All Leads Are Not Equal. So How do I Match Follow-Up with Lead Value?

Is your organization wasting valuable resources on bad leads? Here are three ways to make sure your follow-up efforts match your lead value.

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6 Minute Read

Think back to the last time you were on the hunt for a new career opportunity. Did you pursue every available position in your industry, regardless of the vertical, salary, requirements, or company reputation?

Of course not.

Submitting your resume to every open job would be overwhelmingly time-consuming and an utter waste of energy. Some of those positions may have been far beneath your experience level, outside your realm of expertise, or simply a bad culture fit.

Most of us learned early in our careers that not every opportunity is the right opportunity for you.

So why, when it comes to lead follow-up, do so many organizations still treat every inquiry the same?

The truth is, not all leads are equal, and some will never be the right fit for your offering. In fact, as much as 50 percent of your leads could be a bad fit, according to data from a Marc Wayshak study. And wasting time on poor leads can quickly siphon critical resources.

Unfortunately, not all organizations are setting reps up for success, or with the intel they need to determine the value of each prospect.

Here are a few tips to ensure your follow-up process matches lead value.

Focus on Sales and Marketing Alignment
If it seems like the proposed solution to every sales or marketing challenge is “better alignment,” you’re not wrong. But it’s for a good reason.

Too often, sales and marketing teams believe they’re aligned because they’re working toward the same objective: increase revenue. However, when you break down their activities and frequency of communication between teams, you’ll usually discover each department is working within a silo.

This can be destructive in all sorts of ways, but particularly when it comes to hand-offs and qualifying lead value.

That’s why it’s essential marketing makes an effort to engage with sales at every step, until it’s time to pass off a lead. Then, sales needs to report outcomes to marketing, so they know which tactics drive the best results. A powerful CRM (when it’s used the right way) can provide the closed-loop reporting you need to ensure future success.

It’s also a good idea to develop an internal service level agreement (SLA) to hold both teams accountable and keep them aligned.

Engage in Rep Knowledge-Sharing
What are some of the “red flags” common among low-value leads? What are the top attributes to look for in high-value leads?

Veteran reps may know the answers to these questions, but inexperienced reps or those new to the vertical or organization may not be able to identify the good from the bad and the ugly.

That’s why it’s essential you develop some sort of knowledge-sharing process to educate everyone on what to look for and how to best proceed when someone displays “red flag” behaviors.

While it’s never a good idea to make broad assumptions (sometimes a questionable lead can transform into the perfect customer), having this insight can help reps determine how much energy to exert on each lead. It can also help them ask the right questions to identify whether a prospect is a good fit.

Use Technology to Help Estimate Lead Value
Perhaps one of the easiest ways to identify how much energy to exert on each lead is to determine lead value using AI-based tech.

For example, Kronologic connects with your CRM and helps calculate the value of each opportunity so you can prioritize your sales team’s efforts and give the soonest available meeting times to the highest value leads.

Once you have insight into how much a relationship will bring your organization, you can tailor the lead follow-up experience accordingly. Instead of spending equal resources on every lead, you can be more discerning and give more to top-dollar opportunities.

By aligning your sales and marketing department, creating a process for reps to share knowledge, and using technology to estimate lead value, your organization will be better prepared to allocate its resources toward the best and most promising leads.