Lead generation -- risk of too many leads

[LoveGolf]

We have all kinds of ideas about how to generate leads for the Company but I am worried that I would swamp sales and many of the leads would go unqualified. Unfortunately, we think the timing of our market is a good one for running these campaigns and we are hesitant to wait six months for sales to either add some people or get through the leads already generated. What should I do? I have the budget now and want to spend it?

[cadman_chui]

LoveGolf,

What a great problem to have! If you have an opportunity to generate qualified leads and have the budget, don't wait, generate them now. After you've generated those leads you have 2 options:

1. Have sales agree to follow up with those leads and work with the head of sales to design a SPIF that will accelerate the follow-up and track them on a weekly basis. The results of the SPIF must be reviewed by the management team to keep the pressure on the sales staff to follow through.

2. Outsource preliminary lead qualification to a third party. This method can appear to be less effective because the 3rd party will not have as much experience with your product as your internal sales team. You must invest time with the outsourcer to train their sales people, and document / flow-chart your questions and responses to be used when they perform their follow-up calls. The qualified leads then get handed to sales and again, the head of sales must be on top of his / her people to follow up.

Best regards,
Cadman.

[LoveGolf]

Thanks Cadman -- all that is very helpful. What about taking the money for leads and putting it into some other aspect of marketing as I don't want to push sales that much? I suppose most marketing activities would generate leads at some level -- do you think turning the pot into a SPIF program for partners would also be good, or is leads still the thing I should primarily focus on?

[cadman_chui]

Many people will disagree with me and call it 1-dimensional in thinking but I believe leads in the end are what you're after. Whether it's generated by good PR, brand awareness, website optimization / presence, analyst relations, references, case studies, whitepapers, trade shows, advertisements etc, the end goal is to get people to you and convert them to sales.

What you might want to focus on if you don't want to push sales too much is the second part of the equation: focus on improving the opportunity to sales ratio of your sales team so that they may be more effective at closing existing deals. Things like developing materials like good whitepapers or case studies, or developing product marketing materials such as competitive analysis, how to overcome objections etc to enhance your existing sales team's ability to convert existing leads.


Cadman.