How to Use CRM to Generate Better Leads

It’s a common problem. The marketing group claims to have generated a bucketful of leads that (according to the marketing folk) the sales team ignored. At the same time, the sales team complains that the leads they get from marketing are basically worthless. Rather than letting the two groups argue about it, why not use your CRM system to help these groups work together? Here’s how it’s done.

Marketing is well aware that increasing lead generation is their primary function. However, marketing has a tendency to think any contact that materializes after a marketing campaign is automatically a good lead. But, as any sales rep knows, just because somebody answered an advertisement or replied to a direct mailer doesn’t make them a qualified prospect.

In order to provide truly qualified leads, marketing should use the CRM system to develop the leads from “suspects” into “prospects” before they pass them along to sales. The key to doing this is using the CRM system to better understand the prospects’ needs and to communicate those needs more effectively to the sales team. Then, once the sales team is provided with the lead, they need to use the CRM system to provide feedback to the marketing team, thereby raising the overall quality of future leads.

In practice, when a prospect downloads a white paper from the Website – a process that involves collection of information about that prospect – that information automatically creates a “lead” in the CRM system. Based on where the lead is geographically located, or the type of information downloaded, the lead is assigned to a particular rep’s demand generation queue. The rep receives notification they have a new lead in process so that they can think about scheduling them into the pipeline.

Before handing the lead completely over to sales, though, marketing continues to develop the account, perhaps by inviting the lead to attend a Webinar, sign up for a personalized newsletter, or some other call to action. If the lead continues to respond and interact, it’s a good indication that the lead is worth pursuing. As marketing continues to interact with the lead, the information about what the lead did or said is the lead’s record. As this interaction proceeds, the salesperson can see the lead’s interest level grow and take shape.

Only after the lead has been developed to the point where it’s clear that there’s potential for a future sale is the lead transitioned over to the sales team. Using the CRM system to implement a lead generation process allows salespeople to see the leads in their queue and sort them by style – size, industry, type, and dates of interactions. This, in turn, enables the reps to develop a strategy for creating a productive conversation with whatever leads they decide to pursue.

Additionally, if the lead doesn’t “pan out,” the sales rep can then return the lead to the marketing team, along with notes or requests for additional action, such as sending the prospect additional materials. This ongoing process of feedback helps marketing personalize their interactions with the prospect and helps ensure that future leads will be more likely to result in a sale.

As you can imagine, this kind of collaborative lead development, over time, adds enormous value to a firm’s ability to effectively utilize prospect data. Marketing can now see how their efforts are received and how the leads progress through the sales process. Marketing can measure their ability to advance leads through the system, thereby making it possible to calculate the actual ROI that marketing achieves through demand generation activities. The constant interaction between the marketing and sales teams also helps marketing refine their marketing behaviors and focus on activities and “calls to action” that are more likely to produce a successful transition from prospect to customer.

The above is based upon information provided by Ardath Albee, president of Einsof, Inc., and an expert at helping clients leverage their Websites and sales portals. She can be reached at ardath@einsof.com.