Was it your first time being swept up by the magic of Dreamforce? Or are you a seasoned-veteran of the most impressive cloud computing conference in the world?
Either way, one dire sales painpoint we have come across time and time again is how one can possibly deal with the great number of leads one collects at Dreamforce (and trade shows in general). One thing you don’t want to do for sure, is to be part of this statistic:
80% of companies don’t follow up with leads after trade shows.
Wondering how you should approach the mountains of new leads you gathered? Read this post now to learn about how you can deal with your leads most productively using personalized lead analysis, including which leads are the most important and how timing plays into converting a lead into a customer.
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At #DF13, you and your team:
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Put in countless man-hours to set-up the most supercalifragilisticexpialidocious booth
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Coordinated outfits for the entirety of the conference, including undergarments, to really feel the team unity and attract a crowd
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Lived out your childhood dream to play cashier with the mini ipad scanning app, that has replaced the barcode scanners that are sooo 2000 to efficiently collect leads’ contact information
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And of course, spoke to people from near and far, listened to their pain points, and matched your solution to them
But, now what?
If your team was successful at #Dreamforce, you’re probably up to your neck in leads.
Should your team use the divide-and-conquer technique to tackle them ALL and cross your fingers…and toes…and hope for the best?
No, there’s a better solution which is a much better use of your efforts because not all leads are created equal.
The Solution: Connect the Dots with Colabo
Today there are exorbitant amounts of data sources from which to gather information about your leads. We realize how overwhelming it can be to make sense of it all, especially for a marketing and salespersons wanting to prioritize their time and efforts to those leads that are actually sales-ready. Colabo allows you to “connect the dots” between multiple data sources to sift through the noise and figure out how to best prioritize your leads.
We understand that no company/industry is the same, therefore we have created a system that allows you to include/exclude any web-accessible data source from your lead analysis to ensure that it is the most applicable to your case. Colabo is versatile and allows for full personalization: not only can you decide which sources to include, you can decide how much weight each source has in your company’s lead prioritization. 
Based on where a lead stands in your lead prioritization, you can also deduce how much lead nurturing is necessary from your marketing team to make these leads “warmer” and more sales-ready.
It’s simple. Take advantage of Colabo’s free trial and sign up now.
Lead Follow-Up Timing Matters Too
So now that you’ve made sense of the noise surrounding the leads you collected at Dreamforce, you may be wondering how timing plays into lead follow-up.
If you were really on your game, you would have begun your lead follow-ups at the end of each day of the conference so that you wouldn’t be beat out by your competitors. If not, you should definitely understand that time is of the essence.
“A Trade Show Bureau report shows that of those exhibitors that do post-show lead-fulfillment, 43 percent don’t get the information out until after the prospects have already made purchases…With immediate lead follow-up, you’ll reach 43 percent more buyers – before they make their purchasing decisions.” (Source: Tradeshow Marketing)
This means that your first post-meeting touchpoint with each hot lead should occur within 24 hours from when you have met them. Use Colabo lead analysis to easily get an idea of the leads that are the most important to focus on.
As InsideSales reported at Dreamforce this year, follow-up timing for online leads is very critical as well. Ken Krogue said, “…if a company attempts phone contact within 5 minutes after somebody submits an internet inquiry on their website, the odds that the lead is contacted are 100 times greater than if it is contacted 30 minutes after submission.”
We would love to hear your thoughts about lead prioritization and how they play into your marketing and sales efforts. We hope you had as a great of a time at Dreamforce as we did!
Contact us any time with suggestions and questions, our team is here to help!
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Sources
Tradeshow Follow-up
http://blog.bigdaddymarketing.net/2011/09/29/4-steps-to-effective-trade-show-follow-up/
Online Sales Leads Follow-up
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29444/4-Essential-Steps-to-Sales-Lead-Follow-Up.aspx
http://www.zerotimeselling.com/essential-sales-lead-follow-up/
http://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads/ar/1
