Recently I posted a question to several groups on Linked In. The question was simply; "When do you contact your web leads?" I am a member of two types of groups, Demand Generation/Marketing and Sales. The responses were night and day different between the two camps. In the Marketing and Demand Gen groups, the responders often said it was best to wait 24-48 hours. One even said that you should make a goal of calling every web lead within the first four days. On the otherside, the Sales responders all felt that a call should be made immediatly or as quickly as possible.
Here is a quesiton to get you thinking; why would there be a difference (and it was overwhelmingly obvious) between Marketings and Sales approach? I would have thought it would have been the opposite. Maybe Marketers are leaning more towards nurturing a lead and bringing it around slowly where as Sales has a quota and wants to exhaust all resources in the attempts to get the deal.
No real answer, just some points to ponder. Please comment with your thoughts.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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4 comments:
Really interesting post ... does that mean marketers are not talking enough to Sales? Or vice versa :) There was some great research that showed the best time to call an online prospect was while they were still sitting in the same spot, i.e., within minutes of hitting your site. That increased the chances of making a sale many many times.
Thanks for the thoughs "imr editor". The company I currently work with performed one of those studies that you are referring to with MIT and the Kellogg School of Business last year and the results were overwhelming leaning towards an immediate call back. In fact the drop of between the first 5 minutes and 30 minutes was a staggering 2000% decline in chance of contact and qualification. you brought up a very good point.
Hi Troy.I remember the study well but did it really say it was a 2000% drop? Am going to include another reminder on this in our current print issue, citing you. Please clarify .. thanks Julie (aka IMR editor)
I know 2000% seems pretty high but on page 27 of the study it states "The odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes versus 30 mintues drop 21 times. And from 5 minutes to 10 minutes the dial to qualify odds decrease by 4 times."
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