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Dan Rogers named one of most influential in lead management

November 17, 2009

On November 16, 2009, Dan Rogers, CEO and Board Chairman of SmartLead by The AdTrack Corporation, was named one of the most 50 influential in the lead management industry by the Sales Lead Management Association.

For the past seven years Dan Rogers, CEO of SmartLead by AdTrack, has been instrumental in the evolution and continued development of pioneering lead management systems and practices that have been in place since the company’s founding in 1981. With over 20 years as a leader in the CRM and telemarketing industry, Dan spearheads the continued development of SmartLead’s online systems – tools that have been copied by other companies to capture, qualify, rank, distribute, track and analyze leads. As a charter member of the Sales Lead Management Association, Dan Rogers has promoted the universal adoption of lead management best practices.

In 2008, he saw that some companies needed a sales force automation system to be integrated with a lead management system that was easy to use, easy to implement and easy to administer. This led to the development of SmartLeadPLUS, a lead management system with an integrated sales force automation system that the company introduced in mid-2009. SmartLeadPLUS is a good fit for companies with an independent dealer/distributor network. Rogers also saw that companies needed to know exactly what was working and what wasn’t in their lead generation and lead management program. This led to the development in 2009 of SmartLead Analytics, a web-based analytics tool that examines lead data in depth.

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What is lead management? Why do companies use lead management?

Forward-thinking marketers recognize the value of using a lead management system and program to increase sales, cut costs and measure the effectiveness of lead generation programs. But the challenge for many marketers is getting their colleagues or upper management to understand how a lead management system and comprehensive lead management programs can improve sales, shrink sales cycles and reduce lead generation costs.

To help marketers educate their colleagues and upper management about lead management we prepared a white paper that explains how lead management practices and a lead management system convert more leads into sales, cuts costs for lead generation and decreases cost-of-sale.

Share this white paper when the topic of lead management comes up in corporate conference rooms or hallways. It includes information that answers frequently asked questions about lead management (see FAQs below). Included are research facts about the effectiveness of lead management to help colleagues embrace the benefits of lead management.

FAQs

1. What is lead management?

2. What is a lead management system and what does it do?

3. Why do companies use a lead management system?

4. If we use a lead management system and programs, how do we:

- Shrink sales cycles?

- Cut lead generation costs?

- Reduce the cost of the selling process?

Download the white paper now for the answers to these questions.

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Part 2: Five Tips to Increase 2010 Sales, Cost Cost with Best Practices

October 12, 2009

Five Ways to Cut 2010 Costs and Still Increase Sales with Lead Management Best Practices

Earlier, in Part 1 of this two-part series we offered advice about how to evaluate which 2009 lead generation programs produced the highest quality leads and how to nurture leads to save on lead generation costs. In part 2 of this series we offer five ways to cut more costs in 2010 while still producing high quality leads. (more…)

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Part 1: Four Ways to Increase Sales and Cut Costs in 2010

September 29, 2009

This is Part 1 of a two-part blog entry that offers tips for preparing your 2010 marketing and lead management programs to increase sales and reduce customer acquisition costs.

Budget season is right around the corner. It’s time to outline ideas for your 2010 marketing plans to boost sales and reduce customer acquisition costs. You don’t have to set anything in stone just yet, but here are some tips to start the process.

1. Make a list, check it twice. Find out which marketing programs were naughty or nice.

With the recession, you may not have the resources to accomplish all of your goals, but make your wish list. If Santa dropped a big bag of money down your office chimney, how would you spend it? When the list is done, study 2009 marketing data to determine what worked and what didn’t.

- How many leads did you generate overall and for each media type and event?

- Which media produced the highest ranked leads and the highest percentage of converted leads?

- How many leads were actually touched and worked by your sales team or dealers and how many were left untouched?

- How many leads converted into sales?

- How long were leads in the pipeline before they were sold?

- How much did it cost to generate each lead by media type?

- How much did it cost to generate each lead that was sold?

Answers to these questions will help you refine your 2010 plan and determine which goals on your wish list are the most:

- Beneficial

- Attainable

- Realistic

2. Fish where the fish are biting

Although one of your goals will likely be to generate more leads, remember success demands generating quality, not quantity. You want leads that are more likely to produce revenue.

Where do you find higher quality leads in 2010? Study your 2009 leads. When you were fishing for leads in 2009, where did you find the high quality leads? Plan to fish in those same ponds in 2010.

3. Improve sales performance – rank and distribute smarter leads

Do you send every lead to your sales team or dealers? That means the sales team is weeding through a stack of leads that could cause them to complain, “All of the leads that Marketing sends us are junk.”

Consider changing your lead distribution rules. Send sales and dealers only the leads that have been pre-qualified, ranked and declared “sales-ready.” Sales people will make more productive use of their time and sales conversions will increase.

