Marketing Leads: Quality Vs. Quantity
Last night I had the pleasure of dining with one of our media partners. We discussed the great lead quality vs. lead quantity debate. And the conversation went way later than the restaurant manager and our wonderful server wanted it to.
While we all want to be considered purveyors of nothing but the highest quality stuff, sometimes higher volume is the way to go. And when quality is required, you need to be able to deliver leads that convert.
The debate often goes like this:
- Sales wants more leads.
- So marketing sends more.
- Sales complains that the quality stinks. Conversion plummets.
- Sales says they want better leads.
- So marketing tightens the quality standards and sends fewer but higher quality leads.
There is often a timing factor involved as well. At the beginning of the year when the funnel is looking light and the end of the quarter or year seems far away, eager sales people see their friends cashing bonus checks and decide they want more, more, more. As the end of the fiscal period comes to a close and the pressure to hit the sales goals becomes tangible, the debate begins. The request for better quality is made and sales wants to work with fewer and better leads that they can close.
My advice is to B2B Marketers is to follow this natural ebb and flow. Start by providing as much quantity as possible. Help sales fill their pipeline funnels. You cannot convert what you do not have. As the quality pressure starts to rise, you can only send to sales those opportunities that are further along in the sales cycle. However, you must continue to nurture those leads that are not yet ready to buy.
In some companies “nurture happens” almost by accident. Contacts from companies that are qualified as leads but not yet passed to sales can end up landing in the target list for an email blast or an event invitation. Maybe this works for your company as long as the number of marketing touches does not annoy the prospect to the point that they want to walk away.
In other companies lead nurture is a very formal and well-defined process. Marketing automation might be used to help setup triggers and automated touch points. Lead scoring is a key component so that once a lead meets a quality threshold, it is sent to sales with all the relevant history such as marketing tactics responded to, content viewed, solution interest, budget or timeframe.
Bottom line is that marketing needs to be flexible. As I stated before in Why am I in Marketing? our job is to support sales in their goal to acquire more customers and to keep our customers. Our marketing processes should support and even expect this natural shift by our sales colleagues. So when our “customers” in sales ask for more leads, give them more. When they ask for better leads. Give them leads they can close and then we can all share in the success of hitting the numbers.
Michael Brenner is the author of B2B Marketing Insider and serves as Sr. Director of Integrated Marketing for SAP. Michael's blog is dedicated to sharing the ideas, topics and marketing strategies that drive real results like sales, leads, and higher customer loyalty. Follow online at http://www.B2BMarketingInsider.com Follow on Twitter: @brennermichael @B2BMktgInsider
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- How To Align Marketing With Sales | Digital Cocktail
Michael, your article raises some important issues about the relationship between lead quantity and quality. I wrote about this subject in my book titled How to Create an Unstoppable Marketing and Sales Machine. When a CMO asks a CSO what he wants from the lead program, he often hears something like the following: I want a lot of leads and I want them to be highly qualified.
While this objective sounds great it leads to friction because there tends to be an inverse ratio between lead quantity and quality. This is true because only a small fraction of the potential prospect universe is ready to enter into the sales process at any given time. All the other responders will need to be nutured until such time as they are ready to engage in a sales process. It is possible to generate only highly qualified leads – just say something like: “If you are ready to buy, click here.”
In this case, you will get quality but quantity will suffer, which will impact future sales (a lose/lose situation). This is why I advocate creating a service level agreement between sales and marketing that specifies exactly what is to be delivered in terms of both quantity and quality.
Michael,
Great post. Here is something I put together on the topic.
The changing landscape of “Traditional lead generation” as it pertains to the IT market.
A lot of marketing teams are under pressure to hit lead goals and what seems to be happening is marketing teams are tempted to throw as many “leads” as they can to the sales team. IT vendors generally think more leads is better because it lowers the Cost Per Lead they have to pay and gives the sales team more activity.
In fact in the long run it costs a lot more.
On average a software company will spend between $40 – $75K in additional “qualification” costs for every 1000 “leads”. (Read: Trade show leads, Whitepaper downloads etc, etc)
Alternatively, my recommendation for my clients is go where their buyers are and develop a demand generation program (not lead gen) where you engage potential prospects throughout the whole decision making process and always be present.
The clients who work from the outside in, tend to see much better results when focused on demand generation/opportunity creation as opposed to traditional lead generation.
You can’t “sell” someone unless they are in the market to buy a product or service like yours. So if you:
a. Position yourself as the expert, and then
b. Be “in front of” the prospect when they are ready to buy…
…then you will be the one they think of when they are ready to make a purchasing decision for a product or service like yours.
This is not my opinion ( my opinion is irrelevant) i am expressing what a million IT buyers have told me.
The 1.1 Million IT buyers that use Spiceworks are open to hear from Vendors but on their terms not the vendors. That is the major shift IT vendors need to make. Some are slowly doing it.
Happy to connect kenny@spiceworks.com
Hi Kenny, thanks for your comments. I especially agree with your point about buyers only wanting to hear from vendors on their terms. So true!
Thanks Christopher, service level agreements are exactly what is needed between sales and marketing. Having been in sales, I know there are times when sales are lighter than forecast and they want DEALS. So I think it is important to prepare for this reality and be flexible.
Thoughtful article. I have always said, “capture quantity and nurture for quality.” If marketers implement a content strategy of being a thought leader, as Kenny says, beng present wherever leads are looking, they can also capture leads as high up in the buying process as possible, and then use marketing automation technology to segment and nurture those leads as they work their way through the buying process. Actually implementing this approach seems as though you’d have the flexibility to provide Sales with the quantity AND quality they want over time.
Studies suggest that this method, once employed leads to the sustainable marketing success that companies are striving for. But with marketing automation adoption rates at 5-10% in mid-to-large companies, and less than 1% in smaller companies, not many companies are actually implementing. Those that are have a big head start.
I agree with all the points mentioned. In past projects to create multiple lead funnels to address these client needs we developed marketing assets such as webinars, newsletters, libraries of past webinars and online demo downloads. Each tool could engage a client either in a self serve or facilitated manner.
My experience tells me sales teams and leaders need to be actively engaged in the strategies and processes marketing develops and own them. More often then not sales wants only to spend time on value add sales work I.e hot lead management. But by keeping arms length from marketing space is created in which sales and marketing alignment detoriates and becomes superficial. It’s very much like cooking a 3 course meal for your teen age son. All he cares about is eating, quick, and obvious delights. If pizza can do then why make beouf bourguignon, right? Sales thinks pizza is just fine, but customers may prefer more effort.
What are your examples of this?
Hi Kim, You make a great point. You can do both! And I agree with you that there is tremendous upside potential with implementing best practices around nurture. Thanks for stopping by
Hi Laura, Sometimes you have to sell the steak! Sales people need to be incented on more than just the next quarter’s sales. If they are required to build and maintain an active pipeline than they need the steak and the pizza. As Kim mentioned in her comments, you can have your cake and eat it too. (I’m hungry now). If sales is not incented on active pipeline in addition to sales targets than pizza might be the only way to go.