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Lead Qualification Program Stops Waste & Improves ROI

The Challenge

Like many companies, our client was investing significant funds in trade shows with unknown ROI. Furthermore, the value of “raw” leads gathered at these events was considered questionable by the already-busy sales force. That’s because these leads typically contained little more than the contact information of people who visited the booth to enter a giveaway. Without any qualifying details about the individual’s intent to purchase, timeframe or purchasing authority, the sales staff had no way of separating the promising leads from the vast number of completely unqualified leads. As a result, our partner’s sales staff was wasting their time pursuing low-probability targets instead of closing sales and generating revenue. This posed a large opportunity cost since more qualified leads were not being developed, and it also compromised their ROI.

 

The Solution

We created a post-event lead qualification process to ensure that our partner’s sales staff focused only on the most relevant leads. Before “raw” leads were passed on to the sales force, we placed a follow-up call and assigned each of them a quality grade of A, B, C or D.

  • A leads constituted highly-qualified targets who intended to make a purchase in the next 90 days.
  • B and C leads were targets with a definite product interest but a purchasing timeframe beyond 90 days.
  • D leads were targets who did not have an appropriate purchase intent, purchase timing, budget or decision-making authority.

The Results

Out of 4,732 “raw” leads generated over 17 events, we categorized 310 (7%) as grade A and immediately passed them to the sales team for follow-up. Another 635 leads (13%) were ranked as grade B or C and added to the database so that they could be nurtured in to A-level leads over time. The rest of the leads (80%) were ranked a D and disqualified, ensuring that no further dollars or sales efforts were wasted on them. In the end, the cost per A-level lead was $55.07, which is less than the cost of an hour of a typical salesperson’s time. Our satisfied client saved money, used their time more effectively and improved ROI.