The success of your marketing efforts - no matter how effective your sales staff or cutting-edge your marketing campaigns - depends on the quality of your business data. The data you know about your leads sets the direction for all of your activities throughout the funnel from initial contact to closing the sale.
High quality data points your efforts in the right direction and increases your chances of a sale while inaccurate, low quality data wastes time and resources. Moreover, the effort your sales force spends trying to contact leads with bad data, such as those with incorrect numbers of e-mail address, means that qualified leads aren't getting the attention required to convert them into customers.
This paper will discuss how to judge the quality of your business data and define the characteristics of your target customer. Next, we'll review how to craft marketing messages that resonate with your customer and finally how to complile and test your data prior to launching any type of marketing or sales campaign.
Guide to B2B Leads:
Judging Quality of
Your Business Data
Brought to you by JigsawGuide to B2B Leads: Judging Quality of Your Business Data
How good is your lead data? A guide to judging B2B data quality
The success of your marketing e orts - no matter how e ective your sales sta or cutting-edge your marketing campaigns - depends on the quality of your business data. The data you know about your leads sets the direc-tion for all of your activities throughout the funnel from initial contact to closing the sale.
High quality data points your e orts in the right direction and increases your chances of a sale while inaccurate, low quality data wastes time and resources. Moreover, the e ort your sales force spends trying to contact leads with bad data, such as those with incorrect phone numbers or e-mail addresses, means that quali ed leads aren't getting the attention required to convert them into customers.
What makes a quality lead?Lead quality is measured by how likely a lead is to result in a sale. Lead quality is impacted by three principle factors:
. Data validity - a lead must have good and su cient data or may be unquali ed or impossible to contact for follow-up activities.
. Interest - a lead must have a reasonable level of interest (intent) in the product or service o ering. Leads that fall within your target market should have a presumed level of interest.
. Conversion propensity - a lead must be a good t for what you're o ering or your follow-up sales e ort won't be e ective. 1
This paper will discuss how to judge the quality of your business data and de ne the characteristics of your target customer. Next, we'll review how to craft marketing messages that resonate with your target customer and nally how to compile and test your data prior to launching any type of marketing or sales campaign.
Data strategy: de ning your target customerBecause your business data sets the foundation of your sales and marketing e orts, it's critical to carefully de ne what makes for a quali ed lead in your organization. Sit down with your sales team and agree on a common de nition for a quali ed lead. This can include things like company size, title, industry, or purchase timeline. Leads you generate that don't t the pro le aren't necessarily bad - some will still have revenue in them - but your primary job is to focus on optimizing volume and cost of the in-pro le leads rst. 2
Marketing strategy designed for your target customerAfter you've de ned what makes a quality lead it's time to create a marketing strategy that's designed speci -cally for them. This is the part of the marketing planning process that focuses on your ideal customer, not your company or what you have to sell. Knowing your customer - their goals, buying habits, and pain points - allows you to position your product/service as the solution to their needs, increasing the likelihood of making the sale.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make when creating their marketing plan is making them company-centric. Plans written from your point of view and based on what you want from the market fail to take into account your customer's perspective.
Before creating your plan, start by asking these ve customer-centric questions:
1. Who are your targets? 2. What do they care about? What outcome are they seeking? 3. Where do you nd them? 4. What or who in uences them? 5. How do they want to engage and (eventually) buy?
1 IAB Lead Generation Committee (2008). Lead Quality Accountability Best Practices for Advertisers & Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.iab.net/media/ le/leadqualitybp.pdf2 http://www.heinzmarketing.com/matt-on-marketing/blog/2009/7/b2b-lead-generation-four-better P.2Guide to B2B Leads: Judging Quality of Your Business Data
The answers to these ve questions are the foundation of your plan. They should give you a blueprint for how to match your marketing and messaging to the way your customer already thinks and operates. 3
Knowing the general characteristics of your target customer isn't enough, however. To position you and your product/service most e ectively, you must go a step further and understand the segments within your target group.
Target segments: it's not one size ts allJust because your target customers are working in the same industry - or within the sa... [download for more]
