Marketers want to obtain the trust and attention from the CEO, and they can do that by providing a stream of well qualified leads. They want to sit at the revenue table along side of the sales team.
Recently I was talking with Mac McIntosh from Sales Leads Experts. He is a well known consultant regarding business-to-business leads. He was relating that there are some organizations that are giving their marketing department leads and revenue goals. And that the performance of marketing had improved within these companies!
I have long maintained that if more vice presidents of marketing were held accountable for results like the vice presidents of sales were, we would curb the waste of marketing dollars. So often marketers just cast a wide net hoping that they bring home some results.
When I saw this white paper from the Sales Lead Management Association, it affirmed the importance of having marketing held accountable for results. I recommend you download it.
White Paper Attributes Lack of Sales Lead Follow-up to Normalized Deviation
The Sales Lead Management Association connects Space Shuttle Columbia defects and Toyota recall issues to high rate of sales lead follow-up failure.
The Sales Lead Management Association has released a new white paper sponsored by Marketo and LEADTRACK . The paper offers an explanation and solution to the continuing issue of incomplete sales lead follow-up, which destroys the efficiency of 75% of most marketing campaigns.
“Normalized deviation,” Obermayer contends, “is the culprit which has plagued lead generation marketing programs for 50 years. Salespeople ignore many of the inquiries and leads they receive, and over time marketing and sales management accept a 75%-90% lack of follow-up as ‘normal.’ With today’s sophisticated marketing automation and lead management processes, the spotlight is exposing the severity of this issue.”
In this white paper titled, “Why the Space Shuttle Columbia, Toyota’s Auto Recalls, and Inquiry Dormancy are Related,” Obermayer makes the case (referencing an LA Times article) that all three scenarios exhibit the ‘normalized deviation’ phenomenon. The flaws and defects that were uncovered, became acceptable, and led to the destruction of the Columbia, and the issues facing Toyota’s recalls, are similar to an average corporation’s dilemma of a 75-90% lead follow-up failure rate. “Over the years it became normal”, he writes, “for salespeople to ignore all but the ‘hottest’ sales leads given to them. Eventually marketing management too came to accept the 75-90% inquiry dormancy problem, instead of a much lower percentage.” Obermayer makes the case that this sort of behavior is NOT acceptable in manufacturing within the same companies that allow it to occur in marketing, where typically 2-20% of their yearly revenue dollars are spent.
Obermayer asks, “How can the waste of billions of marketing dollars each year be accepted as normal?” The solution, he contends, is to place a spotlight on the issue, establish a 100% follow-up policy for company salespeople, and institute a marketing automation program which contributes to the 100% follow-up rule.
Now your organization may be an elite one and you have this situation well controlled. If so we would like to hear from you and talk about how you were able to achieve your results.
Results can propel your stature within your company and earn you that seat at the revenue table.
