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“Now that we have a new lead management process in place, sales focuses on closing deals, and marketing zeroes in on delivering sales the highest-quality leads. Because the sales team appreciates the value of the leads we are now delivering, the relationship between marketing and sales has become much more collaborative.”

-- Raeanne Thompson, Vice President of Marketing, USA Financial

Home > Lead Management > Lead Management Framework > Lead Planning

Lead Planning – The Quantity vs. Quality Debate

For a number of marketing departments, lead generation is an exercise of shooting in the dark – not knowing how many qualified leads sales needs to achieve quota.

When it comes to lead planning, marketing departments struggle to answer questions such as…

  • What percentage of quarterly sales revenue (in terms of leads) is marketing responsible for?
  • How many leads does sales need to ensure they hit revenue targets?
  • How many overall responses need to be generated in order to arrive at the required number of qualified leads?
  • What are the conversion rates? (response-to-lead and leads-to-sale?)

A detailed lead planning process will enable organizations to answer these questions. The lead planning process consists of marketing & sales jointly developing a lead planning funnel (see Figure A) that charts every step of the buying process. This begins with stating the revenue objective and working backwards from the closed sale.

Figure A – Lead Planning Funnel
B2B Demand and Lead Generation Marketing

By working backwards from the revenue number, marketing will have a clear picture regarding the number of leads they need to generate, and – in the case of the chart above – be able to determine the following:

  • If the total number of deals is sufficient to meet the revenue number.
  • The budget required to achieve the documented targets.
  • If the marketing lead pipeline (responses, valid responses, MQL’s etc.) is sufficient.

Once a lead plan is developed, be sure to monitor it on a regular basis (monthly or quarterly) and make any necessary adjustments to ensure the numbers still meet revenue goals. Developing the lead planning process takes the guesswork out of lead generation and allows organizations to get a better handle on measuring effectiveness.

After you have identified your lead generation goals, its important to address the next step in the Lead Management Framework, Lead Qualification.