4. Reduce customer acquisition costs

A powerful way to reduce customer acquisition costs is to squeeze more revenue out of the leads you’ve already generated. Calculate the cost to generate a lead. For example, a February 2009 B-to-B’s online magazine article said that the average cost to generate a lead is $84 (when more than 50% of a b-to-b company’s lead generation budget is dedicated to inbound marketing).

If a company already spent $84 to generate a lead, and the lead isn’t yet ready to buy, they can spend a few more dollars to nurture a lead over the next 30 to 60 days with additional marketing messages. Our case studies show that nurturing can increase conversions more than 30%. Nurturing costs a few dollars per lead, far less than the cost to generate a new lead. This reduces the overall customer acquisition costs and improves ROI.

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Lead Distribution – Rules of the Road to Increase Sales

September 3, 2009

Distributing leads to sales involves more than simply flipping the switch of an automated lead management system to pass leads down the pipeline.

Before a lead management system is programmed for lead distribution, Marketing and Sales managers must cooperatively establish a set of business rules for lead distribution. Creating lead distribution rules comes after the formation of rules that define what constitutes a qualified lead.

Business rules determine how the lead management system will automatically and accurately distribute leads to the proper sales person at the proper time. Skillful lead distribution increases the likelihood that a lead will turn into a sale and decrease the possibility of leads falling through the cracks.

Smartly planned lead distribution streamlines the sales process, shortens sales cycles and brings in revenue faster.

Remember, the distribution rules established upfront will impact the picture seen down the road in ROI reports and analytics, such as lead conversion reports and sales territory performance reports. If leads are incorrectly distributed, when looking at post-sales or ROI reports, it will be difficult to determine what’s going on in the field, what’s working in your lead generation programs and what’s not. (more…)

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Self-Service Lead Management Systems – One Size Does Not Fit All

August 6, 2009

Caution: Self-Service Systems Not for Everyone

You’ve seen trade publications tout self-service automated lead management systems. A word of caution – one size does not fit all.

Self-service automated lead management systems may be useful for companies with a small direct sales force and a full-time marketing coordinator to manage the tool. However, self-service lead management systems aren’t a solution for large companies with complex dealer and distributor networks or companies with unique and multifaceted lead management programs.

Before you consider a self-service lead management system, consider these points: (more…)

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Lead Management Analytics Make Marketer’s Life Easier

July 15, 2009

This is a great age in which to be a marketer. Years ago marketers complained, “I know at least half of my marketing works. The problem is I don’t know which half.”

Today marketing campaign and lead generation insights are at a marketer’s fingertips with web-based analytics systems, such as SmartleadAnalytics by SmartLead.

Why analytics? Marketers need smart data to outsmart the competition, gain market share and wisely spend your marketing dollars.

Our SmartAnalytics system enables marketers to measure and compare the success of lead generation and management programs and provides insights into what’s working and what’s not. Track trends. Predict future trends. Make smarter decisions. Wow, technology has really made a marketer’s life a lot easier. (more…)

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Getting Sales to Report Lead Results

June 22, 2009

Once a Marketing department distributes leads to dealers or sales people it is sometimes tough to get accurate results from each lead.

Your ROI statistics are only as good as the information you receive from Sales or your dealers and distributors. How do you get a sales and dealers to let you know what happened to the leads you distributed to them? Here’s how SmartLead solved the problem for one client. (more…)

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SCORE! Send Winning Leads to Your Sales Channels

It’s the goal of every marketer to send the most productive leads to their sales team. Like all business professionals, your sales team or dealers have a limited amount of time to produce revenue. In these tough times, when Sales is under pressure to generate as much revenue as possible, it’s important that your sales team and dealers spend time working only the leads most likely to convert.

What’s the best way to flush the great leads from all of the leads generated? Implement an automated lead scoring system that ranks leads and sends only the best leads to the sales force.

Sales will love the marketing department for sending hotter leads and the marketing will enjoy receiving kudos from Sales.

What is a lead score? It’s a numerical value assigned to every lead that predicts the lead’s likelihood to convert into a sale. The higher the score or rank, the more likely the lead will become a buyer. (more…)

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Lead Nurturing Increases Conversions Over 30%

Lead nurturing enables companies to squeeze maximum revenue opportunities out of the lead pipeline is less expensive than the cost to generate new leads. Nurturing programs may include leads ranked as warm, “in process,” or not yet touched by Sales.

At SmartLead, we cultivate leads through customized integrated, multi-media nurturing programs to meet each client’s specific needs. Some of these nurturing programs have increased conversion rates of 32% to 54%. Examples include:

A b-to-c client nurtured prospects through multiple combinations of either email only, email followed by email, or email and direct mail. Those leads nurtured with just one communication converted 32.4% more prospects over a group of leads not nurtured at all. Another group of prospects received two nurturing communications and converted 54.1% more prospects versus the no nurturing group. (more…)

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