Another in MarketingSherpa’s Chart of the Week series – perhaps familiar if you happen to have sprung for Sherpa’s B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey 2009 – this one focused on the often yawning Marketing-Sales chasm. Although in this case there is good news, such as:
- 51% using a CRM to manage lead process (13% say no, but a high priority)
- 45% collaborating with Sales to define sales-ready leads (20% say high priority)
- 44% have system for rating qualified v. warm leads (18% say high priority)
(View large chart…)
Those are some fairly tall numbers, significantly better than we expected to see.
But then there’s the bad news, including:
- Only 30% presently doing closed-loop tracking from lead source to disposition …which begs the question, just what are that other 21% using their CRM for??
- Only 28% have a “re-engage” process for handing cool leads back to Marketing
That latter point is a bit of a surprise, since a two-way process feels so symmetric and logical. As Sherpa says: “A pipeline flowing in both directions [enables] Sales to hand leads back to Marketing for re-engagement and continued nurturing, creating opportunities for the sales force to pursue again in the future when timing is optimal.”
