Aligning Sales and Marketing with Effective Lead Scoring Techniques

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Introduction

BtoB marketers increasingly measured and rewarded for providing Sales with a continuous flow of high-quality, closable leads.

Requires a highly automated lead generation, scoring and nurturing process.

Webcast will focus on creating a solid foundation using an automated lead scoring process.

Will Schnabel

VP & GM, EMEASilverpop

Audio Dial-In Information: (641) 715-3222, access code 371-308-461

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Product Marketing – 2% Marketing

Communications – 12%

Hiring – 10%

Market Definition –20%

Sales Process – 10%

52%Lead

Generation

Leads – Your Marketing Team’s Biggest Challenge

52% of marketing organizations say lead generation is their #1 marketing challenge

Source: Sirius Decisions

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From Too Many “Leads” … to Not Enough?

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Recession: The Question Now is For How Long?

Marketing Budgets? Typically – frozen or cut

ROI/Spend Decisions? Cut marketing activities that don’t lead to near-term

sales

Revenue? Management focuses on immediate/short-term

revenue

Resources? Make do with what you have

Measurement? Real-time, accurate – hard, not soft- ROI focused

Targeting Current Customers? Increased focus on existing relationships

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What Does This Mean? – Opportunities for B2B Marketers

Automate lead management processesOptimize demand generation campaignsFocus on:

Nurturing the “A” and “B” lead poolCross-selling/Up-selling existing customers

Focus measurement on outputs:Revenue# Sales-ready leadsCost per win/Cost per sales-ready lead

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The Marketing and Sales Divide

Marketing

• “They don’t follow up on any leads we give them”

• “A lead to them is a sale”

• “They ‘cherry-pick’ and act like they know what the leads want before calling them”

• “They don’t even look at half of the leads we give them”

Sales

• “We have no visibility into what they are doing”

• “We need more support from them”

• “The leads they pass to us are worthless”

• “They don’t understand who our target market is”

Audio Dial-In Information: (641) 715-3222, access code 371-308-461

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Marketing’s Opportunity & Responsibility

82.5% are ready to buy or will buy

70% are long-term opportunities – Marketing Territory

An estimated 70-90% of leads generated by marketing are never followed-up with by sales

Source: MarketingSherpa

Audio Dial-In Information: (641) 715-3222, access code 371-308-461

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So…Marketing’s Role Has to Change

Need to be “lead developers” not just “lead generators”

Only 6 percent of organizations rate themselves as “excellent” demand creators*

These organizations have three consistent attributes

Effective Sales/Marketing Communications

Clear Definition of a Lead

The ability to track and manage leads

* SiriusDecisions 2007 Demand Creation Study

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Keys to Maximizing Lead Management

1.Optimized lead Capture

2.Scoring leads – assigning priorities

3.Timely lead routing and follow up by sales

4.Automating the lead nurturing process

5.Measuring marketing effectiveness

Audio Dial-In Information: (641) 715-3222, access code 371-308-461

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Scoring assigns worth, and directs future marketing actions

Scoring can determine threshold for lead qualification & transfer to Sales

Supported by cultivation strategy

1-to-1 communication vital in moving sales process forward

Automation takes the burden off the marketing department

Lead Scoring is critical to Lead Management

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Lead Scoring…a definition

A relative ranking of one prospect versus another

A way to make an unbiased determination of which prospective buyers are ready for more attention from your organization

A way to decide which function should pay that attention

A way to learn what makes up your ideal buyer profile

Score: To evaluate and assign a grade to.

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Lead scoring is just emerging in the B2B world

Yes53%No

32%

In Process15%

Scoring System to Judge When a Lead is Ready for Transfer, Organizations 100MM+* Many organizations do not

adhere to the principles of the Lead Spectrum

Methodologies tend to be single-category focused, resulting in too many “false positives”

More guidelines than absolutes; significant variations within organizations

Not predictive

Analysis

* SiriusDecisions 2008

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How is a lead defined?

