Striking a Balance on Lead Generation

The new Sales 2.0 has taken off with a robust burst of steam. The traditional Sales and Marketing process,according to some industry pundits,is on its way to becoming a legacy to make way for a more “cost effective” and “sophisticated” model. Inbound and its cost effective automation is in….Outbound and the proactive connection with the market is out???? Not so simple!

Based on what we have seen distributed through the social media lately, this seems like a logical interpretation of the direction of the industry.

The fact is, inbound marketing and the technology that surrounds this strategy is a credible component when utilized in balance.

Inbound marketing, conceptually, delivers a sales-ready buyer that is primed to be handed to a sales representative. The handoff, theoretically, is a culmination of a prospect that has surfed through your digital blogs, social media sites and whitepapers and proactively announces he is sales-ready for the next step. In a perfect world the sales representative simply needs to walk the prospect through the closing steps of the sale and re-up for the next handoff. Not so simple!

Again, let me reemphasize that I am a proponent of inbound marketing and the value it delivers to the end cause…MORE CLOSED DEALS.

The real caveat here is the consequences of not having adequate balance.

According to a recent survey in HubSpot's The State of Inbound Marketing 2010 larger companies with 50+ employees invested 37% of their 2010 demand generation budgets on outbound marketing ( telemarketing, direct marketing, and trade shows) while smaller companies (1-10 employees) spent 15 %. The larger portion of these budgets were directed towards the inbound component with the goal of leveling the playing field through lower costs. Conversely, according to the survey, the larger companies could not depend on the lengthy conversion rate that inbound programs inherently require. Thus, they have to proactively connect with the market to insure proper coverage and pipeline growth.

Is there a sacrifice smaller companies are making when relying too heavily on potential prospects knocking on the door and having such an imbalance in the outbound budget? Yes. Conversion time, conversion rate, cost per conversion, rep costs and opportunities lost costs, to name a few, all become issues.

According to the 2008 Sales Performance Optimization Survey from CSO Insights
www.csoinsights.com sales reps only spend about 20 % of their time on both following up on leads handed to them by marketing and cold calling to generate new leads.

The results are shocking! Here are the #’s……
Only 20 % of the total leads generated are followed up, 15 % of these leads end up becoming qualified, about 80% become forecastable and only 20 % end up closing!

The question of the day is “can your company survive on the NET OUTCOME of these statistics?” Go ahead..plug your numbers in. Can you make your quota?

In certain cases the answer will lean closer to “maybe”. Organizations with shorter sales cycles, less complex solutions and straight forward decision making channels may be willing to bet on 85 % of their market coverage through an inbound channel. The risk factor being 59 % of companies are reporting significantly longer sales cycle over the last year and into the next year, inbound self educators operate at a slower pace, thus lengthening the cycle further, and finally, evaluation and buying dynamics are constantly in flux requiring a personal relationship through an outbound campaign. The result allows teams to proactively identify shifts in the environment eliminating lost opportunities.

Regardless of the complexity of your product every opportunity is a HIGH VALUE opportunity to your company. Complexity disguises itself in many ways and requires proven processes by “specialists” that builds demand and CRITICAL balance to your demand generation and pipeline.

I’m interested in your feedback….

How are your numbers?
What is it the short come of imbalance costing you?
What type of balance do you have?
Is you 15 % enough? NOT ENOUGH?

It may be time to reevaluate.