Telemarketing Lead Generation Blog

Smart Advice - Focus on Lead Quality Before Quantity

Posted on Dec 3, 2009 by Kathy Rizzo, Vice President of Sales and Marketing

When presented with the option of receiving high quality leads or a large quantity of leads, how would you respond? If you are like many marketers and sales managers within today’s economy, you probably really and truly want to have both. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, that it is possible. However to obtain both you have to first focus your attention on lead quality.

Focusing on quality – ensuring your lists are adequately targeted, refining your telemarketing messaging and validating that the leads meet your sales team’s needs – will solidify your overall telemarketing strategy. From that position of strength, you can then move on to expand your program to increase your quantity of output.

When you launch a new telemarketing lead generation initiative, our advice is to engage in a reasonable pilot program – we typically recommend 3-6 months in duration. During this “pilot” period of time, you should focus your attention on three major goals:

1. Define & Validate “Sales-Ready” Leads – Most marketers know the importance of sitting down with their sales management in order to jointly determine the definition (criteria) of a qualified “sales-ready” lead. However, the task does not end once you set the lead definition. It’s also critical that you engage in weekly feedback / dialog sessions with your sales team in order to validate that the lead definition is truly what they need. In some cases sales may think they want one thing, but once they actually receive the leads and follow-up, they may realize that their needs are slightly different. Don’t be surprised if you need to alter your definition during the pilot program.
2. Create, Test & Tweak the messaging. The best thing about telemarketing is that you receive instant market feedback to your messaging. As the first call is made, you can listen to the conversations (audio recordings!) . This instant intelligence will help you to determine if your message resonates with your audience or if you need to modify it. Messaging is rarely developed perfectly, so listen to how your market is responding and adjust accordingly.
3. Validate & Refine your target market. At least 60% of the success of any telemarketing lead generation program is attributed to the quality of your targeted database. Therefore, it’s important that you spend time ensuring your lists are accurate and well targeted. If you are purchasing new lists for your campaign, it’s advisable to use the pilot program to test and closely monitor your sources, focusing your efforts on the highest yielding sources. Don’t waste your dollars with a poor or un-targeted list.

Focusing your attention on lead criteria (with sales’ feedback!), messaging and targeted lists will produce a quality lead generation program. Once this foundation is in place, you can more easily expand your initiative to increase the quantity of your output.

Tagged: lead generation, targeted lead generation, lead nurturing, telemarketing sales leads, telemarketing leads, telemarketing lead generation

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