While leads in traditional sales are forwarded directly to the sales department without qualification, in digital sales a development or enrichment of the leads takes place.

The leads are checked, further information on the background of the lead (decision-maker, co-decision-maker, company, etc.) is searched for and supplemented.

In practice, relevant content is also used here for the respective personas in each phase of the buying process. This can be checklists, white papers, service information or tips in after sales.
At the same time, important information about the persona is collected for the sales process and the closing.

These so-called “lead nurturing processes” extend from the first touchpoint with the customer to the point of purchase.

In this context, one should not be misled. For example, behind a private email address there may well be an interesting customer. Not everyone “outed” themselves directly as an interested party. Therefore, a sensible qualification of the leads with scoring by an office-based sales employee is essential.

For this purpose, it is essential to define the corresponding parameters. These are defined by the Head of Sales in consultation with the sales office and the field sales force.
Examples of useful parameters/procedures/questions are:

• Through which channel did the lead come?
• Are the details complete?
• Is the lead serious?
• Does it make sense from a commercial point of view or does it only bring us losses, high support costs or even problems? Many also use information about the creditworthiness of the lead.
• Is it a new or existing customer?
• How interested is the customer (only an enquiry or already a concrete request for an offer)?
• How are the leads distributed fairly among the sales team?

As soon as the lead has arrived in the sales department and has become a “sales accepted lead”, the support and further qualification by the sales manager takes effect.
The lead then achieves the status “SQL – Sales qualified Lead”.

It would be going too far here to mention all the processes. In reality, however, it is very important to specify and optimise them.
However, a frequent weak point in inbound lead generation is the communication between marketing and sales.
If there is no regular exchange here, it is not possible to “readjust” the nurturing process. The quality of the leads drops or, in the worst case, breaks off.

And by exchange, we don’t just mean regular meetings. The guidelines must be clearly communicated to marketing and they must understand what the sales team needs.

In my many years of practice, I have often experienced prejudices, rivalry and misunderstandings, even arrogance and ignorance on both sides.
The reasons for this are manifold and are cultivated in many companies over many years.

Negative examples that should be avoided (selection):

• Sales documents that are unsuitable for lead development.
• Incorrectly designed marketing measures for lead generation that generate unsuitable or no leads.
• Marketing approaching A-customers without involving sales.
• Disregard of corporate identity by sales.
• No monitoring.

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