SALES EFFECTIVENESSBEST PRACTICES FOR MANAGING INBOUND LEADS

RESULTS FROM TWO MONTH STUDY OF 327 COMPANIES FROM 9 INDUSTRIES

SUCCESSFUL ENGAGEMENT OF INBOUND LEADS MUST MEET

FOUR CRUCIAL ELEMENTS

▸ PROMPTNESS: You need to be fast if you want to be first

▸ PERSISTENCE: One or two tries is rarely enough

▸ PERSONALIZATION: Prospects want conversation, not promotion

▸ PERFORMANCE: An email snagged in the spam filter looks like a non-response to a lead

METHODOLOGYHOW THE STUDY WAS DONE

METHODOLOGY - INDUSTRIES SURVEYED AND HOW

327 COMPANIES ACROSS 9 INDUSTRIES

▸ Inquiries were sent to companies in 9 industries covering both B2C & B2B over a two month period.

▸ Only web based and/or email inquiries were made. Companies that did not offer an inquiry form or email address were not contacted nor counted in the results.

▸ Companies were selected by compiling rankings from sources such as Forbes, Bloomberg and industry specific publications. Rankings included marketshare, annual revenues and market capitalization. Equal number of companies were chosen from the top, middle and bottom of these rankings

▸ All inquires were made during standard business days and hours, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

B2B B2C

Media/Publishing

Technology

Telecommunications

Automotive

Brokerage

Education

Insurance

Mortgage

Real Estate

RESPONSE RATES

FAILURE TO RESPOND▸ Of 327 companies 111 failed to respond at all

▸ Companies that did not respond were excluded from the Promptness, Personalization, Persistence and Performance breakdowns

▸ In three of nine industries (33%), more than half of companies did not respond to lead inquiries at all

66%34%

No response

Responded

59%

53%

50%

45% 48% 50% 53% 55% 58% 60%

Media/Publishing

Real Estate

Brokerage

Of all the industries only education attempted one contact 100% of the time.

PROMPTNESSSPEED TO CONTACT MATTERS

PROMPTNESS

PROMPTNESS RESULTS▸ Time kills all deals:

▸ Likelihood of conversion drops significantly after three minutes*

▸ Odds of qualifying a lead contacted within 5 minutes is 21 times higher compared to 30 minutes**

▸ Contacting the lead within 1 hour is 60 times more likely to be qualified compared to waiting 24 hours***

8%

23%

31% 31%

7%

0%

20%

40%

GradesA B C D F

Response times in our study ranged from less than a minute to 24 days.

62%Responded 1 Day or Less

38%Over 1 day or longer

‣ A — within 5 minutes‣ B — within 60 minutes‣ C — within 24 hours‣ D — within one week‣ F — longer than one week

*Data from Velocify **Data from InsideSales.com *** Data from Lead Response Management

PROMPTNESS

B2C BEATS B2B FOR SPEED

57%

14% 13% 11% 10%0%

20%

40%

60%

Automotive Education Brokerage Mortgage Insurance

Top 5 Industries for Promptness

10%

5%

24%

20%

39%

19%

20%

49%

7%

7%

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

B2C

B2B

A B C D F

PROMPTNESS

EMAIL BEATS PHONE

▸ Companies graded A & B 92% used email over phone, 8%

▸ Companies graded D & F 15% used the phone

▸ 33% of companies graded an F relied on the phone for initial outreach

94% 92% 88% 90%

66%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

A B C D F

PERSISTENCEDON’T GIVE UP

PERSISTENCE

PERSISTENCE GRADES

▸ A — 8 to 23 attempts (optimal)

▸ B — 5 to 7, or 24 to 26 attempts

▸ C — 3 to 4, or 27 to 28 attempts

▸ D — 1 to 2, or 29 to 30 attempts

▸ F — 31+ attempts (too many)

A15%

B13%

C19%

D53%

F1%

THERE IS SUCH A THING AS TOO MANY TOUCHES. MOST COMPANIES DID TOO MANY OR TOO FEW

PERSISTENCE

PERSISTENCE INSIGHTS

▸ The only category in which more than half of our respondents received a D or F. Most falling into the too few attempts made.

▸ Automotive as industry made the grade by a full 25 points

▸ Among Automotive firms receiving an A for persistence; 85% received an A or B for promptness, compared to 30% overall 57% 22% 14% 7% 5%

43% 78% 86% 93% 95%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Automotive Education Brokerage Mortgage Insurance

Graded A Graded B to F

Top 5 Industries for Persistence

PERSONALIZATIONIT IS ABOUT THEM, NOT YOU

PERSONALIZATION

SCORING FACTORS▸ Personal greeting

▸ Personal email account for sender

▸ Specific mention of inquiry

▸ Inclusion of specific contact information for the conversation to continue

8%19%

23%19%

30%0% 8% 15% 23% 30% 38%

A

B

C

D

F

A — 4 of 4 personalization elementsB — 3 of 4 personalization elementsC — 2 of 3 personalization elementsD — 1 of 4 personalization elementsF — No personalization elements

COMPANIES WHO RESPONDED WITH EMAILS, MORE THAN 70% HAD SOME FORM

OF PERSONALIZATION

PERSONALIZATION

POOR PERFORMANCE NO WAY TO REPLY

NO PERSONALIZATION

LARGE GRAPHICSLARGE GRAPHICS

PERSONALIZATION

CONTENT MATTERS▸ Many companies use

autoresponders as the first touch for leads.

