Extending the Shelf-Life of a Good Lead

Good news: Your marketing campaign has generated hundreds of qualified operator prospects. They’ve filled out a contact form, requested a sample, stopped by your trade show booth – now what?

When investing in a concerted effort to generate leads in foodservice, there’s the potential to create a lot of activity for your sales team. That’s the idea, right?

But they need to be set up for success.

Pre-qualification.

Better leads start with better targeting. Identify the best-fit prospect for your product, reach segmented audiences through the right channels with tailored messaging, and configure campaigns with the infrastructure to generate and organize marketing qualified leads (MQLs). And don’t forget about your CRM – a successful campaign experience will design points of integration with your CRM platform so that you can build your database and follow leads throughout their journey.

Point of contact.

Design an integrated brand experience that meets your ideal buyer where they are, with the message you need them to hear to drive an inquiry. Consider your trade show booth, website content, and product sample kits. Be mindful of your website’s contact forms – you need enough fields to properly qualify the lead, but not so many that the form becomes a burden for your prospect.

Lead nurturing.

Maintain visibility with the leads in your pipeline through consistent content efforts. Deliver value beyond the initial point of contact and stay top of mind using channels like email and social media. Allow your systems to keep good leads warm while your sales team prioritizes the great ones.

Beyond serving as an obvious driver for incremental revenue, good quality leads can enhance your long-term marketing strategy beyond the sale – becoming an important factor in improving the quality of first-party data to further enable targeted media and advertising efforts going forward.