Talk to any sales person about their greatest want on a day-to-day basis and they will most likely tell you they need more leads.  Yes, I know I am picking on sales people here but because I was one and was the chief of proclaiming that we were not getting enough leads, I can do so.

The usual cycle at most companies is sales complains about not getting enough leads, marketing launches a campaign and hauls in a bunch of leads (responses is more accurate) and passes them to sales.  Sales rummages through them and finds the ones they believe have the best chance of closing, while the others are ignored.  Thus cycle then repeats itself about every 3 months.

The issue here is not sales people asking for more.  They are in sales, that is what they will do and rightly so.  The issue isn't even that there are not enough leads; the real issue is that marketing needs to do better with the leads they have.  Marketing does not need to go out and bring in a fresh crop of leads, which only adds to the problem.  What marketing (and sales) need to do is be better caretakers of the leads that have been brought in from campaigns and the web.  By implementing a lead management strategy you will change the face of your marketing department.

Implementing the right lead management strategy will have the following impacts on your organizations:

- Improved lead quality
- Increased value i.e. improved ROI
- A better pipeline
- Increased close ratios
- Increased revenues
- Happier sales people (as marketers who doesn't want that!)

As budgeting cycles for 2008 are right around the corner start looking at things differently, instead of repeating the cycle, begin allotting more of your dollars to managing the leads you have and watch the difference it makes in your organization.

We all know the big thing in marketing today is analysis and measurement of ROI.  These three letters make any marketing persons heart jump and pulse quicken as it is vital we show the continued value we are bringing to the business.  While measurement is very important (See the post "What Do They Want - July 20), it is only going half-way and not truly giving a representation of what we have done from our campaigns.

Companies launch a campaign, the responses start rolling in, they get passed to sales, the responses that turn into leads get counted, we track the leads that close and then derive the ever important ROI analysis (Note:  Some companies do this well, some do not). However, what most companies fail to do is to nurture and manage those contacts that did not go from response to lead, or lead to closed deal.  In essence they are left on the floor to dry up and die on the vine, even though the company has already paid for them.  So here we have good contacts who have responded to the message, which have been paid for and then ignored.

With this in mind next time a campaign is being measured it is only fair to measure LROI^TM or Lost Return on Investment^TM.  This is the investment that has been made in responses and/or leads that go ignored and non-nurtured.  If the money has already been spent to get them, you have to measure this against your ROI to truly get an idea of the health of your marketing.

There is a person that I know here in Dallas and we have been introduced to each other at least 5 times in the past 18 months.  I have even had dinner with this individual as part of a group of 8-10 people.  Each time I see this person, he extends his hand, introduces himself and says, "I don't believe we have ever met".  While I find this humorous and will begin soon to give other names to him each new time we "meet", it is exactly what we do in  the world of marketing. 

Companies launch a campaign, gather up a ton of responses and take the A & B leads and leave the rest to die only to have them put back into the database for the next new campaign that will run next quarter.  The next quarter comes and a new campaign is launched and all of those respondents from the first campaign who were ignored because they had a 6+ month or over timeframe, hear from us saying, "I don't believe we have met".  The already know you and in return told the company they wanted to go further in the relationship.  It is not unlike Kevin Nealon's "Mr. Short Term Memory" character on Saturday Night Live.

Instead of a continual introduction where you never get past a hello, take your hello's (responses) and manage them properly so they turn into "I do's" (closed deals).