Revisiting Your Results in B2B Marketing

Revisiting your results in B2B marketing. Once your leads are in and you’ve had an opportunity to qualify all or most of your new prospects, it’s time to review your results and evaluate the performance of your lead generation efforts. With your first lead generation campaign, you will be able to establish a baseline of performance against which you can measure subsequent campaigns.

Look at the numbers

With direct mail in revisiting your results in B2B marketing, the first level of performance is usually measured by the “response rate” – and we’ll measure that – but response rates don’t work when you’re comparing direct mail with other media. For that, it is best to measure your “cost per lead.” But don’t stop with the response rate or cost per lead. Remember not all leads are equal – and not all campaigns are going to produce the same number of qualified leads in revisiting your results in B2B marketing.

For this reason, it is important to also calculate your “qualified response rate” or better yet, the “cost per qualified lead.” Why not the order rate? You may be wondering why we haven’t mentioned measuring your “order rate” or “cost per order.”

This is the ultimate measurement in revisiting your results in B2B marketing, of course, but for many professional services firms, the sales cycle can run several months or more. And you’re not going to want to wait that long to do your response analysis. Using the “qualified response rate” provides a reasonable interim measurement.

Talk to your sales team in revisiting your results in B2B marketing

The numbers are important, but they only tell part of the story.

You should also hear from the people in the field in revisiting your results in B2B marketing. Your sales team can offer invaluable information for improving your program. You should invite their feedback and incorporate their ideas into your program. Remember your sales people can make or break your lead generation efforts in revisiting your results in B2B marketing.

Keep them engaged and involved in all planning decisions. When your sales people are involved from the beginning, they will be invested in the program and more likely to handle your leads in a professional manner.