GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS

GET SALES LEADS WORTH FIGHTING OVER —

WITHOUT THE FIGHT.
GET MORE FROM MEET ASTRO
YOUR LEADS AND FRIENDS
As you may have noticed, the style of this e-book
I N T R O D U C T IO N
03
is inspired by the great outdoors and U.S. National
Parks. Why? Because they express a feeling of fun,
CHAPTER 1:
04 adventure, and exploration — and Salesforce is all about
empowering people to blaze their own trails and be part
The State of Lead Generation
of something greater. Pretty cool, huh?

C H A P T E R 2:
07
If you want to know more, check out Trailhead, the
Quality, Quantity, or Both? fun way to learn about Salesforce. Get started today at
salesforce.com/trailhead.
C H A P T E R 3:
10
Tracking Leads from Click to Close

C H A P T E R 4:
13
Measuring Success

CO N C L U S IO N
15
INTRODUCTION
If you’re in business-to-business (B2B) sales, you likely have one
overarching goal: Acquire new customers. Leads are your starting
point, your currency, your ticket to success. You should look upon
them with delight. Yet the majority of sales reps and managers
have a love-hate relationship with leads. How did that happen?

It happens because sales and marketing, when it comes to leads,

have different measures for success. Marketing is rewarded for
lead quantity, while sales wants quality leads to convert into paying
customers. The result is a complex, and sometimes tense, lead-
management process, with sales and marketing often at odds over
who should get credit.

But where is the customer in all of this? What if you could aim
for the right quantity of leads and improve their quality and
management at the same time, all while giving your customers a
better buying experience?

Keep reading to learn how to get more from every lead that enters
your pipeline by routing them effectively and measuring them every
step of the way to becoming happy customers.

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 3

CHAPTER 1:
THE STATE OF LEAD
GENERATION
Let’s start from scratch and define lead. To connect with potential
buyers, companies use marketing and business development
tactics that generate awareness and stimulate interest.

When those tactics work, potential buyers respond by sharing

information. Gain a person’s name, location, and contact
info, and you have a strong indication they want to talk.

Congratulations: You now have a basic lead. Go ahead and

start the conversation via marketing communication or outreach
from a sales representative.

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 4

CHAPTER 1: THE STATE OF LEAD GENERATION

IT’S A DIFFICULT DANCE.

Unfortunately, this interplay between sellers and buyers has become Even when leads make it into the system, data is often missing or
increasingly complex. Buyers are aware of your desire to make them a lead questionable. A recent eMarketer study revealed that the majority
you can sell to. So marketing and sales teams focus on value-exchange of U.S. B2B marketing executives say over 25% of their marketing
tactics: You offer customers something valuable — content, trials, database contains old, inaccurate, unusable, or duplicate leads.
consultations, and so on — and prospects reciprocate with their
information. But even those tactics can make buyers wary. As time goes For the portion of leads that contain usable data, companies
on, generating quality leads in this way becomes increasingly difficult. struggle to make the most of them. InsideSales found that only
about 27% of leads ever get contacted and the average response

NOT ALL LEADS ARE CREATED EQUAL. time is over 61 hours. In today’s world of immediate solutions,
customers expect quick and personalized responses from
In a recent study by IDG, 61% of marketers reported that generating
salespeople or they’re going to buy elsewhere.
high-quality leads was hard for their organization. In fact, according to
Gleanster Research, only one-quarter of leads in a given sales pipeline
are legitimate prospects.

Only about 27% of leads ever get

contacted and the average response
time is over 61 hours.
InsideSales

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 5

CHAPTER 1:
THE STATE OF LEAD GENERATION
Fixing these many challenges requires a big-picture response. To grow
faster and sell smarter, sales teams need to focus on improving the
entire lead process at every stage, including:
• Prospecting
• Data enrichment
• Routing and scoring
• Qualification
• Tracking
• Conversion
• Measurement

In the next three chapters, we’ll dive into these challenges and
their solutions. You’ll learn best practices and technology tips for
sourcing quality leads and improving the ways you manage
them — which helps you ultimately build better, stronger relationships
with customers.

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 6

CHAPTER 2:
QUALITY, QUANTITY,
OR BOTH?
Marketing, sales development, and other lead generators often
feel they must compromise lead quality to coax potential
customers into giving up information, even if the information
given isn’t enough for a sales rep to act on. Clearly, quality
leads are the end goal. But what comprises a quality lead, and
do companies have to sacrifice quality for quantity?

