And where does the magic of the 5-minute response-time come from? Here’s the proof: actual data from the InsideSales.com system. When they traced 6 companies that had generated over 15,000 leads and 100,000 call attempts, they made a couple of remarkable discoveries:
- When companies respond to Web leads within 5 minutes, they are 900% more likely to reach them.
- The likelihood of qualifying a lead called within 5 minutes is 21 times greater (there’s that 2000%) than if you wait 30 minutes. And don’t think that 10 minutes is good enough. You’re 4 times more likely to qualify a lead when you pick up the phone and dial in 5 minutes, than if you slack off just a bit and call in 10 minutes.
Bottom line? It’s time to speed up your internal processes and dial your most promising leads ASAP. You’re probably thinking that’s easier said than done. True. But it can be done. Here’s how.
- Automate It
- Integrate It
It’s no good having scorching-hot leads hanging out in your marketing automation platform until the end of the day when you download them. By then they’ve lost their sizzle. So you need to create a bridge from your marketing automation platform into your customer relationship management (CRM) system that enables your company to distribute leads to your inside sales reps or teleservices company immediately for follow up.
- Follow Up in Five
Now, set a policy for following up in five minutes on the ripe-and-ready leads—those with the highest lead scores. To carry out the policy you’ll need enough phone sales people to take care of the calls in five minutes.
Remember, you’ll need to prepare for those times when the leads are flooding in due to a new offer, and assure that bottlenecks don’t occur. If you can’t handle this internally, you can always opt for a reputable teleservices company to take care of the calls. Because they have more capacity, they can be more flexible, and able to meet the peaks and troughs of demand for call-backs.
First, invest in the latest in marketing automation platform that can help you to capture leads, pre-qualify them, and prioritize them; for example, Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot or Act-On.
Next, define a qualified lead. Then, create a form within the automation platform to ask a series of questions every time someone signs up for any of your offers, such as white papers, e-books, and webinars. Design the questions so the answers can help to pre-qualify the lead by telling you whether a lead has the budget for your product or solution, the authority to buy it, the need for it, and the desire to purchase it in the short term. The automation platform will score leads based on these criteria and push the red-hot ones to the top of the list.
So get your business-to-business telemarketing processes, systems and people aligned to respond in 5 minutes, and create more qualified leads than you ever thought possible.
For information about how 3D2B can help you with response management call +1 718-709-0900 or +39 06 978 446 60 (EMEA).
