A new report has highlighted key marketing mistakes to avoid during the recession, and highlighted the need for stronger accountability and metrics during the economic downturn.
The report, published by marketing automation firm Eloqua, outlines key strategies for B2B marketers to emerge stronger after a recession.
Titled ‘The Springboard Effect’ the report highlights key pitfalls made by marketers failing to capitalise on leads, and outlines strategies to help maximise opportunities and increase sales in a downturn.
Eloqua outlines the importance of analysing the economics of the sales and marketing funnel and how simply measuring click through and website visits is no longer a strong enough measure of marketing effectiveness.
Marketers instead need to look at how to optimise conversion rates throughout the marketing and sales pipeline, improving the rate at which current leads are qualified, routed, accepted by sales teams, included in forecasts and ultimately closed.
According to Eloqua’s report, on average B2B organisations convert fewer than 60 per cent of marketing leads into sales leads. By integrating sales and marketing databases and employing lead management and routing processes to improve lead handoff, businesses can boost this rate significantly.
The report highlights the importance of generating high volumes of responses, and while increasing inquiries by only one or two percent can have a significant impact on final revenue, greater emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring these leads are qualified and rated according to importance.
According to industry research firm Aberdeen Group, companies with the best lead prioritisation and scoring systems have a 192 per cent higher average lead qualification rate than those that do not.
By implementing lead profile scoring systems to rank respondents according to interest and deploying advanced marketing techniques such as segmentation, personalisation and event triggered automation, businesses can significantly increase the number of qualified leads sent to a sales team.
Commenting on the report, Stuart Wheldon, Director of Client Services, EMEA & APAC for Eloqua said: “In today’s economic climate it is increasingly important that marketers adapt strategies to help sales teams identify, prioritise and respond to revenue opportunities. Marketers are heavily involved in revenue creation – not only do they help drive leads to the top of the sales funnel, but also help provide content and market intelligence to keep new prospects interested.”
“The report highlights the need for B2B organisations to adopt a more intelligent approach and ensure that the right information is with the right team at the right time to best capitalise leads. Customers are increasingly demanding a more personalised approach and it is therefore vital that organisations understand prospect’s wants and needs, building strategies that not only help grow in a recession but also strive ahead of competitors and create a springboard effect when the market recovers.”
Source: http://www.netimperative.com/
1 comments:
It's important for any company to not only have a set of qualification criteria, but to review and change the criteria as business conditions and other forces change the profile of a qualified lead. I have worked with clients and taken an approach that examines risks and opportunities, and converts those into questions that are used to uncover facts in the early sales process. To learn more, you can access a free article on the topic "Asking to Send Literature is not Lead Qualification." http://www.customerthink.com/blog/asking_send_literature_not_lead_qualification. A detailed paper on lead qualification processes and questions can be downloaded through www.tidwit.com/outsidetechnologies
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