My clients often ask me how I measure ongoing performance for lead generation campaigns. The obvious answer for most would be closed/won deals. Indeed, this is the ultimate success measurement but there are additional ways of gauging progress and performance throughout a campaign, which is particularly important as many of our clients have very lengthy sales cycles. Having activities spread across all points of your marketing/sales pipeline is critical. Below are some additional performance metrics and activities that provide insight into a program success:
Contact Strategy:
Let be honest, cold calling is a tall task for anyone. Sales reps are often asked to maintain existing customer relationships along with bringing in new deals for the business. The reality is that balancing the two can be quite challenging. Finding the time to make the proper attempts to new prospects is difficult. Telemarketers typically have just that: TIME. However, the key is to be strategic with their attempts. Business professionals have become increasingly more difficult to reach via phone. It not uncommon to see a telemarketing agent reach prospects after as many as 10+ calling attempts. It what the telemarketing team does, in addition to these attempts, that can ultimately separate success from failure. We regularly utilize the following tactics:
-Critical Business Issue (CBI) Voicemails (How to develop a telemarketing Critical Business Issue (CBI) voice mail strategy )
-Proactive One-to-One Emails
The goal of both of these techniques is to give the prospect an understanding of why we’re reaching out. That way, when a connection is made, the prospect has an understanding of the reason for the phone call, and its value and relevancy.
I often monitor my team number of outbound dials per day/week/month. However, the number of CBI voicemails left and proactive emails sent are also tracked and monitored closely. Over time this allows us to analyze and identify trends on which voicemail and email messages are resonating well with prospects. We’re also able to more easily identify diminishing returns points amongst the target audience.
Quality Conversations:
For either a seasoned sales rep or a trained telemarketing agent, there is typically a short window for discussion once a successful connection with a decision-maker occurs. This conversation should be strategically planned out as well. A clear and concise reason for the call, illustrating how the product/service is able to help them solve relevant issues, must be prominent in the discussion. The goal is to engage in a meaningful back-and-forth conversation. Telemarketers often get a bad rap as being scripted and robotic instead of conversational. That why I’m always working with our team to ensure our agents are well versed and trained on how to probe for challenges, ask open-ended questions, and are ready to deliver and illustrate value.
A fair share of our conversations will convert to lead opportunities with clear next steps. However, a majority of our initial conversations will not result in a sales-ready lead. I recommend that these non-lead conversations be nurtured appropriately with ongoing calling and emailing campaigns. By nurturing you will be able to build ongoing relationships and get in early when the timing is right for the prospect evaluation plans.
Just as I track outbound dials, voicemails, and sent emails, I also make sure to have a solid understanding of the number and type of non-lead conversations. Analyzing trends and identifying commonalities among this group will help shape future campaigns. These qualified prospects are a critical component of our client marketing strategy, and eventually their lead pipeline.
Identified Opportunities:
When properly trained, telemarketing teams have the ability to place great cold calls and identify truly qualified