Fill your Sales Pipeline using Technology
Are you like most companies and need to fill your sales pipeline? Recently, we came across this article about keeping your pipeline full with qualified leads. The article discusses three keys to lead generation success:
1. Consistency
2. Implementation
3. Patience, persistence, and follow-up
However, there’s only one thing missing – how do you do it? The three keys are great principles to live by but without help, these principles will go by the wayside. Turn to technology for assistance. Revenue generation software contains a number of technology components such as lead scoring, marketing automation, lead nurturing and follow-up to build a systematic structure around these three principles.
1. Consistency with lead scoring and lead generation
Technology doesn’t discriminate. Use lead scoring technology to automatically qualify inbound leads or leads that exist in your database based on a pre-established set of rules, created by your organization. Lead scoring creates an objective measure on how hot, or not, a lead is. Sometimes the definition of a lead is arbitrary and disputed between sales and marketing. Use technology can keep your lead generation process consistent.
The article does provide a great quote:
“…you can’t afford not to make lead generation a top priority. New leads are the life blood of your business. If you aren’t constantly filling the pipeline, you will not be able to sustain the business over the long term.” – Erica Stritch, RainToday.com
This is very true. Luckily, revenue generation software can help again. Most revenue generation software solutions include lead capture. Lead capture adds prospects to your pipeline based on the interest levels you care about. For example, if a contact in your database is sent an email every three months and they finally open an email nine months later, they might be interested. Technology can flag their interest and notify the appropriate sales person in real-time. The use of technology removes the need for sales people to “pull” leads. They should be able to have leads “pushed” to them.
2. Technology to support implementation
Revenue generation software includes email marketing, lead generation, lead capture, web form creation, landing page creation, sales prospecting and more to help sales and marketers implement their strategies. Look for solutions that provide a “platform”, not just a single product. When marketers standardize on revenue generation technology they create marketing factories that are open 24-7, produce consistent output, and provide a framework for operation.
3. Leveraging technology for patience, persistence, and follow-up
Revenue generation software includes lead nurturing technology to establish periodic, scheduled follow up with prospects. Together with sales, marketers can develop 6, 12, 24 or any number of months of a nurturing program that spaces out follow up and touch point activities with your prospects. It’s easy for a sales person to discount a lead after the first few phone calls. The lead shouldn’t be dismissed; rather, nurtured and added back to the periodic follow up cycle. Lead nurturing automatically schedules touch points, handles the “recycling” of your leads, and schedules actions (call/email for example) for sales in a consistent manner ensuring patience, persistence, and follow-up.
In summary, revenue generation software technology includes components such as lead scoring, marketing automation, lead nurturing, lead capture and follow-up to build a systematic structure that ensures lead generation success.
