Social Media Marketing and Online Lead Qualification: What is Effective?

A current debate that I’m following — and would love your perspectives on — is whether and when to require a prospect to complete an online lead qualification form in exchange for content, such as a report, e-book, recorded webinar or white paper. I find that traditional marketers and social media marketers disagree about the use of forms or landing pages that appear when a prospect clicks on a link to offered information. Generally speaking, social media marketing professionals claim that the new culture of selling requires open sharing of information (“conversations”) to create trusted relationships. Therefore, in the social and mobile world, the general consensus is that required forms can be an instant turn-off for customers. On the other side of the debate, most traditional direct marketers — and sales managers — suggest that if a prospect isn’t willing to share some information about themselves, their companies and their buying processes, they aren’t qualified and are wasting sales people’s valuable time.

In the Sales 2.0 world, where marketing and sales are closely aligned functions, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with and share ideas with some of the best lead generation marketing thinkers and practitioners. One of them is online marketing manager Dave Ewart, whom I met when we at Phone Works were assessing and improving his company’s inside sales team. Dave’s Twitter campaigns have been a success in terms of generating interest; he knows his message, audience and offer are relevant because of his click rate. But he’s testing several new approaches to improve his rate from click to conversion (to qualified sales opportunity and through the sales cycle to close):

1. Instantly delivered summarized content, tailored to the medium

Dave has created a “social-brief” content format: a mobile-friendly template for all his marketing assets, from white papers to webinars, consisting of about 300 words of high-value content — not marketing speak. This provides immediate value to prospects by instantly delivering what they clicked on. And through invitations to “Share This” embedded in these briefs, he’ll expand his reach even more (and track those referrals).

2. Full content in exchange for an e-mail address

To receive the full content (such as a PDF or recorded webinar), Dave’s prospects will be asked for one thing on a form: an e-mail address. Since the content will be provided by e-mail, he’ll be able to verify  the e-mail address is valid. Dave says, “I didn’t give up on demand generation, just optimized it.”

His view is that this gets the prospect into his CRM system and gives him the ability to develop the opportunity through lead nurturing (“drip”) campaigns. His theory is that when qualified prospects revisit his site, they’ll be more inclined to provide additional demographic information, and he’ll have more behavioral data to score.

By removing “friction from the conversion cycle,” as Dave calls it, he is expecting to see ROI by generating more leads, more re-tweets (RTs) and more followers who should engage additional prospects.

What is your view of using lead qualification forms in social media campaigns?  Is it a valid assumption that the most qualified prospects are those willing to fill out lead qualification forms?

Tags: Dave Ewart, lead qualification, marketing and sales alignment, Sales 2.0, social media marketing, twitter

Prospecting 2.0: The Cold Call is Dead

Nothing is more dreaded by most sales reps than having to generate new sales leads by cold calling.  I am preparing for a webinar, hosted by InsideView and part of their educational web event series on Sales 2.0, that explores a more effective way to find qualified sales opportunities and engage with those prospects.  Called “Prospecting 2.0″, this new approach is a godsend to sales reps.  Customers are pretty happy about it, too.  It respects both the customer and the sales rep’s time by focusing the sales organization on contacts who are most likely to be interested in receiving a phone call or e-mail from them.  How is this possible? Sales reps that practice Prospecting 2.0:

• Put themselves in the customer’s shoes and only reach out to those contacts at the right time with the right message
• Are well-informed about their prospect’s business objectives, initiatives, and challenges
• Use a lead rating system to prioritize their contacts and organize their outreach and follow up accordingly
• Embrace technologies that make them more effective and productive by delivering information in an easy-to-use context

In many Sales 2.0 organizations, there is a dedicated person or group whose job it is to reach out to customers early in their buying cycle, discover if there is a “fit”, and keep them engaged – with the help of nurturing marketing programs – until they are closer to a buying decision. This Sales Development or Lead Qualification group allows sales reps with quotas to focus on closing qualified buyers without sacrificing the filling of the sales funnel for future quarters. While sales reps are compensated on revenue-generation, sales development reps are paid on delivering qualified opportunities to the sales force.

E-mails can benefit from a Prospecting 2.0 approach as well.  At the end of last month, I remember getting a message that went something like this:

“Since it’s the end of our quarter, I thought you might be interested in (product name), which is now available at a 15% discount until (end of quarter date).”

This is a commonly-used approach that has everything to do with the sales rep’s quota attainment and nothing to do with the customer. Consider instead this customer-centric, personalized approach:

“Steve at Steve and Company suggested I contact you. I read recently in Profitability Today that your company is facing cost reduction in sales.  We just reduced head count 20% while increasing revenue 25% by implementing Sales Wonder Tool at Steve and Company. Would you like hear more about how we could help you decrease cost while increasing productivity at your company?”

In next week’s webinar at 10AM on April 21 PST,  I look forward to interviewing Jason Braun of Jellyvision and Mike Pilcher of MarketBright and hearing about how they use a Prospecting 2.0 approach every day in their sales organizations.  We’ll address three key topic areas:

1. The Importance of Data
2. Know Thy Customer, and
3. Provocation-Based Selling, as described in the article by Philip Lay, Todd Hewlin and Geoffrey Moore in the Harvard Business Review.

What questions do you have about how to prospect more effectively? What approaches are working for you?

Tags: Geoffrey Moore, Harvard Business Review, InsideView, Jellyvision, lead qualification, MarketBright, Philip Lay, Prospecting 2.0, Provocation-Based Selling, sales development, Todd Hewlin, webinar