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Lead Development and On-Demand CRM:
The Marketing Program that Begins After the Sales Lead is Generated

In companies selling complex, expensive products and services in business-to-business markets, long sales cycles and multiple decision-makers in the purchase process mean your company’s sales team must be effectively supported by an effective lead development program that supports your company’s sales reps in their ongoing communications dialogue with their prospects.

However, most companies have not developed formalized, effective lead development programs as part of their ongoing marketing programs. According to widespread industry estimates, as much as 80% of company marketing expenditures for lead generation are wasted in company sales efforts due to lack of effective lead development.

Lead development programs are the marketing plan that is executed after the lead is generated. On-demand CRM is utilized to develop, execute, manage, and measure lead development activities, which are specialized marketing projects such as e-mail messaging programs, direct mail, events and other marketing efforts targeted to achieve the following goals:

• Establishing credibility and trust: According to the Aberdeen Group, a research firm, 70% of customers determine their final brand perception and preference by their direct contact with the company’s sales rep. In a survey of 23,000 B2B buyers, conducted by Cahners Research, salespeople who are viewed as “trusted advisors” are 69% more likely to close the sale.

CRM-FM training in development of high-quality, targeted lead development programs, executed marketing professionals as on-demand CRM campaigns, support your company’s sales team over the long term of your company’s sales cycle and move your marketing program closer to the goal of building credibility and trust where it counts: in the relationship between the individual sales rep and their prospect.

• Identifying and acting on “triggering events:” “Triggering events,” the term coined by sales expert Jill Konrath, author of the book Selling to Big Companies, describe sudden changes at your prospects’ companies providing new opportunities for your sales team to close the sale. These events include mergers, acquisitions, cutbacks, or major new business initiatives.

The CRM-FM system covers and trains the various kinds of editorial messaging activities that can be executed in during lead development programs to help your company’s sales team by spotting these opportunities when they occur in prospect interactions, and positioning your company as the prospect’s best choice in light of the changes occurring in the prospect’s company.

• Identifying and solving the prospect’s problem in the sales cycle: Prospects in B2B markets have stopped paying attention to the usual marketing messages they see in their business: What the prospect really wants to know is how your product can solve their problem, and the benefits they receive from buying your product to solve this problem.

By supporting your company’s sales team in their ongoing communications with prospects during your company’s sales cycle, Lead development programs help you achieve achieve the most important goal of any B2B marketer: To help your company generate more sales.

During the lead development process, you can achieve this by successfully positioning your company as the best solution to the prospect’s business problem or issue in the prospect’s mind, using the CRM-FM system to plan and execute successful lead development programs, integrated with on-demand CRM.

More Information on CRM-FM: For an overview of the CRM-FM System, click here . . .

CRM-FM Content Overview: To see topics covered in CRM-FM training and certification, click here . . .