What makes a good Lead Status?

How do I define my Lead Statuses, Deal Stages, Case Statuses?

It is important when selecting statuses or stages that you think of them as place holders for your leads (not descriptions of) as they progress through your linear sales, processing and/or support processes. For example; a lead status of attempting contact makes sense because it is in a place holder where activities are taking place to establish contact. On the flip side; busy number is not a good status unless you treat busy phone numbers differently than you do any other un-contacted lead.

A simple example: New (never been dialed); Attempting Contact (receiving active contact attempts); Nurture (failed to contact and is now receiving passive contact attempts); Not Interested (spoke with the person and there is no interest); Bad Lead; Investigating (contacted and in the sales process); Closed Won; and Closed Lost.

If you want to track reasons why a lead was not interested, those should be tracked in a sub drop down list which can be accessed for reporting purposes.

These statuses or stages should also have detailed plans on how to progress them into the next status. If in “Attempting Contact”, we will use a power dialer to call 3X per day, send an email every 3 days, a fax every 10 days and leave a recorded voice message every 3 days. If we get a hold of the person, move it into either “Not Interested”, “Investigating” or “Nurture”. If we do not get a hold of it, move it into “Nurture” after 3 weeks.

So we can see Statuses do not describe the lead itself but the stage in which it is residing and the activities that are associated with it.

New Marketing

I have read, and employed numerous marketing methods over the years for numerous types of business. The one that I have been most impressed with is Educational Marketing. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, Educational Marketing is the idea of providing educational material (such as a study, survey, white paper, etc...) as an industry expert with no strings attached. If you can educate your industry, you will be seen as a thought leader, you will gain the trust of prospects, you will have their attention even when they are not in the market for your product, and you will have a high level of influence when they are in the market for your product. This method is very effective, but it can take a long time to generate quality leads and deals for you and takes a lot of effort in developing rich content for your educational material.

Recently I have been turned on to a new way of marketing. I don't know how new it is but it warrants mentioning on my blog. It is Service Marketing. Service Marketing doesn't just provide information, but it provides a service. There are some key components when creating a service for your company that can act as a lead generator:

• It must relate to your product of service.
• It must be offered, in a limited manner, for free at first.
• It must have value in and of itself.
• It should be offered at a very low price to eliminate any barrier to the prospect doing business with you.

If done successfully, you could end up with a double opt-in buyer lead that has a relationship with your company.

Here is an example:

Call 1- Hi, We have performed an audit on your hold times for customer service. Are you interested in the results?

This is opt in #1

Send results

Call 2- Hi, we did a study on the importance of handling customer service calls in a timely manner. Would you be interested in a copy of that study? I will also attach information on the audit as a service we offer.

This is opt in #2

Send study and brochure talking about the service you provide. The cost should be a no brainer. Much less than what they can hire an $8 per hour high school student to sit on hold and report times back to them.

If they buy, they now have a relationship with you and are a double opt in buyer lead for your real products and services.

If you need some ideas on services you can offer, feel free to email me at troy.bingham@gmail.com.