▸ Marketing automation have the capability to capture information to create some personalization

▸ More sophisticated systems can interpret details and responding specifically, mimicking a human response

EFFICIENCY & ACCURACY IN PERSONALIZATION

TOOLS FOR PERSONAL ENGAGEMENTSubject: Reaching out about your interest in [Company]

Hi there Marc,

I see you recently expressed an interest in our products. I just wanted to follow up to see if you, or anyone else, would like to have a discussion about [product] for use in your production environment.

Would be interested in speaking with someone from the [product] team?

Have a great day.

Nicole S.

Business Development Assistant

[Company] | [Telephone]

EFFICIENCY & ACCURACY IN PERSONALIZATION

GETTING PERSONAL REPLIESRE: Reaching out about your interest in [Company]

Hallo Nicole,

Yes, please. In particular we would like to know:

Is it possible to use an extension with the [product]? How about with multiple extensions?

We look forward to learning more from your expert.

Marc

[Company] | [Telephone]

[Website]

PERFORMANCECONNECTING MATTERS

PERFORMANCE

MEASURING SUCCESS

▸ 50% of business emails end up in spam. A number that is consistent across all industries and organization sizes*

▸ Used SendForensics to test deliverability on a score of 1 to 100 percent. Highest score was 98%, while the lowest was 65%

▸ 90% of companies scored 80% on performance

43%48%

8%2%

0%

25%

50%

A B C D

SendForensics GradingA = 90 - 100%B = 80 - 89%C = 70 - 79%D = 60 -69%

* Data from Symantic July, 2015

COMBINED GRADES

WHAT THE DATA SHOWS

COMBINED GRADES

OVERALL GRADES FOR FOLLOW-UP

3%

32%

56%

9%

0%

15%

30%

45%

60%

A B C D

8%

15%

9%

42%

23%

13%

19%

48%

31%

19%

23%

8%

31%

53%

19%

2%

7%

0%

30%

0%

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

Promptness

Persistence

Personalization

Performance

A B C D F

Grade Distribution at a Glance

CHARACTERISTICS OF TOP PERFORMERS

A GRADED COMPANIES AT GLANCE

▸ Top three businesses came from Automotive, Technology and Education Sectors

▸ Only one business scored A’s on all four metrics: an Automotive Dealership

▸ All but one of the A graded companies received top scores for deliverability. None used the phone.

MetricPercent of

Companies that received an A

Grade

Average Metric for A

Grade

Average Result Best Result

Promptness 29% 20 Minutes 52 Hours 5 Minutes

Persistence 100% 12 Attempts 4-5 8 attempts

Personalization 57% 3 or more elements 1-2 4

Performance 29% 94% Score 88% 100%

CHARACTERISTICS OF POOR PERFORMERS

D GRADED COMPANIES AT GLANCE

▸ Represented across several industries – insurance, media, technology, brokerage and real estate (20 out of the 216 (9%))

▸ Promptness, Persistence, and Personalization were significant factors in their low score

▸ 40% of the companies rated a D relied on the phone. 63% of the phone users had the lowest persistence score only making one attempt.

MetricPercent of

Companies that received an D/F

Grade

Average Metric for D

Grade

Average Result Best Result

Promptness 90% 9 Days 52 Hours 5 Minutes

Persistence 85% <2 (1.8) Attempts 4-5 8 attempts

Personalization 100% No elements 1-2 4

Performance 8% 70% Score 88% 100%

CONCLUSIONSSO WHAT

CONCLUSIONS

KEY METRICS AT A GLANCE▸ More than one-third of

companies did not make contact within the first 24 hours

▸ A majority of respondents made no more than 2 attempts to contact before giving up

▸ Nearly half of our respondents who used email did not take advantage of their initial contact to create a personal connection

Metric Percentage Average Results

Best Results

Prompteness38% took

longer than 24 hours to

respond

52 Hours 5 minutes

Persistence53% made just 1 or 2

contact attempts

4-5 8 attempts

Personalization

49% included none or 1 personal element

1-2 4

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

START NOW – LIGHT A FIRE▸ Begin with Promptness. Even among

our top-scoring companies, promptness was the least likely metric to get an A. Every minute accounts.

▸ Persistence. Put in place an SLA and then hold your team to it. A small change can noticeable increase the conversion rate.

▸ Personalization will increase your connection rate and therefore more chance to win.

▸ Deploy tools that create efficiency and accuracy with the above.

YOU HAVE QUESTIONSWE’VE GOT ANSWERS

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