It’s plain and simple: more leads does not mean more revenue. This is the whole reason marketing and sales talk about qualified leads and the power of driving them. You may purchase 20,000 leads and they are all garbage. But then you generate 100 high-intent leads and not only did you close more deals, but brought in more revenue. 

What value do 20,000 unqualified leads have next to 100 great ones? 

Revenue ≠ Lead Volume 

Say you tried a new marketing strategy it brought a significant amount of closings and bigger purchases than normal. Despite the increase in revenue, you notice the actual lead volume from this month’s strategy was significantly lower than last month. With business being a “numbers game,” the typical alarm raised from this outcome results in buying more leads. Don’t buy into that just yet. 

Chris Walker’s answer is simple:

“When you align your demand marketing to revenue instead of “leads”, oftentimes your leads will go down because it changes the things that you do. It changes where you advertise. It changes what content you create. It changes your conversion points. It changes your metrics. It changes your MINDSET.” – Chris Walker, CEO of Refine Labs

If you are seeing high-intent leads from your LinkedIn ads turning into large revenue, you’re going to shift a more concerted effort toward your LinkedIn ads to get more. But the actual lead volume may go down. Quality has now outperformed quantity.

Stick to Revenue, Connect with Leads

Ultimately, the best response is to stick to the revenue. Keep pushing out content and advertising that brings you more qualified leads with bigger purchases. The revenue will prove to outshine the lead volume. It’s common for marketers to become laser-focused on MQLs, but the real story is revealed when revenue becomes your central metric.

Again, letting these 100 qualified leads go to waste should be non-negotiable, but the “handoff” between marketing and sales still leaves many leads untouched. Connecting with these already warm leads should be a no-brainer, but it isn’t as simple at the bandwidth of humans.

Verse’s modern contact center and lead conversion software pair together to connect your teams with your qualified leads at a maximum rate. When a lead comes in, the lead is contacted right away via SMS, where we offer omni channel communication to best fit their needs. We use a collaborative, custom-made script to qualify your leads and, once qualified, we directly book an appointment with your sales team. The chance of connection and conversion is at an all-time high and every marketing effort is validated. 

Pairing a revenue-driven mindset with a lead conversion software ensures the most ROI and profitability. In the end, it’s the little adjustments that make the biggest difference in business and your bottom-line. 

Let’s face it: marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are the difference between a truly aligned sales/marketing effort and a clogged sales funnel. Allocating leads followed by deciphering between suspects and prospects are some of the more tedious parts to the buying process. However, when a sales team is handed that MQL, things speed up rather quickly.

Talk to a Verse Lead Conversion Specialist to see how we can help

The Secret Sauce to MQLs

Following up and nurturing all of your leads sounds like a distant dream. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, it shouldn’t be. All of that hard work, money, and time put into generating those leads should mean every lead goes through qualification and follow up.

There should be conversation revolving around the transition to the middle of the funnel. If these leads are already engaging with your content, they are likely more than happy to engage in a quick follow up and lead qualification.

However, the reason it feels like such an unattainable goal is due to the bandwidth of human teams and businesspeople. It’s inevitable leads will slip through the cracks at the hands of sales and marketing. 

Fortunately, technology is much more efficient and effective.

Using a lead conversion software like Verse can substantially spike rates in lead conversion for sales and marketing teams. With this kind of lead management, every lead not only gets contacted with an omnichannel approach, but qualified and converted into appointments much more seamlessly. This guarantees a solidified sales funnel and a maximized ROI on all marketing efforts. Not to mention, it’s stress off of your teams’ backs to juggle all the conversations and follow-ups on their own.

If you really want to see more MQLs and simultaneously get the biggest bang for your buck, outsourcing a lead conversion contact center is going to be your surest bet. Verse’s software integrates with any CRM tool, so any data from qualifying conversations can go straight back to marketing to better evaluate and adjust their lead generation strategies.

Content is the fire. A lead conversion platform is the real gasoline.

Even better, it can be the difference between more profitable and closed deals without costing more salaries. It quite literally does the work for you.

As technology has expanded, so have the products and softwares that empower businesses to be more efficient in their processes. Sales and marketing teams around the globe have effectively implemented AI into their sales funnel and strategies in order to maintain organization and productivity. Because in reality, a human-only team will never keep up.

