Dental marketers are always looking for leads from dentists interested in their products. Numerous strategies are employed to generate those leads, and a number of factors related to those strategies impact the value of the lead and should dictate the follow-up approach you take. Whether it’s a tire kicking print bingo card from a print magazine or a sales-ready lead generated by a dentist researching and selecting a product from Dentalcompare’s online Product Directory, it’s important for you to have a plan for how to manage every lead you generate.
Having solid lead management strategies in place and a ready response plan are keys to taking the guesswork out of your next steps after receiving a lead. Unfortunately, too many marketers are slow to respond to leads or they respond inadequately or not at all. This results in potential customers going to competitors and marketing investments wasted.
We strongly encourage marketers to establish solid lead follow-up and lead management processes to win business from qualified leads and achieve a return on your marketing investment.
1. Start by Scoring Leads
Scoring is a way to prioritize leads for proper follow-up. The scoring system you use can be anything that works for your company—as long as both sales and marketing teams are coordinated about the lead scoring criteria. Typical approaches include giving a lead a numerical score, or placing leads into figurative buckets such as Cool-Warm-Hot.
Higher scoring leads might be immediately ready for salespeople. Lower scoring leads might belong in marketing’s lead nurturing program. Having sales and marketing work together to determine the point at which a lead is handed off from marketing to sales for the next stage of follow-up is a big part of your lead scoring process
Weighted attributes that make up a score could be:
- Source of lead: The source of a lead is often a good indicator of its quality. Is the lead from a highly respected source or is it a generic web query? For example, leads from Dentalcompare’s Product Directory have already narrowed down their selection of which manufacturer they want to engage with, have clicked on a call to action such as “Get Info” or “Request A Quote”, completed and submitted a form, and been processed and qualified by the Dentalcompare team. In other words, these leads are motivated.
- Information collected on the lead: The more information you have about a lead, the better you can engage with them in a relevant manner and help them along their buying journey. A completed submission form might include name, company, product interest area, buying time frame, etc. This data can be augmented with outside sources, such as details about the practice specialty, or other technologies or products the dentist uses. These extra details can change a lead’s score and help with pre-call sales planning.
- Lead profile: How similar is this lead to the profile of the best customers in your database? If there’s a close match, you likely have a good lead. Knowing details of leads that converted to sales in the past can inform leads in the future.
- Lead activity: Has this lead engaged with your company in the past? Have they downloaded content or attended a webinar or subscribed to an email? If so, they likely get a higher score.
2. Match Lead Source to Stage of Buy Cycle
Which lead is closer to making a buying decision, one that came from a “Get Info” submission or one from an eBook download? Most likely the former lead is on the verge of a decision, while the latter lead is earlier in the buy cycle, perhaps only exploring needs and possibilities.
Matching sales leads to their buy cycle stage can help you score leads more accurately, and moreover, can provide insight on how to respond appropriately. Research into how dental professionals learn about and choose the products they buy can help map the types of information they rely on during each phase of their buying journey.
Although the phases and associated content are not exclusive buckets, they do align with the dental professional’s buying journey. The chart below provides hints as to what buying journey phase a lead might be in when you first become aware of them. Use this information to help plan an appropriate response.
3. Time Your Response
You know the proverb “Timing is everything.” It’s especially true when responding to leads. Dentalcompare research shows companies that followed up in a timely manner had a 75 percent increase in lead conversion to a sale versus those that did not.
What constitutes a timely manner? Consider that we’re living and working in internet time, and that people expect fast responses to their inquiries or they will move on to another company that seems more interested in meeting their needs.
Research shows responding within 1 to 2 days is the best approach to online leads. A timely response shows dental professionals that your company is reputable and interested in earning their business.
This also points out the importance of timely delivery of leads from your media partners. Make sure you work with a media partner that delivers leads to you quickly—on the same day they are generated is best. Otherwise, your opportunities for a timely response drop.
Score leads, match content accessed by each lead to their position in the buying cycle, and respond quickly and appropriately—these three key strategies can help you achieve your customer acquisition goals faster and more effectively.