Lack of Sales and Marketing alignment is a major challenge when it comes to considering producing an acceptable quantity of high quality sales leads. Most of the time, B2B marketers often tend to define the true meaning of “qualified lead” as their sales counterparts would, and as such usually remains to be the biggest question. Thus, to pursue this, sales and marketing ought to collaborate to developing a Universal Lead Definition. Hence, without one, around 80% of marketing generated leads are lost, ignored or even discarded since the sales team does not believe they are worth pursuing.
Subsequently, most marketers tend to embrace a ready-aim-fire technique to generating, qualifying, as well as scoring leads. Instead, it ought to be: target, focus, plus execute. Thus, it is significant to target only the ideal customer profiles, which is the right individuals at the right organizations, focusing on their shared traits as well as attributes, in addition to executing the right tactics to create the right leads. Hence, a failure in understanding who the ideal consumers are as well as what matters to them, as such favoring relevancy plus quality over quantity, businesses will fail to provide the kinds of raw materials, the high-quality leads, which can be competently produced into viable yields, which comprise of opportunities as well as sales.
Focusing on activity, rather than results pose as a critical challenge when salespeople are said to not need more leads. Thus, they base on acquiring more qualified opportunities. Regrettably, most marketers often focus on lead generation plans that produce huge numbers of leads; however, they do not qualify them. Thus, 61% of B2B marketing companies admit they propel leads directly to sales. Hence, sending every lead to sales certainly creates plenty of activity; however, it also produces less yields. Quality is often more essential than quantity. Hence, higher quality leads permits sales teams to adjust their time, creating much healthier pipelines.
- Carroll, B. (2012, April 11). 7 Reasons Your B2B Sales and Marketing Organizations Are Underperforming. Retrieved from Openview Labs: http://labs.openviewpartners.com/7-reasons-your-b2b-sales-and-marketing-organizations-are-underperforming/
- Edmond, D. (2012, July 11). 3 Lead Generation Challenges B2B Search Marketers Must Overcome. Retrieved from Search Engiene Land: http://searchengineland.com/3-lead-generation-challenges-b2b-search-marketers-must-overcome-126624
- Lou, R. M., & Debra, Z. (2012). Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies . Cengage .