Establishing Your Lead Generation Goals

We’re in the business of creating opportunities for the sales organization. With the multitude of new marketing vehicles continually thrown out to us, we get bogged down on what to use and how to use it before even beginning to develop a cohesive strategy.

It often seems that we are “up to our ears” in planning how best to incorporate social media efforts with online ads, print ads, public relations, direct mail, trade shows – just to name a few – into a cohesive plan. Take a step back and look at the tried and true formula that helps define the goal and focus all of our efforts. It goes like this:

• Begin with the end in mind. How many sales are required, based on average sales price of the products or services that are needed to meet set revenue targets?
  
  
• How many opportunities must be generated in order to meet those sales?
  
  
• How many opportunities need to be delivered by marketing efforts versus direct or inside sales finding their own opportunities?

DMA Report
For lead generation, considering some basics for your media efforts can help. The DMA, in its 2009 Direct Response Report, states that outbound telephone had the highest response rate among all media. Its relative cost can be high in relation to other programs and overall outcome is proportionate to the validity of the target list and the real value offered to the prospect, but outbound telephone still had the highest reported response rate among all media (4.41% for house lists and 2.92% for prospect lists).

Email Campaigns
The DMA also reports that email campaigns for lead generation are stabilizing with open rates in the low to mid teens for house lists, click-through rates in the high single digits and conversion rates in the mid single digits. Email is really an “established player,” with lead generation response rates fairly consistent across all industries. Consistency, relevancy and adding value remain the keys to obtaining higher response rate for e-mail campaigns. 

In these times when all departments are tasked with being more accountable for their budgets, we can’t get too wrapped up in driving campaign activity without remembering that the overall marketing goal is about driving sales conversions.