The odds are that your organization is spending fist fulls of dollars on inbound marketing and generating qualified leads, many of which do not close that quarter, or the next. That’s because qualified doesn’t necessarily mean “ready to buy today!"
SiriusDecisions has found that 70% of the qualified leads that make it to sales get disqualified or discarded by sales, sent back to marketing or nowhere at all.
Here’s the catch: Up to 80% of those “dead end” prospects will ultimately go on to buy from you – or from a competitor – within the next 18 – 24 months.
If salespeople send those leads back to marketing, they’re going to be put into a drip campaign at best and get bombarded with emails and untimely messaging. As a sales person the ideal situation would be to add them to a hopper to keep tabs on, nurture, and stay top of mind until they’re ready to buy.
Advanced marketing teams are not only ensuring a well-oiled demand generation machine is working, but also that they are providing their sales people the opportunity to stay in front of their prospects who will be ready to buy in a short time.
The best way to do this is to ensure that sales teams have access to a steady flow of funnel stage company content and 3rd party content that adds value to your prospects.
Edelman’s Trust Barometer illustrates the shift in trust from corporate marketing toward employee, channel partner, or 3rd party advocate engagement.
As a salesperson, it’s key to be the concierge of this information so that the prospect sees you as the value add and the relationship continues to build – the exact opposite of when the qualified lead gets sent back to marketing.
As a marketer, having sales share inbound links as a part of their content strategy drives a ton more engagement. Research shows links that come from real people are anywhere from 500-750% more likely to be engaged with than a corporate post.
(Editor's Note: This post was originally posted on rFactr's blog. Julio is rFactr's VP of Marketing with social. He was featured by Forbes as a Top 25 Social Selling Influencer in the World for 2014 as one of the world’s leading thought leaders in the social sales space. rFactr's social sales program provides sales organizations with an easy way to activate their team on social channels, enabling them to connect with prospects and begin the sales process earlier in the sales cycle. Learn more...)