OK. So how can you follow • Lead segmentation (scoring, account up with leads faster? matching) - Ideally, marketers use some kind of filtering process (or processes) to segment Follow-up is one of the most important parts of leads before follow-up. This can include a lead’s lifecycle, which starts after the initial steps such as scoring to identify the hottest capture in any campaign, and ends once the leads for sales, or lead-to-account matching lead is either converted to an opportunity or to match new leads to existing accounts to routed to some other appropriate follow-up. ensure sales teams don’t waste their time But along the way, marketers need to perform chasing leads from accounts already in play. crucial operations to get leads ready for follow- These processes increase sales productivity up. Each of these operations comes with its own and mean a higher win rate overall. important steps - and its own baggage that can • Lead routing - After your leads are properly slow down the process: segmented, operations professionals need to • Lead list uploads - After capturing leads from route the hottest leads to their sales teams. After matching leads to accounts, marketers Not all firms respond quickly enough to leads. any source, marketers first need to upload their leads to their system of record, such as can then assign the hottest leads to sales their marketing automation platform (MAP) team members that own those accounts, route to set the stage for follow-up and additional warm leads to sales development reps (SDR) campaigns. for outbound follow-up, or send cooler leads to nurture programs. • Lead enrichment - Once leads are loaded into the system, marketers need to ensure Every step in this lifecycle is important. each lead is fully-formed and contains Unfortunately, many marketing teams sufficient data for follow-up. (The hottest experience challenges at one stage or another. lead in the world isn’t actionable if it’s Breakages at any of these stages can lead to missing key information like company, title or painful delays that make you less likely to ever phone number.) Ideally, this also includes a speak with a decision maker, and make it even seamless transfer of lead data from your MAP harder for your sales team to turn those costly to your CRM. leads into closed-won deals. Only about half of marketers are actually taking action on integrating their data. 4