LEAD GENERATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Growth Orbit will guide you and your team to achieve better lead generation results through the strategies and methods we have used to help hundreds of companies achieve success.
Read more about the importance of accurate sales forecasting.
Kimmy Netterville
PARTNER
“Running a successful lead generation program is one of the toughest jobs in the world. It’s even tougher by today’s rapidly changing business environment. But by understanding and focusing on the three distinct aspects of lead generation, you can maintain a highly effective and successful campaign and successfully navigate this ever-changing world.”
Defining B2B Lead Generation Program Success
Modern lead generation is a complicated process with a lot of moving parts. For those reasons it is understandable that measuring lead generation performance is a struggle for most organizations. The key to effective lead generation program management is measuring both operational and strategic metrics.
- Operational metrics are those related to the daily performance of the sales development team. For example, sales effectiveness, email reply rates, voicemail response rates, connect rates, conversation rates, and the number of sales qualified leads generated.
- Strategic metrics illuminate the performance of the overall campaign. For instance, they include firmographic metrics (performance by vertical, revenue size, geographic location). They also include messaging effectiveness and the program return on investment. In turn, they factor in the value of pipeline generated, the lead close rate, and the ultimate revenue generated.
Ultimately, effectively managing your lead generation programs requires the right tools and tech stack to track, measure, and manage these critical metrics. Without the right tools, your only measurement is number of leads generated. This single dimension misses the complexity, variables, and vast array of moving parts that exist in all lead generation efforts. So, the right tools are critical to enable a central command and control that delivers visibility, insights, and the intelligence to achieve success.
Mission-critical Lead Generation Metrics you Need to Measure
WHAT WE DO
It’s about measuring the right activities
To be clear, success in managing a B2B lead generation effort is really about data analytics. Then, knowing what to analyze is key. If you are only managing lead output, you need a better approach. True lead generation program management starts with a comprehensive understanding of the market. You need detailed knowledge of the market segments, subsegments, personas, and a vast array of variables. Next, you need a strategy to isolate and measure the performance of each variable. These measures include rep performance, message performance, cadence performance, and vertical performance, just to get started.
And optimizing to maximize your results
Growth Orbit has analyzed hundreds of lead generation programs to effectively drive measurable results for clients, and we’re good at what we do. When you partner with us, you get a team that actively manages and optimizes a diverse set of lead gen programs. We constantly study the latest research and selling methodologies. Also, we relentlessly create and tests effective messaging. Additionally, we engage hundreds of prospects daily. Finally, we measures the results to see what’s working.
Managing Lead Generation Program Performance
HOW WE DO IT
After all, an effective lead generation program has the power to impact your bottom line. Hence, we show you how to measure your program’s performance. To truly get value out of lead generation, you need an experienced lead generation partner to show you how to manage and optimize outcomes:
Analyze segment performance
- Obviously, it’s important to analyze how your market segments perform. So, look at results as a part of the segment and against the campaign itself. Understand segment performance so you to further refine your strategy. That is to say, you need to adjust the segments you are calling, the persona being targeted, or the message.
Measure activity volumes (dials, connect rates, call outcomes)
- Dials, connects, and outcomes – track and measure these volumes by campaign and the sales development representative.
Track and analyze message performance
- Messaging needs to be customized by market segment and persona. It’s important to know if your message resonates at each of these levels. So we need to continuously test, analyze, and refine.
Track email and voicemail response rates
- As part of your message development, it’s important to know how well your emails and voicemails perform. So, track email responses. Also, monitor voicemail callbacks. Then update these tools often with relevant and informative content.
Track lead rates and close rates
- Lead volume as a percentage of outcomes, gives you the lead rate. It is important to understand how many targets must be dispositioned to generate a qualified lead. For instance, going through 200 targets to generate 1 lead likely means your segment is not performing well and needs to be reevaluated.
Measuring and Managing for Lead Quality, Not Lead Volume
Lead rate, one core metric of a lead generation program, is calculated by dividing lead volume by the number of segment outcomes. While every program is going to vary, in a complex selling environment, a 3-5% lead rate for sales qualified leads is a good starting target.
Generating qualified leads is most of the battle, but how well they convert is important too. Whenever you have verticals that produce a high lead rate, but a low close, rate you need to reevaluate.
Why Lead Generation Program Management Matters
To summarize, not measuring and analyzing the operational and strategic activities of your lead generation campaign will greatly affect its success. Without doing so, your investment into lead generation will not produce the desired results. And your sales efforts will suffer, too. Ultimately, so will your bottom line. Without the right lead generation program management strategy, you won’t have the necessary visibility into your program. Nor can you make the necessary adjustments that will lead to program success.
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