Closing The eCRM Loop With 1:1 Personal Touch Strategies For Lead Generation By Dan McDade, PointClear

Written by Dan McDade, President of PointClear

Web-based CRM approaches to lead generation can be enormously successful across the entire prospect/customer lifecycle. When properly executed, eCRM offers many benefits—including cost-savings and increased efficiencies—by offloading transactions from live agents to self-service functions. However, the promise of eCRM can go unfulfilled if it is not integrated into an overall database marketing strategy generally, and 1:1 direct marketing activity specifically.

For example, a B2B e-mail blast to thousands of prospects can literally generate hundreds of responses. Of these, many are less than ideal due to issues such as the respondent being outside the true lead generation target universe due to revenue, vertical or other factors. A 1:1 response management strategy for eCRM provides for skilled business development associates who are able to correctly qualify these prospects, segment them into prioritized groups and forward them to the right resource for follow up.

Too often, eCRM initiatives are tactical campaigns that do indeed generate interest, but lack integration into the overall sales and marketing strategy. eCRM lead generation works best when blended with 1:1 direct "personal touch" processes (i.e., the telephone and direct mail) to move undifferentiated prospect inquiries into qualified, actionable sales opportunities.

Marketing success is most commonly evaluated on the number of leads a campaign generates—and typically that's where it ends. The most successful eCRM campaigns, however, are a component of a strategic lead generation and management system where marketing takes responsibility for turning only highly qualified prospects over to sales.

According to Gartner analyst Kimberly Collins, "Marketing's role in the lead management process is often viewed as demand creation or lead generation. To better support sales' ability to drive revenue, marketing needs to broaden its role in lead collection, qualification, prioritization, augmentation and distribution."

Whether your lead generation strategy uses eCRM initiatives or more traditional methods, the most effective lead management programs follow a strict process that starts with a strategic approach and employs personal touch contact to qualify and nurture prospects until they are ready to buy. The lead generation process starts by building or leveraging a prospect "warehouse"—or repository—that stores prospect information, and allows the organization to add to and mine that information as prospects are enhanced, segmented and qualified. Next, appropriate target lists are obtained and relevant "firmographic" data (i.e., annual revenue, SIC codes, number of sites, etc.) is researched and appended. This facilitates more accurate prospect segmentation, the third step in the process.

Segmentation is a highly strategic stage that is too often omitted. It is extremely valuable for companies to take a rifle shot approach to their market versus the more costly and less efficient shotgun approach. Segmentation includes market universe studies, market definition and testing. The result: homogeneous groups of prospects to which lead generation campaigns can be targeted that incorporate messages and offers specifically focused on high value prospects most likely to convert to sales.

Once an inquiry comes in, it must be qualified and nurtured. This is where 1:1 personal touch strategies add tremendous value, and where many eCRM strategies fall short. Through 1:1 telephone calls, e-mail and direct mail pieces, interested inquiries and prospects become fully qualified opportunities as a seasoned business development associate—experienced with business practices, comfortable talking to C-level executives and knowledgeable about the product or service—speaks directly with the prospect to confirm decision making authority, an initiative and a budget.

Only then should fully qualified opportunities be referred to field sales representatives. "Warm" leads remain in the lead warehouse and continue to be nurtured with ongoing 1:1 multi-touch campaigns. Used in conjunction with eCRM applications and processes, these multi-media campaigns produce a higher return than virtually any other marketing processes.

When it is determined that an opportunity is ready to be turned over to sales, it is crucial that it go to the correct territory and the correct sales representative in the right format, at the right time and with enough information to motivate the rep to make his or her first sales call. If eCRM processes are in place, and the lead warehouse is integrated with the corporate SFA system, this is a straightforward process. The lead is automatically augmented with "firmographic" information and the associate's notes.

The qualified lead is now with sales, but marketing's role is not yet complete. The final step in the process is validation. This is the time in the process when marketing performs a lead audit to validate the quality of the lead and determine its status in the sales process. This information will enable marketing to track leads to revenue and evaluate the entire lead generation and management process, fine tuning it as necessary.

Tactical eCRM approaches can become more effective and less costly catalysts for revenue growth if made part of a strategic lead management process that blends the best in technology and market intelligence with 1:1 "personal touch" strategies.

Dan McDade is the president and founder of PointClear, an outsourced sales lead generation company. Prior to starting PointClear, McDade served as President of UST: The Business Marketing Group, Vice President of Marketing for the direct mail company Jackson & Perkins, and as an independent business development consultant for Ritz Carlton, R.J. Reynolds, and Sears. PointClear helps clients grow their businesses by applying database design, prospect profiling, and list segmentation techniques to their sales processes.

1 "Marketing's Lead Management Role Expands Beyond Lead Generation"

Kimberly Collins, Gartner

April 5, 2005