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 7

CHAPTER 2: QUALITY, QUANTITY, OR BOTH?

Usable leads boil down to complete and accurate data. Considering First, enrich leads with trusted data. To boost conversion rates,
where most leads come from, reaching that standard can be a hefty marketers limit the amount of information they ask for. Yet effective
challenge. Ask yourself: How do leads make their way into your lead development can only be done with a solid foundation of contact
pipeline? and company information. In B2B scenarios, contact data helps you
• What portion of your leads come from web forms with manually connect with the right buyers and stakeholders, while account data
entered information from sales-averse window shoppers? helps ensure the connection is worth making. It’s not easy to resolve
• How many leads come from marketing tactics like event lists, lead this tension. Some companies rely on data stewards, sales ops, or
programs, webinars, or third-party lists? others to manually research, score, and enrich records. But that takes
• Are your reps scouring social networks like LinkedIn, collecting far too much of your time and resources, considering the power of
business cards, or using personal contact lists to enter data into today’s technology to connect, match to, and automatically compare
your CRM? and enrich your leads.

No matter the method, most of these sources suffer from data Next, use the data in your system to uncover opportunities you
deficiencies. To be clear, we aren’t recommending you scrap any might have otherwise ignored. To find good leads, you need a solid
of these lead-generation efforts. But we do think you can improve understanding of the attributes of existing customers. With this
quality, simplify management, and discover new, valuable sources for foundation, you’ll more easily recognize good leads and which
top-notch leads. Here’s how to get started. verticals/industries, competitors, or other areas will be best for
your lead development.

Many B2B companies find major value in exploring corporate

relationships or hierarchies. You can find white space in the corporate
family tree that represents parents, subsidiaries, and sister companies
of accounts where you’ve already had success. Even better, you can
expand relationships within corporate families to grow revenue,
cross-sell, upsell, and extend partnerships.

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 8

CHAPTER 2: QUALITY, QUANTITY, OR BOTH?

LIGHTNING DATA HELPS YOU GET

MORE, BETTER LEADS
So far we’ve been talking in general about better approaches to
lead management. But if you are already a Salesforce customer, you
have some amazing tools you might not be aware of that give you a
huge head start. If you’re not a customer, we’re confident that the
value these tools promise will convince you to partner with us.

Lightning Data is the new way to get third-party data natively

integrated into Salesforce. You can choose the best data source for
your business the same way you add other apps from AppExchange.
You can automatically enrich and update lead data based on
matches to that data source, whether your leads are imported from
your marketing-automation system, manually entered, or input
another way.

Lightning Data apps also give you the tools to search for and add new
target accounts — with complete business information and insights
— directly into Salesforce. Eliminate the bad data that comes with
manual entry by adding new prospect accounts with complete and
standardized information, right inside Sales Cloud. Many data partners
also offer data to organize and distinguish accounts by hierarchies
and corporate families, so you can more strategically target white
space and expand relationships.

FIND LIGHTNING DATA APPS »

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 9
CHAPTER 3:
TRACKING LEADS
FROM CLICK TO
CLOSE
Getting leads into your system and improving the data is a
crucial first step. Just by improving lead quality, you’ll start to see
a measurable impact on your funnel. But there are even bigger
rewards for making improvements across your lead pipeline.

A high-functioning lead-management system helps you in four

important ways:
• Reduce the amount of time to follow-up, improving your
chances of contact and conversion
• Make better use of reps’ time and help them prioritize the
best opportunities
• Prevent leads from falling through the cracks, which wastes
your time and resource investments
• Provide an optimal buying experience for potential customers
with better-informed reps

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 10

CHAPTER 3: TRACKING LEADS FROM CLICK TO CLOSE

A successful lead-management system covers every stage of the

buying cycle, giving your reps a powerful and persistent advantage
in converting those leads into happy customers. Once you begin
tracking your leads from initial click all the way to close, each of
these five selling phases will flow naturally to the next:
1. Get the lead to the right person quickly.
2. Prioritize and manage the lead queue.
3. Give reps easy access to relevant data.
4. Provide guidance and reminders for next steps.
5. Make it easy to convert or move to the next stage.

With a single, consistent view of data across the buying cycle you
build momentum into your sales process, accelerating every rep’s
sales motion.

