Inbound Marketing Programs: We do a lot, now have too many leads, any tips?

Hey!
Before we answer this question, we need to understand a few things. Are these inbound leads people calling for a specific product, service, or solution, or are they responders? By responders, I mean those who have downloaded material, viewed a webinar, requested information, etc. We then need to know if these people are qualified to buy. Are they involved in the decision making process? Do they have a need? Do they have a budget? Many times we will find that some of these people are only looking for information; they may be students researching for a school project, or consultants looking to learn more about your offerings should they have a customer needing services as yours in the future. We may also learn that there is no active project or need.
We can get a better idea of who these people are and what their intentions were by following up with them. Once we get hold of these people, we can determine if they are part of your target market. If they are, you can then understand what their situation is and determine if what you have to offer is a fit for them. From there you may find that this person is a qualified prospect or someone who is ready to buy now. If they are one of those qualified persons who was just looking for information or who has no immediate need, then you can add them back to your nurturing campaign for follow-up at another time. Who knows, things may change in 3, 6, or 9 months and they might actually have a need at that time.
Hope this helps!
Tamika

Links:
http://www.telenetmarketing.com/blog
http://www.telenetmarketing.com/best-practices/trends

Think of Inbound Leads as a warm list. They still have to be reached, they still need to be engaged. They raised their hand, yes. That's a plus on the lead score, but the next thing that needs to happen is to pump them into an Outbound Marketing campaign. Dial, Email, Target. Get the conversation going, and then close the deal.

Wrote an article about it last year where I called Inbound Leads the Über List: http://www.green-leads.com/b2b-blog/bid/25255/Inbound-Marketing-The-%C3%9Cber...

Hey Sarah,

You might want to segment your lists into micro-niche groups. I started doing this with the traffic on my blog. Since I blog on a range of topics I found that my blog was attracting a more diverse group of people. So instead of having one main mailing list I started to segment my email list into 3 groups:

1. My Main Newsletter (Freedom Education on Personal Growth)
2. The Science of Getting Rich (based on Wallace Wattles book - 1910)
3. The Blog Marketing Coach (helping coaches generate leads from their blog)

Each one of these lists targets a different market - and this makes it much easier for me to make decisions about what products and services to offer each group.

Hope that helps,

Steve

Links:
http://www.freedomeducation.ca

Before you drive any types of leads, you have to determine how you are going to convert and qualify them. If you're answer is the sales guys, you missed. The too many leads issue is a bad problem to have, the too many sales opportunities is a good problem to have.

Just because they are inbound does NOT mean you don't need dedicated resources sitting in between lead generation and sales. You do.

This is an interesting question as it is the exact same problem experience by Find New Customers. Our content is so popular, we're inundated by people downloading it. While they are a warm list, we simply do not have time to call everyone. So lead scoring is very very important to us. We need to prioritize our calls.

Hope this helps.
Jeff Ogden, President
Find New Customers "Lead Generation Made Simple"
http://www.findnewcustomers.net

My immediate reaction to this question is to chase it with a few of my own:

How many is too many? WHY did they become leads (did you give them something, etc.)? When's the last time you cleaned your list?

One of my functions in my "pre-professional" life included virtual Database clean up and verification, where I took my past call center experience and rented it out to small businesses to help them update and verify their lists on a regular basis.

Before you freak out too much over your bulbous list, go through and actually call each one and update or delete each contact accordingly. If you were giving something away for free, there's a good chance that the phone numbers you were given were bogus. Note the account as such. Bouncing emails are an equal problem. Most email marketing companies automatically track bounced emails and out-bound centers monitor the number of wrong numbers, disconnects, "Take me off your list"'s, etc.

Just the simple act of "cleaning" your list like this can cut your numbers by as much as 10% or more.

Now, go through and sync any of your prospects and leads with your clients/customers list and remove anyone that's already purchased or taken the next step and put them on your "house list". This will prevent any disgruntled paying folk from bailing because they're being marketed to all of the time by your organization.

Then, send out yet another mailing/calling/emailing campaign to this list and further remove any names of paying clients. To further "qualify" your existing list and weed out the totally unresponsive members, offer another freebie or a super sale price on something at a significantly reduced price to see if other list members were interested, but being asked to pay more than their comfort zone allowed - go for something around the $5.00 mark and that's available for immediate gratifications (digital download, etc.)

Members that "take action" at this point should be processed into a B Grade list that just follows your House List in Importance.

Once you've created your B Grade List, remove their names from your Lead Pool.

If your Lead Pool is still too populated, what you need to do now (and certainly before you organize any additional lead generation campaigns) is to come up with a system that allows you to further qualify your leads. Ask more questions... Ask more personal questions that freebie grabbers aren't comfortable answering (income brackets, etc.)... If you're offering a free trial of something, have them supply you with credit card information for verification purposes, even if they won't be billed. If you're a local versus a national venture, scrub your "special" list of members outside of your geographical area. You can continue allowing them to subscribe to your blogs, etc. - but can avoid crowding out your list and wasting your blasts.

Of course, having a large list can be a boon - especially if you're keen on creatively capitalizing on it. Perhaps you can make money from advertisers if you list is so large - instead of violating any privacy agreements, have the advertiser send you there completed ad and you coordinate all of the mailing or emailing and just provide a statistical analysis of the open rates, click-through rates, sales, etc.

List segmentation according to niches is also a great idea that I've already seen suggested here, and can help you identify new opportunities and greater potential in the marketplace.

I've got to run but I just wanted to lend my two cents before I went!

Jennifer Gibbs