One of the best uses of marketing automation is being able to anticipate and assess the flow of upcoming leads. In fact, marketing automation gives you visibility into your leads by telling you where they are and the average time you need to wait for them to move to the next stage. Tracking the progress of your prospects with stages allows you to plan your resource allocations.
Start by creating 3 lead stages. According to a research article published by Mathew Sweezey, called “State of Demand 2013” and highlighted by ExactTarget in 2013, before making a purchase, the vast majority of leads return to Google 3 times before contacting a salesperson.
This study also shows that the more expensive your product or service is, the more you can justify multiplying the number of lead stages in your company. So start with 3 stages as explained in the list below, then remove or add some over time according to the needs you encounter.
- Lead stage 1 — No identified need: use your first stage to identify leads who are just beginning their journey. This means that generally, you are not yet able to define what their “pain point” is, the issue that justifies their visit to your website. For example, when someone searches for “a marketing automation solution”, without realizing it, it is common for their initial searches to be associated with “email marketing” or another keyword, different from “marketing automation”.
- Lead stage 2 — Identified need, no B.A.N.T. yet (we use BANT, the English acronym for: Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe): The second lead stage in your marketing cycle is dedicated to those who know what they want but cannot buy it yet.
Keep in mind that in B2B, the majority of purchases cannot be made by a single person. Indeed, one person will have the idea but will have to convince and obtain the approval of an entire team to get the budget, authority, need and a purchase timeline.
- Lead stage 3 — Without a doubt, stage 3 is the short list: prospects at this stage have passed the B.A.N.T. step and are ready for demonstrations and therefore to talk to a salesperson. To give you an idea, a study by the Consumer Executive Board shows that when a lead starts a conversation with a salesperson, they have already completed 2/3 of their buying journey.
This means that they already have a list of solutions (products or services) in hand.
Creating your lead stages is very simple. Either your tool allows you to easily create reports based on these criteria, or you can create contact segments that meet these criteria. Remember to ask your marketing automation trainer or consultant how to build them for your own use.
