The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation

CHAPTER TEN: TELEPHONE-BASED LEAD GENERATION
INSIDE SALES TEAMS
Telesales, or inside sales reps, can be a big contributor to successful lead generation.
Your sales team qualifies your leads and adds a personal touch.
An important distinction here—
telephone-based lead
generation isn’t the same as
telemarketing. Telesales
provides the human interaction
needed to turn your marketing
leads into opportunities
and sales.
Lead Qualification
with Inside Sales
Inside sales teams (at Marketo, we
call them Sales Development Reps,
or SDRs) have one focus: to pass
the baton from marketing to sales.
Our SDRs review, contact, and
qualify marketing-generated leads
and deliver them to Sales Account
Executives (or AEs). This ensures
that every single lead marketing
passes to your sales team is as
qualified as possible. Your inside
sales reps should offer every lead
value, making a positive impression,
creating future demand, and
becoming trusted advisors.
“The most successful lead
generation/lead
management programs have
dedicated phone resources
whose sole job in life is to
take raw inquiries and
qualify them before they are
sent directly to sales.”
– Craig Rosenberg,
The Funnelholic Blog
Insidesales.com’s 7 Rules to Increase Contact Ratios
1. Call back as fast as you can!
A lead that is contacted within
five minutes, compared to one
contacted after 30 minutes, has
a 100x higher contact rate.
2. Be persistent. If you call once,
you’ll earn 37% of a lead’s
potential value, two phone calls
will earn you 61%, and six phone
calls will get you 90%.
3. Optimize calls. Ask your lead
when the best time to contact
them is. You can do this by
putting a field in a form.
4. Time of day matters. It has been
said that the best time to call a lead is
between 8am and 9am or between
4pm and 5pm. Make sure your reps
are available at this time.
5. Day of the week matters too.
Studies show that Tuesday and
Thursday are the best calling days.
Use sales tracking tools to determine
what works best for your audience.
6. You need a direct dial line. You
don’t want to deal with gatekeepers.
Consider including a form that asks
for this information.
7. Get the right technology. Whether
it’s a marketing automation tool to
help you manage your leads, or a
caller ID tool like LocalPresence,
technology helps.
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