As B2B Marketers we spend a lot of time, effort and resources on creating lead generation programs that drive prospect conversions.  But what happens next?

As we become more sophisticated marketers with more promising tools, we are now not only filling the top of the sales funnel but we are also helping move prospects through the sales funnel; one buying stage at a time.

We know it takes multiple interactions to turn a lead into a prospect and usually these interactions involve both Sales and Marketing.  This means both teams need to be armed and ready for the next follow up.

Here’s a checklist to go through to make sure you are set up for success before launching that next program.

• Do your sales and marketing teams know what to follow up with in response to different types of inquiries? If someone reaches out to you about Product A, your follow up should include more information about Product A that opens the door for a discussion.

• Are you emailing pdfs with your follow up emails? Remember attachments can get hung up in spam filters.  Consider putting your docs out on the web and link to them.  This also enables you to track who’s visiting this page.

• Are you prepared to capture all inquiries in a database or CRM for ongoing nurturing and qualification efforts? It’s key that this information is stored in a place that both sales and marketing can access.  Marketing needs to know when and what kinds of nurturing campaigns to push these people through and sales needs to know what marketing programs prospects are interacting with.

• Have you agreed with sales on what a qualified lead looks like? This is 101, right?

• Do you have a process in place for distributing qualified leads to sales contacts as they are identified? Getting in touch in a timely manner is key.  Make sure everyone is clear how leads are being routed.

• Do you have a program in place to nurture or cultivate your not-yet-qualified leads? One and done doesn’t work in B2B so you need a plan for staying in touch.  Different mediums with different offers is key here.  Not everyone responds to the same things.

• Do you know how often to contact prospects with nurture messages? The jury is still out here, monitor your nurture marketing unsubscribe rates and adjust as needed.  Also be sure sales has a way to opt people out of further communications.

• Do you know what offers to use to get them to further identify their needs and situation so you can determine if they are ready to buy today? Nurturing programs help build awareness, make sure you have the right kinds of offers in place to build on your prospect profile.

• Do you have a program in place to measure and track the results of your various sales-lead generation, cultivation and sales follow-up programs? You need this.  How else do you know what’s working and what isn’t?

• And, in my opinion, the most important question – Do you know what new customers originated in marketing and what programs helped drive them to the finish line?

Being able to show real ROI from your marketing efforts is key.  It drives so many “what’s next”  decisions.