Download a Whitepaper

5000Employees

VP Sales

$100MCompany

EvaluatingSolutions

Has2009

Budget

NeedsFit

Solution

Visited Website Last

Week

1515

Grouped into Categories

Download a

Whitepaper

5000Employees

VP Sales

$100MCompany

EvaluatingSolutions

Has2009

Budget

NeedsFit

Solution

Visited Website

Last Week

Demographic

BANT

Activity

1616

Demographics

Individual

Title/level

Department

Role in company (financial, technical, business, relationship)

Buying position (influencer, decision maker, sponsor)

Business/Organization

Revenues

Employees

Industry/vertical

Experience buying products/ services that you sell

Company Relationship

“Fit” with your value proposition

1717

BANT

Traditional approach of Budget, Authority, Needs, and Timeframe

Can cause often-times “false positives”

Difficult to collect

Must be used in conjunction with other categories

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Activity

Frequency of contact

Recency of contact

Web behavior

Campaign behavior (e.g. email interactions)

Specific Actions (downloaded a whitepaper, watched a webinar)

Can you determine the pattern of activities that indicated who is more likely to become a customer?

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No.

Of C

lose

d O

ppor

tuni

ties

(or $

)

Activity/Behavior

DownloadWP A

E-Bookcampaign

Web Activity

In Last 5Days

Visitedwebsite

>10 times

ViewedOnlineDemo

SubscribesTo

Newsletter

NurtureCampaign

TradeshowVisit

LandingPageOffer

Use your sales data to learn

2020

All Categories are Required

• Profile of target buyer

• Can you supplement with third-party data?

• What happens when your target changes

• Is this different by product line?

• Tire kickers

• Need to be adjusting the activity scoring

•Takes time and technology to understand the appropriate patterns of activity

• Buyers are liars

• Most of us know how the game is played

•Depending on type of demand, could be less relevant (realistic)

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Demographic

BANT

Activity

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Lead Scoring- Explicit Data

Defines the right lead based on your target market segmentScoring performed on a unified database to ensure consistency across all leads

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Lead Scoring- Implicit Data

Scores ActivityRecency and frequency scores with automated discountsApply points for important interactions indicative of interest

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Bringing it all together

Rank Leads by Score Identifies buying phase

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Using Lead Score, map communications to prospect’s buying cycle with agreed-upon action plans

Search for Solutions

Evaluate Solutions

Recognize Need

Justify Solution

Purchase

Evaluate Decision

Interaction

Create Interest- Whitepaper

Edu-sell communications- Case Studies

Purchase and Validate- Free Trial, Discount Offers

1

3-X

X+

Consider Solutions- Webinars & Demo2

Lead Score, Now What?

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Example – Tradeshow Leads

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Tracking a Lead From First Tough to Lifetime Customer

Scoring is key to determining the hand-off between Marketing and Sales

Marketing Qualified

Inquiries

Sales Qualified

Sales Accepted

Impressions

Marketing

Sales

New Business

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Include both explicit and implicit factors Get buying from all key stakeholders Weighted across all attributes

Factor time decay in activity scores

Don’t require all information up front Allow scores to be updated with 3rd-party information or verified info (w/

telemarketing)

Link follow-up to lead score approach Set rules for lead transfer to sales, and alerts sales on ‘hot’ leads

Automatically links to nurture campaigns and recycle ‘rejected’ leads

Provide real-time rescoring & analysis of success

Successful Lead Scoring

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Summary

Use automated Demand Generation to become lead developers:

• Capture• Score• Route• Nurture• Measure

…and focus on scoring and converting the long-term leads to near-term opportunities!

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Offers industry leading and highly scalable tools supporting both consumer marketing initiatives and BtoB demand generation processes through our Vtrenz solution.

SaaS approach allows marketers to easily create, automate and execute multi-channel lifecycle marketing campaigns that are timely, relevant and measurable.

Overview• Founded in 1999• U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, GA• International headquarters in London• Top Tier rankings by Jupiter Research and Sirius

Decisions

Who is Silverpop

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“According to JupiterResearch analysis of nine vendors in the marketing automation space, Vtrenz stands out of the pack in both business value provided by the product and market suitability, which is a measure of the track record of the company.”

Vtrenz Leads the Pack in Marketing Automation

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Questions

To learn more download our Vtrenz Lead Management Workbook at www.vtrenz.com

William SchnabelVice President and General Manager, EMEA

Silverpop

wschnabel at silverpop.com

www.silverpop.com