What is the definition of a unique Sales Lead?

Along with aligning Sales and Marketing goals organizations also need to have open conversations about an integrated Lead follow-up and close-loop process before embarking on integrating Marketing Automation and CRM systems. Some of the key questions that need to be answered are:

1.    How is the sales team organized? Is it by territory only or a combination of (territory + product
       mix)?
2.    Do these rules vary by region?
3.    What are the possible paths a Lead takes before it turns into Revenue?
4.    How are Leads sent to channel partners? What is the process to close loop Opportunities or    
       Revenue from channel partners?

Not many organizations have ready answers to these questions and have a tendency to implement an MA solution before answering these critical questions. Answers to these questions help in crafting the right process to integrate the two functions. A few decisions that depend on answers to the above questions are:

1.    What is a Lead in the integrated system:

a.    Is it the Company being sold to? Some organizations might treat the company being sold to as a Lead. All responses from contacts within that company get rolled up and all follow up activities happen at the company level. 

b.    A person within a company being marketed to? In other cases a Lead is a person within a company who responds to a Marketing campaign. This Lead gets assigned to one sales rep and any follow up marketing activities should alert the rep owning the Lead.

c.    A response to a specific product promotion from a specific region? Larger companies
with a complex sales organization and a rich mix of products and services define a Lead as a response to a product being promoted in a specific region. Different sales people might follow up with the same person depending on the mix. In such cases Marketing needs to send the same Lead to different sales follow up queues.

2.    How do Leads flow through the funnel and how can Marketing get feedback on Leads being generated? Depending on size and complexity companies might have different stage gates in the follow up process. A simplistic model could be that all Leads get sent to a field sales organization and a closed loop process can be implemented by getting feedback from the field sales organization. A more complex process could be that Leads from Marketing first get sent to a telemarketing organization for data verification and initial follow up. Leads that pass this stage are sent to an inside sales organization for booking appointments. Inside sales promote in-person appointments to the field sales organization. In other cases inside sales might have the authority to close the deal if the deal size is below an approved threshold. Finally, field sales works on opportunities created by the inside sales organization and try to convert them into revenue. In this scenario the closed loop process is more complex since Leads might drop off at any of the 3 stage gates described above.

3.    How are channel partners integrated into the process? Most companies have a very hard time close-looping the process with channel partners. This is a critical step for organizations that depend on
channel partners for a significant portion of their revenue. In such cases Marketing teams need to work closely with Channel Managers and understand when and how Leads are sent to Channel partners. Some companies use PRM systems to manage “Lead Publish” and “Closed loop Deal Registration process” with channel partners. Marketing needs to integrate into this process to get feedback on Leads they generate for their channel partners.

It is extremely critical to get answers to these critical questions and document them. Such an exercise provides tremendous value to organizations since it ensures that Marketing and Sales get an appreciation of activities on the other side of the fence.