At the core, a Marketing VP’s primary responsibility is to produce leads. Of course, leads are not the be-all end-all – a million terrible leads might not move the needle whatsoever on a company’s bottom line and revenue. However, when a Marketing VP is consistently generating high-quality leads that convert into opportunities that are then closed-won to deals, then they will be able to say they held up their end of the bargain and tell the CEO that they did their job. This is why it is crucial that Marketing VPs are patently aware of their lead history at all times.
Looking at a lead history report allows a Marketing VP to answer an important question for him or herself: “How is my lead database changing?” Such a lead history report would provide a current snapshot of the marketing department’s lead inventory and how this has been trending over a set amount of time.
Naturally, Marketing VPs want to see their lead inventory grow. A month-over-month increase in the number of leads they are generating indicates that they are not only fulfilling their end of the bargain in the collaboration and alignment between sales and marketing, but that the Marketing VP is getting better at his or her job. They are learning from the successes and failures of past campaigns, re-prioritizing efforts to focus on lead sources that produce the highest-possible ROI and simply becoming more efficient and effective as a marketer in generating leads.
A lead history report should also segment between various lead types, based on what stage they are in or how qualified they are. Every company has different definitions for what the final stage is before a lead converts to an opportunity; for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll say marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) get handed over to sales development reps who can then accept and qualify these leads as opportunities ready for the sales pipeline.
Take a look at this lead history report example above. This company’s lead inventory has been steadily growing over the past six months. The number of total leads has more than doubled over this time frame. Additionally, the quality of leads has also improved markedly. In March, this marketing department was able to generate 171 MQLs. Six months later, that number has increased 10-fold, all the way to 1,756 MQLs.
Additionally, the telesales team – who receives the MQLs from marketing and then has to accept and qualify them before progressing them to the opportunity pipeline – has been increasingly pleased with the leads they have been handed. The number of telesales-accepted and telesales-qualified leads (TALs and TQLs) has improved month-over-month. This indicates that the sales team agrees with marketing’s definition of what constitutes a high-quality, qualified lead.
While such growth, with your lead history report trending up-and-to-the-right, is desirable, it’s not always feasible or realistic to expect this. The lead history report is also a great asset in diagnosing and identifying problems with the lead generation and lead transferring process. For example, if the number of MQLs has been steadily increasing simultaneously as the number of TALs is decreasing, that suggests a disconnect between sales and marketing. Perhaps they both have different definitions of what constitutes a high-quality lead and need to meet to clarify the entire process.
Any top marketer worth his or her salt must be well aware of how their lead database and inventory is changing. Separating the lead statuses by their stages provides a more in-depth analysis that allows both Marketing and Sales VPs to track the quality of their leads, providing an opportunity to work together and really refine the entire lead generation and transferral process.
