Magnus Marketing Blog

As mentioned in a previous post, Pay for Performance tends to generate more unqualified leads. In fact, a good friend of mine whose company engaged a PFP company noted that the sales reps repeatedly complained about running after unqualified, zero quality leads. Unqualified leads are the bane of any salesrep and organization.

As an illustrative example - a client who shall remain nameless, recently ran a campaign to generate interest. An email went out to a list. I received what was initially thought to be 30 leads - the deal here is - these people expressed interest in the service and would receive a gift in exchange for sitting through a presentation. Well, these people are all in the industry and have an interest in learning, so they are leads, right? Maybe a few would want the gift, but the gift wasn't of too much value.

In addition to the time spent calling and emailing these 30 people, I did about 10 hourlong presentations. Only 2 became actual potentially measurable opportunities - they are in "the pipeline" and being worked to tangible opportunity.

Cost: my "salary" + phone expenses + time that could have been spent persuing real potentials. If this were Pay for Performance, take 8 X 600 - then my company made $4,800 for setting the appointment, company made ZERO.

Just to give you an idea of unqualified: a 75 year old professional who was on the brink of full retirement, a guy who was working 5 hours a week on related stuff, a sole proprietor who had trouble paying bills, and a guy who just got a job in a completely different field. Can't get any worse than that.

The campaign manager told me, well use it as an opportunity to develop relationships for future business. He is right, if the profile contacts were people who could actually BUY the stuff. If they are decision-makers and key influencers, then I don't mind spending my limited time contacting them and "campaigning" in my own way. I am not going to ever get any business from a 75 year old retiree.

It is important for marketing to qualify, qualify, qualify and drop off the list or in initial inquiries people who don't fit. It is important for sales to do the same thing, which is again why, this should not be about numbers or quantity, but quality.

We'll delve more into what Qualified means in the next post.