There are some ‘Inconvenient Truths’ that we would like to share with you! Please forgive this somewhat forthright approach but we are intent on ensuring you do not waste money and that you have a process which will ensure every opportunity – whether it is a short, medium or long term one - is developed to fruition, and that your reputation is protected at every juncture.

Thousands of campaigns later, our experience is: if insufficient consideration and discipline is applied to the ‘management’ of the output from the campaign, it can significantly affect ROI.

By this we mean that actions are rarely dealt with promptly and professionally and the parties involved are rarely brought to account.

Even if the campaign is not a lead generation campaign per se, any contact with your marketplace will generate opportunities of some form. They need to be dealt with promptly, or your business reputation can suffer.

And even if it is a lead generation campaign, involving one particular solution or product, the chances are it will also generate other opportunities for other solutions or products. These must also be dealt with promptly, and often there is no vehicle in place to address such situations.

Salespeople are generally very busy and can have other priorities, not always matching those of the rest of us. They also have a somewhat mixed view of the people – internal and external - who provide them with leads and other ‘urgent customer actions’ (hardly surprising in many cases).

We have to try and accommodate for this rich array of processes and cultures, and just ensure that whatever we uncover gets dealt with, in the way in which we - as your representatives - told the customer or prospect that it would be dealt with.

 

We will deliver your results in the most appropriate format for you. It could be important to consider reporting in several different formats, depending on the needs of the recipient.

Whatever your requirement, consider whether it will achieve the only thing that really matters: that an action gets actioned, by the right person, in the right way, quickly enough.

If this involves routing any actions through to a business partner, please check that everyone downstream from you understands their role and can commit to the follow-up process and timescales.

If you cannot guarantee that the right person will do this, stop now; review this process; evaluate other options; because if you do not, you are likely to waste opportunity and, ultimately, money.

If we had to make multiple calls to make contact with the prospect in the first place, the chances are, so will your own representative. Do they have the time and persistence to do so? More often than not we are told they tried and failed - frustrating for them and for everyone else. Getting their agreement and setting the right expectations is therefore vital for all involved in the lead management process.

Even if they did manage to make contact, many actions will then require further action by someone else. Is this process of referral clearly mapped out? If the lead needs to return to us, we will deal with it: re-qualifying; sending out more information; gathering more information; whatever is required until the lead becomes a sales priority again. But, in general, the lead will not be returned to us in such cases. It can fall between two people and the momentum may be lost. Think how we can avoid this.

What happens to those opportunities that need developing further? What is your plan to nurture them to fruition? (Statistically, most opportunities are ‘half-opportunities’ and need further work before Sales can start their work).

We are here to help you organise these ‘post campaign’ elements if you wish. At least let us document them for you. We can also liaise with each point in the process on your behalf.

 

And finally, consider also ‘Monitoring the Customer Experience’. It is perfectly feasible to insert another call into the whole process, where the prospect is contacted again, just to check that they are satisfied with the whole process, that they have received the attention they requested, etc. We will be pleased do this for you as well, diplomatically of course!