Planting mystery leads
Posted by Rebekah Donaldson on Tue, Mar 18, 2008
Mac McIntosh recently posted about how implementing a mystery lead program can improve follow up by Sales.
McIntosh writes,
“…here are some additional ideas to encourage lead follow-up and reporting back on follow-up activity and results from your companies channel partners. A “mystery lead” program Follow-up the mystery lead, get an incentive! Randomly select a lead in every sales territory each month and designate it as the “mystery lead.” Then tell sales that if they report back on that specific lead they earn a prize or incentive…” More…
As he points out, there is every reason to think of creative ways to spur consistent follow up within the golden window. MarketingSherpa stats show how slow follow up can be worse that no follow up. Yes, following up after a certain window of time can backfire.
His insight applies particularly well to midsize companies where marketing and sales are handling higher volumes of leads and face a bigger risk of a disconnect.
Making follow up easy is hard. See how we pulled it off for one client in this mini-case study on creating B2B sales tools that really work.
There I wrote,
…B2B sales tools in hand, a new sales rep can be phone-ready in three days, make cold calls after only a week, and lead a sales presentation after only two weeks. It takes only 10 minutes to generate professional, customized communications, whether it’s a first contact or a follow-up… More…
How do you follow up with prospects — are there particular templates or tools you use? Please weigh in.