march 18, 2013 leadscon 2013 responseaudit executive...

MARCH 18, 2013

LEADSCON 2013 RESPONSEAUDIT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INSIDESALES.COM RESEARCH DIVISION PERFORMED BY KYLE DAVIS

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Copyright © InsideSales.com 2013

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning,

or otherwise, except as permitted under section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of InsideSales.com. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, InsideSales.com, 34 East 1700

South, Suite A220, Provo, Utah 84606.

© 2013 InsideSales.com

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part or in any form.

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LEADSCON 2013 RESPONSEAUDIT

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RESEARCH PAPER


RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Attendees of the 2013 LeadsCon Conference in Las Vegas were tested for how quickly and persistently they respond to Web leads. The results suggest that companies need to respond more quickly to Web leads, be more persistent in contacting leads, and call each lead more frequently. The findings of this report will help companies recognize weaknesses in their lead response strategies and improve their lead management.

THE LEADSCON CONFERENCE

The LeadsCon Conference has since 2007 helped companies gain “unparalleled insight” on latest marketing trends. In addition to knowledge, attendees have great opportunities to network and meet with top leaders and technology solution providers (LeadsCon, 2013).

OPTIMAL LEAD RESPONSE MANAGEMENT

The following report focuses on two areas that affect a lead’s progression into the sales pipeline: response time and persistency. There are two types of contact methods this study tracks: email responses and call attempts made by a member of the sales team. Lead response time refers to the period between when an electronic lead is submitted and when first contact is attempted by a sales rep. Persistency refers to how many times a company attempts to contact a new lead before giving up.

The Lead Response Management Study by Dr. James Oldroyd shows that sales agents do not have much time to respond before their leads become unresponsive or “cold.” In fact, the odds of contacting a lead are 100 times greater when contacted within 5 minutes after the lead was submitted than if contacted 30 minutes after submission. Similarly, the odds of the lead entering the sales process, or becoming qualified, are 21 times greater when contacted within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes after the lead was submitted (Oldroyd, 2007).

http://www.insidesales.com/research

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In the March 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) an article entitled “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads” states that companies are spending more on Internet leads, but their systems and processes are not keeping up. The amount companies spent on Internet-generated leads increased 82% between 2005 and 2009; however, of companies audited in the study referenced in HBR, only 37% responded within an hour, and almost a quarter—24%—took over 24 hours to respond. The average first response time of companies that responded within a month was 42 hours (McElheran, 2011).

Lead response time was also the subject of a May 2012 Forbes.com article, “When it Comes to Inbound Marketing Time is Definitely of the Essence,” which discusses how companies are essentially wasting money on poor lead management. B2C companies spend an estimated $2 to $25 per generated lead while B2B companies spend an estimated $30 to $200 on each marketing lead generated. Company executives likely do not realize the money they are losing by allowing their leads to get “cold” (Olenski, 2012).

Not only does quickly responding to a lead matter, but the day and time of response also have an effect on the odds of contacting a lead. An article in Inc magazine, published in July 2011 entitled “How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing Leads,” mentions that for a group of 42 companies, Wednesdays and Thursdays between the hours of 4 pm and 6 pm are the best times to contact a lead (Markowitz, 2011).

Persistency is also important in successfully responding to leads. Based on ResponseAudit research across 7,960 companies between the years 2008 and 2012, sales reps on average make only 1.3 call attempts to a new lead before giving up. Ken Krogue, president and co-founder of InsideSales.com, has blogged and spoken on this topic and on how to improve this metric at a number of events such as the Sales 2.0 and AA-ISP conventions (Krogue, 2012). He advocates making 8-12 calls in order to dramatically improve contact rates. Companies will likely increase the number of leads moving down their sales pipeline by being more persistent in contacting them.

METHODOLOGY

RESPONSEAUDIT TECHNOLOGY

The ResponseAudit system is a patent-pending technology used to conduct research. Its purpose is to test how quickly and persistently companies are contacting Web leads. The process begins with a “secret

http://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads/ar/1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/22/when-it-comes-to-inbound-marketing-time-is-definitely-of-the-essence/2/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/22/when-it-comes-to-inbound-marketing-time-is-definitely-of-the-essence/2/

http://www.inc.com/guides/201107/how-to-best-harness-inbound-marketing-leads.html

http://www.inc.com/guides/201107/how-to-best-harness-inbound-marketing-leads.html

http://www.kenkrogue.com/best-practices/inside-sales-best-practices-7-ways-in-increase-contact-ratios/

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shopper” who creates an alias name, email, phone number, and company website. Next, this “shopper” visits a website, locates a Web form, fills it out using the alias information, and submits it. As the company responds to the lead, the ResponseAudit system records all call attempts, email messages, and timestamps for each response received during the following two-week period.

THE RESPONSEAUDIT PROCESS

The ResponseAudit system is standardized and automated. Audits are only performed during the standard business hours of 8:00 am to 5:00 pm (accounting for time zone differences), allowing companies to have the best chance at responding quickly. At the end of the process, a report is compiled for each company, complete with a list of response types (call or email), number of attempts, response times, and summary statistics.


All companies planning to attend the 2013 LeadsCon conference held in Las Vegas were tested for how quickly and persistently they respond to Web leads.

