a range of ways. Your sales team will be more likely to follow up on leads generated by targeted marketing efforts and the better your leads convert, the more the sales team will value them. According to Forrester Research, 46% of marketers with mature lead management processes have sales teams that follow up on more than 75% of marketing-generated leads.
However, the sale isn’t the final step in your lead generation process. It’s actually the beginning of a client relationship. After the sale you should have a plan to build trust by serving as a resource, and a trusted partner. Your content marketing and lead nurturing plans should include assets aimed new and existing customers.
An integrated marketing strategy unlocks powerful lead generation, nurturing, and sales results. Whether it’s generating a high funnel lead coupled with a content-laden lead nurturing strategy or how to best follow-up with a Dentalcompare Product Directory lead, we are here to help. If you are interested in learning more about our custom content creation services, or would be interested in more details about how Dentalcompare can help generate leads at all stages of the purchase journey, please contact your account representative or [email protected].