Criteria of Efficient B2B Lead Generation Processes
My team and I are always preaching the doctrine of the consistent and predictable lead generation engine as a key part of the Lead-to-Revenue Machine. In my recent book, The Essential Guide to Building Your Lead-to-Revenue (L2R) Machine™, I included a chapter on how to build efficient lead generation processes as a key component of L2R success.
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The fact is this: Even the most creative branding and awareness-building program won’t produce the desired results unless you can efficiently work prospects through the system and produce revenue at the other end. But like everything else in marketing, you can’t improve what you don’t measure, and you need to continually evaluate your lead generation program to ensure that it meets seven important criteria:
- You use conversion ratios to monitor results at every step of the process and you utilize this data to consistently produce greater results.
- The system produces a high percentage of qualified leads relative to raw inquires (this is a key conversion metric).
- You follow up all leads in a timely manner (within 12-24 hours), except those that are obviously unqualified.
- The inbound lead flow is balanced by territory, sales reps, and product line.
- You produce inquiries/leads at a reasonable average cost per lead.
- You capture all information generated from inquiries and follow-up efforts immediately (and preferably automatically) in a database system.
- You have a systemized nurturing (remarketing) process that converts a high percentage of today’s leads to future customers.
One of the great benefits of creating an efficient lead generation engine is that it will allow you to precisely measure your cost of new customer acquisition. When you know what it costs to bring in a new customer, you can then focus on lowering this cost while simultaneously increasing the average sale amount. By manipulating these two levers, you can vastly increase your company’s success. Your CEO, board of directors and investors will all appreciate this.
Whatever your product or service, never underestimate the importance of a well-tuned B2B lead generating engine and the critical role that process modeling, testing and monitoring have on driving improvement. This is an area that can separate B2B market leaders from the also-rans. To read more about processes and the other seven components, download a free copy of The Essential Guide to Building Your Lead-to-Revenue (L2R) Machine™.
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Thank you for sharing this information, your points are spot on. I often find myself telling clients the same thing that you state early on, “you can’t improve what you don’t measure”. Lead generation is all about building upon past success and reading into the metrics available to you, which can’t be done if you have no benchmarks to pull from. This “checklist” you have set up to help evaluate the lead generation process will be a handy tool to reference, and think about.