RESULTS

RESPONSE RATE The response rate shows how many companies even attempted to contact the lead either through phone or email. This metric is calculated as the amount of companies that responded either by phone or email divided by the total amount of companies with leads submitted. Figure 1 shows that of the companies that had Web forms, 49.8% responded to the lead. This is low relative to most groups studied; typically the response rate is between 60% and 70%. These findings suggest companies that attend LeadsCon are worse than most other groups at responding at least one time to leads.

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IMMEDIACY

As mentioned above, immediacy refers to the amount of time it takes for the sales reps to attempt their first phone call. Of companies that responded by phone within two weeks, 16.0% called back within five minutes, and 47.2% called in less than an hour. The median first response time was 1 hour 7 minutes 20 seconds. The average was 17 hours 17 minutes 17 seconds. While most people are generally more familiar with the mean, the median is the better metric to rely on because it is less affected by very poor performers.

Response Rate

© InsideSales.com 2012

Figure 1 Response Rate

First Call Response Times


Figure 2 First Call Response Times

50.2%

49.8%

No Response

Responded at LeastOnce

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PERSISTENCY

LeadsCon attendees are not making many contact attempts. The median number of response attempts, even when combining both phone and email, was zero, and the average was 1.6. Only 15.8% of companies made more than two attempts. Figure 3 shows the number of companies that made the specified amount of contact attempts.

RESPONSE TYPES

Companies are primarily reaching out through email on their first contact attempt. Figure 4 shows that 70.3% of companies made their initial response through email.

Persistency


Figure 3 Persistency

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First Response Types


While companies often make their first contact through email, they tend to call more on the subsequent attempts than they do on their first attempt. LeadsCon attendees are unique in that there were more total phone calls than emails; normally there are far more total emails than total phone calls.

Types

70.3%

21.3%

8.4%

Email

Voicemail

Call

Figure 4 First Response Types

Total Response Types


Figure 5First Response Types

14.3%

65.3%

20.4%

Call

Email

Voicemail

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CONCLUSION

Companies need to respond more quickly and more persistently to Web leads. The results in this study can be useful for all companies that respond to leads—all companies can make an effort to contact their leads more quickly and persistently. A further area of research includes what companies’ perceptions about how they contact leads and how they actually contact leads differ. As the information about lead management grows, companies should place emphasis on utilizing this knowledge and consequently improving their processes to increase their profitability.

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ABOUT INSIDESALES.COM

The InsideSales.com platform accelerates efficient lead response management and qualification. Key features include: PowerDialer, integrated with the InsideSales.com Lead Response Platform or the Salesforce® CRM; ResponsePop, the ability to respond to web leads in under 10 seconds; automation of standard sales functions, such as the ability to leave a voice message or email with the click of a mouse or through one or more pre-defined trigger events, otherwise known as sales workflow automation; extensive sales analytics that enable visibility down to the sales rep level. ResponseAudit is a unique service offered by InsideSales.com for analyzing a sales team’s response time and persistence to an Internet-generated lead (request a free ResponseAudit at www.responseaudit.com). A brief list of our enterprise clients includes: ADP, Dell, Gannett, and Marketo. To learn more, visit www.InsideSales.com.

http://www.responseaudit.com/

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WORKS CITED

Krisitna McElheran, J. O. (2011, March). The Short Life of Online Sales

Leads. Harvard Business Review, p. 28.

Krogue, K. (2012, February 23). Inside Sales Best Practices: 7 Ways to

Increase Contact Ratios. Retrieved from www.kenkrogue.com:

http://www.kenkrogue.com/best-practices/inside-sales-best-

practices-7-ways-in-increase-contact-ratios/

LeadsCon. (2013). LeadsCon Las Vegas. Retrieved from leadscon:

http://leadscon.com/

Markowitz, E. (2011, July 6). How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing

Leads. Retrieved from www.inc.com:

http://www.inc.com/guides/201107/how-to-best-harness-inbound-

marketing-leads.html

Oldroyd, J. (2007, October). Lead Response Management Study - Oct.

2007. Retrieved from Inside Sales Best Practices:

http://www.insidesales.com/images/LRM_07.pdf

Olenski, S. (2012, May 5). When It Comes To Inbound Marketing Time is

Definitely Of The Essence. Retrieved from www.forbes.com:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/22/when-it-

comes-to-inbound-marketing-time-is-definitely-of-the-essence/2/

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APPENDIX – FASTER THAN AVERAGE CALLS

The following list names all companies that made their first phone call faster than the average. The companies are in alphabetical order. Accurate Append NoCostRefi.com

ActiveProspect Northcentral University

Bills.com Payvia

boberdoo.com Penn Foster

Brandman University Platt College

Cake Marketing Precise Leads Inc

CorvisaCloud Quicken Loans

Devry University RMC Vanguard

Efinancial RTK Media Inc

eGenerationMarketing Safeco

Endurance warranty SBBCollege

Geary LSF SelectQuote

Gragg Advertising SendGrid

Growth Works Ventures Shore Mortgage

IMG SmartLead by AdTrack

Ingram Medical SoftVu LLC

Innovate Media Speed to Contact

InsideSales.com TeleSign Corp

Jones International University The DelFin Project

KB Synergy The Federal Savings Bank

LeadQual The Princeton Review

Leads360 Inc Three Deep Marketing

Little Brook Media Total Attorneys

Loan One TriOS College

Log My Calls UnsubCentral

MDT Direct Vivint

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