Two days ago we kicked off this new series intended to align sales and marketing. Your sales team has unique insights into trends your customers are part of and services that your customers are looking for. Let’s make sure your marketing team has all the information they need to create valuable, timely, and relevant content combined with proper hand-off to the sales team.
So, let’s look at the next question to ask your sales team. Question 3…
How do you define a Qualified Lead?
It’s important for your marketing team to understand when the sales team is ready to run with a lead they’ve developed. Find out what the sales team thinks qualifies a lead to be handed over for their personal attention. Your marketing team may find different answers for different customer types or solutions, so it’s critical to get very specific.
For example, a customer with a security camera system that’s not recording properly is likely looking for an immediate personal response. Meanwhile, a potential client browsing your blog trying to understand what the difference is between a 1080p camera and a 4K camera’s resolution may be best served by an automated marketing funnel that serves additional information online with an option to “click to meet with a systems solutions advisor for a demonstration.”
The intent of the exercise between your marketing team and sales team is to determine how much self-study a potential client likely wants to do before being engaged by a salesperson. Engaging too early in the customer’s journey can be pushy while engaging too late in the process can result in a lead lost to a competitor.
Getting the feedback from the sales team on this process will ensure that they understand why a specific lead is being handed to them for follow-up. This will minimize hot leads getting put on the back burner due to lack of departmental mission alignment.
Sales and Marketing Alignment
Hire Vector Firm to assist with formalizing your sales and lead generation processes. We can help with interviewing your sales team and aligning the marketing campaigns appropriately. Getting these steps right can prevent lost sales and increase lead generation and build your business.
