Are You Planning for Lead Generation for 2013?

Are You Planning for Lead Generation for 2013?:from ViewPoint | The Truth About Lead Generation by Guest Blogger
James Obermayer, Executive Director and CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association and President of Sales Leakage Consulting is a regular guest blogger with ViewPoint.

“Of course,” you say. “We create a marketing plan every year.” But do you really? Do you create a marketing plan that drives sales based on the sales forecast? Is your lead generation plan based on the forecast by product? Have you predicted the number of inquiries you will need to create for each salesperson in total and by month, by product?
I have some questions for you as you plan:

1. Sales Forecast: Does your marketing plan start with the sales forecast; by product in dollars and units by sales channel, domestic vs. international? Do you know the forecast?
    
2. Lead Generation Based on Forecast? Are you creating marketing tactics that project a specific number of inquiries by product based on the forecast? You may have many tactics based on different media to create a total number of inquiries.
    
3. Raw Cost? For every lead generation tactic, you should have the cost divided by the inquiries or the qualified leads. Is this raw cost acceptable? This is one measurement. Sorry Dan McDade, but I still believe in this.
    
4. Closed Lead Cost? You must be able to forecast and measure the closed lead cost and the sales results in units and dollars by product.
    
5. Delivering Leads at the Rep Level? If you have a direct sales force, are you predicting the number of inquiries (or qualified leads) each salesperson will receive based on their quotas? For instance: if they have to sell 5 units of something per month, are you giving them 35 inquiries per month (some will say at least 15 qualified leads)? 35 leads will find 15.75 buyers; with a 30% closure rate on average, the sales result will be 4.7 buyers over a 12-month period.
    
6. Are you separating lead generation from branding costs in the plan? Have you divided your plan between hard-core lead generation tactics and branding tactics, so management knows the difference?
   
7. Timing: Will your plan deliver a consistent flow of inquiries per month in sufficient numbers to help the salespeople make forecast? Can you chart it?
   
8. Ramping Up Lead Generation to Match Sales Forecast? If the forecast calls for $1 million a month in sales and you will deliver 400 inquiries a month, by the end of the year when $1.5 million in sales are required are you now creating 600 inquiries a month?
    
9. Backup Plan? Do you have lead generation dollars set aside to generate enough inquiries if a salesperson isn’t getting enough to make quota?

Most marketing plans are spending serious money on lead generation programs. If you can’t predict the results based on the sales forecast, you don’t really have a plan, and you’d better hope the CFO doesn’t ask you to be more specific.