Everyone wants digital leads right now. Marketers have their eyes focused on inbound digital marketing, and it may be that they’ve got blinders on. Inbound digital marketing is critical, but without the right follow-up strategy, it’s a great way to generate a lot of leads without turning them into customers.
In a study of B2B companies conducted by 360 Leads, 44.7% of the companies that were most successful at generating leads pinpointed outbound telemarketing as their most successful channel. Across the board, more sales departments chose telemarketing, while marketing departments said digital marketing was their most effective channel. Inbound digital marketing on its own is not an effective way to turn leads into sales, but it can provide telesales with a lot of qualified leads.
Keeping score is essential if you’re going to successfully target digital leads. A great website and online advertising campaign brings a lot of inbound leads, but with limited resources to follow up, you need to know which ones are hot. B.A.N.T. is one of the most commonly used lead scoring systems:
Budget – A qualified lead is one whose budget fits your solution. Any decision maker willing to define their budget is an opportunity, but you may need to know more before contacting if it’s undefined.
Authority – Key decision makers and those that control the purse strings close deals and they are your target. Influencers and specifiers are good to have, but 360 Leads always aims for the people who make the decision and control the budget.
Need – The company knows it has a problem and they know that a solution like yours or your competitors’ will fix it.
Time Frame – A qualified sales lead needs your solution in the next 1-3 months (though you may need to adjust your time frame depending on your sector). If the time frame isn’t identified at all, you’re looking at an inquiry, not a lead.
But with digital leads there are other ways you can read the data to determine how warm a sales lead is, including the activity level and types of interest. How many web pages did they view on your website, did they download your white paper, and have they passed through the typical sales cycle, meaning they are likely to never buy? Have they requested a demo or sent an inquiry via email, telephone, or live chat? Downloading whitepapers and eBooks are “top of the funnel” interest, whereas free trials and pricing info are more qualified, mid-funnel interest. Assign points and values to each activity and interest based on data analysis like how many times a lead visited your website before closing and the ideal company size for your solution.
It’s not enough to generate leads for business development, the point is to turn them into sales. You can convert digital leads into sales with telemarketing and email follow up, but a scoring system tailored to your business shows you where to focus your resources. It shouldn’t be a competition between digital and telemarketing. The two work best hand-in-hand as part of a multi-channel lead generation campaign. Get a B2B sales lead company on your side to get more out of your digital marketing campaign.