The Inefficiency of Humans

Sales teams have it rough. The constant phone calls, emailing, administrative tasks, presentation-building, follow-ups and appointments are not only abundant, but draining. Yet, according to Automation Hero, nearly ⅔ of these tasks don’t involve talking to prospects or customers at all and end up taking away from selling.

Harvard Business Review calls this “organizational drag” and says it costs the U.S. economy $3 trillion each year. Needless to say, salaries and time are both being wasted. Neglecting leads is, however, not an option.

In ways salespeople cannot, AI for sales can fulfill:

• Immediate contact of leads upon generating at any hour of the day
• Gathering data to provide optimal timing to contact leads for follow-up
• Storing all records of previous contact and conversations with leads
• A scripted and omnichannel approach to contacting your leads the way they want to be contacted

AI will be picking up the slack that comes with any human bandwidth and will help ensure all leads are being managed and followed up with accordingly. Technology has the capabilities of timely, accurate and more reliable services.

The Inauthenticity of AI

It’s important to note that AI isn’t the “end all be all” to the buyer-seller relationship, let alone the lead conversion process. There are several reasons why AI can’t meet every need in the lead qualification and conversion part of the sales funnel.

Without humans involved, the loss of authenticity can easily become a problem. In fact, 43% of people prefer to deal with a real-life assistant rather than a chatbot. Again, every lead matters and catering to their needs and wants means a greater likelihood of conversion and purchase.

That being said, Verse sees where AI can lack the golden “human touch” and that’s why we utilize human assistants to standby – intervening where AI would not be able to.

With AI only:

With humans on standby:

Where AI would have negated to validate the consumers fears or emotions, a human assistant on standby can quickly adjust the context of the response. Immediately, a lead can tell they are talking to someone who is real and affirming and that further establishes a trust with the brand and company in and of itself.

Tech + Human = Superhuman

With the average sales representative salary standing at $61,000 a year, hiring more ISAs, or inside sales agents, isn’t a cost-effective solution nor is it efficient enough. But, with both AI and the human touch through a lead conversational platform like Verse, all leads can be contacted, catered to, validated, qualified, and converted without sales feeling spread thin. Instead, sales can focus on the appointments with high-quality leads that Verse books for them.

Humans alone are inefficient. AI alone is inauthentic. Together, they are invincible.

To learn more about how you can convert more leads using a lead conversion platform, book a demo with one of our team members!

Cold calling and door-to-door sales are the most commonly used practices for sales teams to date. Genuine human connection can be the deciding factor for consumers to purchase and sales teams are racing to make that connection happen. Yet, Harvard Business Review says cold calling doesn’t work 90.9% of the time.

Maybe cold calling has become a little one dimensional in its approach. There are many layers as to why cold calling is no longer a successful sales tactic. As leads come through the sales funnel, more and more are falling through the cracks due to the lack of bandwidth of sales teams. It’s a universal gap into which lost money and opportunity falls.

If you’re confused as to why calling your cold leads isn’t working, we’ll paint the picture:

It’s time consuming.

Sales teams are spending mass amounts of time compiling and executing call lists. Not to mention, reaching a decision-maker is difficult in and of itself. Gatekeepers at companies are known for being told to put cold-callers on hold indefinitely.

And with 15% of sales’ time being spent on leaving voicemails, only 2% of cold calls result in a meeting. For spending so much time on filling inboxes, that is a very low number for a strategy without a guaranteed purchase.

It’s expensive.

According to HubSpot, cold calling costs at least 60% more per lead than inbound marketing. Cold calling is a disruptive method and with its disruption brings less connection and possibly more damage to the brand.

Part of being able to capitalize on the lead conversion gap requires being cost effective. It doesn’t make sense to spend money on salaries and lists that result in 2% of meetings. Setting cold calling as it would allow inbound marketing strategies to be given more focus and create more qualified leads.

Consumers use the Internet for research.

Buyers are skipping the pitch. Lately, they want to do the research themselves. From looking at reviews to checking out company’s websites, consumers want to know everything they can about a product or service before committing to a conversation.

This doesn’t mean companies should just wait for leads. It means there is an opportunity to capitalize on leads by letting the consumer remain comfortable and assured. Through marketing efforts, consumers can be motivated to fill out an inquiry or take a meeting with a salesperson. Cold calling will likely deter the consumer from ever interacting with the company again.