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	Join me on Linked-In Norman Campbell Managing Director eMarket2

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Why you should outsource lead handling and lead nurturing

This guide analyses the results of a recent survey and shows eight good reasons why you should outsource lead handling and lead nurturing.

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What are these?

Introduction

An ‘IDC survey’ shows that one of “The Top 5 CEO Mandates For Marketing”, is to ‘measure and increase qualified lead generation results’, through better lead management:

(Source IDC report ‘Tech Marketing Benchmarks and staffing for 2004)

1.	Provide consistent ROI measurement
2.	Measure and increase brand awareness and reputation
3.	Measure and increase qualified lead generation results
4.	Decrease marketing spend as a percentage of revenue
5.	Increase revenue

Your solution might be to outsource your enquiry response handling and lead nurturing work. A specialist Demand Generation/Lead Nurturing Service Company can: qualify your ‘ready to buy’ prospects; nurture the 90% non-qualifying leads; send out information and provide detailed statistics to help you measure the effectiveness of your demand generation campaign.

Here are some more stats to justify why you might outsource this work:

1.	On average, sales only follow up 10% of all leads
2.	90% of leads do not get followed up correctly
3.	77% of the 90% will eventually buy
4.	69% of leads get no follow-up at all
5.	67% are still planning to buy after 12 months
6.	Only 11% of response forms receive a sales follow up in person or by phone
7.	40% of web form prospects receive information late and 20% never get sent any information or follow-up
8.	78% of companies don’t have a functioning lead nurturing programme which can produce associated reporting
9.	More selling is required at executive level for high value/complex sales which require a minimum of five follow-up touchpoints before a sale is closed
10.	80% of sales close after the fifth contact

(Sources: Aberdeen Group; Gartner Group; B2B Magazine; Chilton; Reed Elsevier; & Cahners)

"outsource your enquiry response handling and lead nurturing work to a specialised
demand generation/lead nurturing service company".

Reasons for outsourcing

EIGHT GOOD REASONS TO OUTSOURCE

1.	Easy telephone access – an efficient, 24-hour, FreePhone telephone service will impress prospects and encourage them to become customers.
2.	Fast data service – your eMail and fax numbers can be routed via a service company so that data can be quickly turned around by eMail, fax or post.
3.	Easy web fulfilment – your service company can handle “chat” requests and information forms routed directly from your website.
4.	Sales lead distribution – the advanced sales lead distribution software used by service companies will enable your sales people to receive leads quickly by eMail, fax, or, better still, accessed directly from a secure internet site.
5.	Links to your own CRM – your service companies can integrate sales leads with your existing contact management or sales automation system/ software.
6.	Prospect Qualification – service company telemarketers can: generate sales leads; qualify prospects; perform “what do you buy?” studies; build relationships and invite prospects to seminars.
7.	Effective Databases – your service company can manage and develop your databases by adding, cleaning and enhancing data with prospect feedback.
8.	Sophisticated reporting – you will have access to sophisticated reporting facilities, allowing you to track and analyse results by territory, product type etc. For example, you will be able to measure lead follow-up and ROI

"I’ve found that outsourcing these tasks, as I have,
will not only relieve your workload but your sales will also increase".

David Angwin is the northern europe regional marketing manager for Wyse Technology

Conclusions

"DIY" can be a great idea until you take into account all the existing sales & marketing responsibilities you already have.

You may think you don’t have the budget but think again; consider moving some of your demand generation budget into response management and lead nurturing.