Lead Routing - The lead is here. Now distribute properly!
You've put a lot of effort into generating leads - and a lot of resources: money, time and personnel. Whether through mailing campaigns, trade show participation. Or simply through newsletters or forms on your website. You've nurtured and qualified leads with relevant content thanks to marketing automation campaigns. Ideally, you have performed lead scoring and determined when the lead becomes interesting for an initial direct contact. All these steps have then finally resulted in the lead being at a "hot temperature" and - finally! - ready to be passed on to the sales department. Hooray! Off to lead distribution, also called: Lead Routing
Why do you need a well-organized lead routing?
- Over a quarter of leads are lost due to poor lead
organization -
But now you are only halfway to completion. The work is just beginning nt. Because it's at this point in the so-called "sales funnel" (lead funnel) that the problems really begin for many companies with indirect sales structures.
A study by LeadData revealed: Over 57 percent of sales and marketing professionals surveyed doubted that their lead process actually provides an ideal customer experience. In short, they find it challenging to find the right person within their organization to provide the prospect with the perfectly tailored information. Worse, a quarter of leads are assigned to the wrong contacts! It fizzles out, seeps away, gets lost in nirvana.
Mind you, this applies to organizations that have an internal sales team. That is, organizations where marketing and sales teams ideally have access to the same database. Nevertheless, lead organization with the accompanying lead routing seems to be difficult.
The lack of marketing-sales alignment is mainly due to the fact that marketing does not know exactly what makes the sales department tick and what it needs ...
Now imagine how much more risky it is to distribute leads or prospective buyers to sales partners who are not even part of your own organization!
This creates additional obstacles to a perfect customer journey:
- 1The physical distance
- 2The lack of access to the same CRM system by distributors and manufacturers
- 3The incorrect allocation of leads to the right reseller or sales partner
Free Whitepaper
The 10 essential rules in dealer sales - winning more end customers with sales partners.
Learn how to get more transparency in multi-level sales, how to have all key figures at a glance and how to never again have leads left with the sales partner.
Leave your email address and receive the whitepaper and further insider information for indirect sales by email.
How does a manufacturer bridge the physical distance to the channel partner in lead routing?
Today, it is the case in most companies that hot or qualified leads (SQL) are passed on to sales partners by telephone, Excel list, e-mail.
According to different criteria:
But how can you assume that the distributor has time? Or enough freelancers? Or has the product in stock? Or that selling the requested product is in line with his current business strategy (interest in enterprise or SME customers)?
Thought
Ideally, the internal sales employee would have to query these factors for each lead distribution. However, very few people do this.
The solution:
The lead matching process must be reversed: Leads should no longer be sent from the manufacturer to the sales partner, but the sales partner (reseller, specialist dealer, system integrator, etc.) should get the lead. After all, no one knows better than they do whether they have the time, resources, desire and the corresponding know-how to process the lead!
Tip on the side: Leads should not be sent to sales partners, but sales partners should actively get the leads.
How do manufacturers solve the media break between their own CRM and that of the reseller?
Wiederverkäufer und Hersteller arbeiten in der Regel nicht mit der gleichen Lead-Datenbank.
The problem with Lead Matching
Free
Webinar
Free Webinar
This is how you create measurable figures in indirect sales
In this 20-minute webinar, you will see how to create more transparency and better lead processing in indirect sales. Register now!
The ideal path would be:
Leads should have previously given their consent as to whether and which sales partner may contact them.
Side tip: Distributors and manufacturers should have access to a single control console or cockpit where they can both view and enter all information about a lead's processing status.
Lead distribution: How do manufacturers ensure that a lead is assigned to the right sales partner?
If an unsuitable sales partner is forwarded an inquiry, he is very unlikely to pursue it with vigor. And in case of doubt, the lead will be lost.
We have already mentioned a first logical solution above:
The sales partner who has the right resources will actively "pick" a lead if they determine that the lead is a good fit for them and they have a high probability of closing the request.
However, it would also be conceivable for a lead to be assigned. In this case, however, the right matching parameters or sales KPIs must be defined in advance.
Criteria could be:
How can manufacturers support their sales partners in their sales work?
The manufacturer and the sales partner must communicate and cooperate much more closely than before. And they need the right tools to do so.
This also applies to the time that comes after the initial contact with the potential customer. Today, many sales partners drop a lead if they do not immediately know which arguments, which offers, and which services they can use to pitch their product. Until now, they have had to look around in sometimes confusing partner portals.
30 Min. Consultation
We will show you how to create a digital lead management cycle with your sales partners, specialist dealers, installers, distributors, sales representatives and field sales force - completely automated.
But who has the time and leisure to do so? It would be ideal if this information were automatically sent as a push message. And always updated. The same applies to press releases, stock exchange notices, information on new business strategies that affect the respective potential customer. All this data has to be made available to the partner on an ad hoc basis. This saves time and effort and helps him in his sales arguments.
Studies have proven that end-to-end, 360-degree tracking of the customer journey without media breaks by manufacturers and sales partners results in a 30 percent increase in sales!
Your leadtributor team
Recommend this article
