Complex enterprise sales and accurate reporting on leads
Newbie
Katie Curtin-Mestre
Newbie
- Nov 21, 2013 4:39 PM
One of the challenges that I've encountered is that we sell into large enterprise accounts where there are multiple decision makers and influencers. So we often end up with multiple leads from the same company but only one lead is ultimately shown as translating into an opportunity and ultimately revenue (and the rest end up as leads that didn't go anywhere). What approaches can be used to provide a more accurate picture of marketing's role in generating leads for complex enterprise sales?
3 Responses
Hi Katie,
This is a very relevant and interesting question. There are many approaches to tagging leads and using lead scoring to determine Marketing's impact on an enterprise sale.
In some cases, it might turn out that Marketing received a 'lead' in the form of a business card at a trade show but Sales had a much more meaningful interaction with a different prospect in the enterprise that led to the deal.
Other times, Marketing has acquired, nurtured, and even developed new senior decision-maker contacts within the account to help secure the business.
A question for you: do you use a marketing automation system and/or lead scoring? That could be one way to determine the value of each contact in the database, relative to their impact on a multi-influencer deal. We'd be happy to learn more about your situation and provide deeper advice on a call if you are open to it!
Jesse
Hi Katie,
Your question really has 3 parts:
1. How do I determine Marketing's impact on an enterprise sale?
Answer: See Jesse's excellent answer above, regarding marketing automation.
2. How do I attribute which marketing campaign should get the credit for the conversion? (Often, different marketing campaigns will go to different people in the organization, or will be sent during different stages in the sales cycle)
Answer: We can measure attribution using Attribution Analytics tools. These tools determine how credit for conversions and sales should be assigned to touchpoints in the conversion path. Google has a good writeup on this: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1662518?hl=en
Different suppliers sell attribution analytics software including Adometry, Apsalar, and visualIQ. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of these companies.
3. How do I figure out the power structure within the large enterprise account, so I can identify the real decision maker, or at least the decision-making process?
Answer: If it all possible, survey your target market to gain understanding through measurement. You are looking for 3 things. First, ask who the decision maker is, or if the decision is made by a group/committee. Second, ask who the champions are. Often, the champions wield the real power in many organizations, even if they do not have signature authority. And third, ask what type of tools champions could use to "sell" the idea to the actual decision maker(s). Often the tools will include sample RFPs, Justifications for Single Source, specific demos, and so forth.
Thanks for participating in the Forum!
Stephan
Thanks for the very useful feedback! Much appreciated.