Over 71% of successful companies

cite lead scoring as most responsible for
improving revenue contribution.
The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 11

CHAPTER 3: TRACKING LEADS FROM CLICK TO CLOSE

CONVERTING MORE LEADS TO

OPPORTUNITIES WITH SALES CLOUD The Lead Record page in Sales Cloud is your command center for
AND PARDOT making the most of each opportunity. Scan activity history, easily log
So how can you make sure every step of the process is covered? new activity, and create tasks with reminders. Dial up information
With Sales Cloud and Pardot, you gain access to automatic lead on campaigns or other interactions with the lead. Use Sales Path to
scoring and routing. Reps gain a helping hand to reach the hottest easily manage the conversion process, or use the kanban view to
leads first, and your process gets a new set of guard rails to keep drag and drop leads and watch the totals automatically recalculate.
every lead in play and on track.
Want to see how your lead has interacted with your marketing assets
The main Leads page in Sales Cloud Lightning puts you in charge like emails, webinars, and e-books? Add the Engagement History
of tracking and prioritizing leads. See all the leads assigned to Lightning Component from Pardot to the Lead Record page in Sales
you or create custom views for easy management. Sort, filter, and Cloud and you’ll be able to personalize conversations, target hand
use powerful charts to better visualize and single out the most raisers, and drive conversions.
important leads. It’s all just a few clicks away.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SALES CLOUD »

LEARN MORE ABOUT PARDOT »

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 12

CHAPTER 4:
MEASURING
SUCCESS
Whether you’re a sales manager, marketer, sales rep, or in
another lead-reliant role, you need data to better manage and
prioritize leads — and ultimately measure your success. Only
by closely monitoring lead metrics and activities can you see
what’s working and what’s not. Let’s break this down by role.

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 13

CHAPTER 4: MEASURING SUCCESS

SALES MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING

With a better handle on your key-performance indicators, you’re The same is true for sales meetings. You need relevant details about
poised to quickly and accurately address problems, forecast pipeline, the customer before you can walk in the door armed with specific
and prove success. Can you easily check your team’s numbers on next steps or recommendations. With a 360-degree view of your
closed/won business, expected to close, forecast, quota, and more? lead — ranging from information about their company to their latest
Maybe it’s because you’re missing critical information about your social media posts — you’ll know how to make every interaction a
lead-generation or sales process. step forward.

Important strategic questions can be hard to answer when data on

MEASURE YOUR LEAD PIPELINE WITH
leads and prospects lives across a variety of systems and formats.
Do you have the information on hand to consistently answer these SALESFORCE
questions: With Sales Cloud Lightning, customizing reports is easy and intuitive,
through stunning charts and graphs. You can create sophisticated
• Who is my next big customer and which segments should we target?
reports and dashboards without bugging IT or your CRM administrator.
• Which existing line of business should we grow?
Track team and individual performance, and monitor every stage
• How are pipeline channels performing compared to previous
of the pipeline in real time to prevent leads from going bad. And
months/quarters/years?
with all these reports and dashboards on your mobile phone —
thanks to Salesforce for iOS and Android — you can make critical
INDIVIDUAL SELLERS decisions anywhere.
As a sales rep or account executive your main goal is closing more
deals. You can get there faster by regularly tracking your own lead
and prospect pipeline and adjusting your daily work accordingly. But
you’ll need to prioritize the right leads based on their key attributes,
probability of closing, or recent activity. If you don’t have that data
available to you, demand it.

GET MORE FROM YOUR LEADS | 14

Conclusion RESOURCES YOU MIGHT
ALSO LIKE:
Leads can be tricky, but they don’t have to be. Sales and marketing
both love leads, but hate how they end up on opposite sides of the The 5 Productivity
quality versus quantity debate. At Salesforce we’ve learned a simple Secrets of Successful
way to solve this and other issues around leads: Align around the Salespeople
buyer’s experience. Use your customer as the guide for how you
find, convert, track, and close leads. Then everyone will be happy
GET THE E-BOOK
because there will be more than enough success to go around.

Salesforce technology helps make it possible to have more and

better leads by focusing on the customer experience. Start by Learn About Pardot
improving lead quality and looking for leads in new places. Then on Trailhead
score and route those leads efficiently and accurately, guiding
reps to the best potential customers and through the steps to LE ARN MORE
move the lead through the pipeline. Finally, measure and optimize
your lead pipeline in real time with dashboards.
Get a Free Trial
For more on how it works, check out a guided tour of Sales Cloud.

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