Generating Leads Through Surveys: Taking Another Look By Frank Lucer At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

When people visit your website, there should be a mechanism in place that allows them to enter your marketing funnel. The purpose of this funnel is to introduce new customers to your company's products and services. As visitors travel deeper into the funnel, they graduate into higher tiers of prioritization. These priority tiers represent lead quality.

Surveys can be a valuable tool not only for generating leads, but also helping to score them for future follow-up. Below, we'll explore the use of surveys in this context. We'll briefly look at the difference between quantity and quality as well as how your company can increase its ROI through the design of its scoring criteria. We'll also discuss the use of surveys for prioritization and follow-up.

Quantity Does Not Equal Quality

A number of online advertising platforms have made finding prospective customers easy. For example pay per click marketing has allowed businesses to target their audience, direct them to landing pages, and encourage them to complete online surveys and forms.

On the surface, the ease with which a company can uncover pockets of potential sales and revenue seems appealing. To be sure, the number of leads generated from these advertising platforms has been nothing short of impressive. However, enjoying a high volume of prospective customers does not imply any level of lead quality. It merely implies quantity. In fact, in some respects, the ease with which they are generated has caused quality to decline.

Improving ROI Through Scoring

The problem of quality which we've described above can be resolved by carefully establishing the scoring criteria to be used in your online surveys. To do this, you must first identify purchase patterns and consumer behavior in your existing customer base. By reviewing the profiles of those who have purchased in the past, you can make reasonable decisions regarding the type of prospect who is likely to purchase in the future. These characteristics should form the foundation of your scoring system.

Surveying software can be used to design questionnaires that rank prospects based on their responses. For example, suppose your "best" customers are homeowners who live on the West Coast and have at least two children under the age of 10. Your survey should be designed to solicit this information. Depending upon the number of scoring factors your prospect meets, he or she can be ranked accordingly. Those who score in the top tier are prioritized ahead of others and your sales team can follow up with them immediately.

Because you have scored your leads according to who is most likely to purchase your products, you are, in effect, improving your company's ROI. This is especially true if you integrate scoring factors that imply a prospective customer is about to buy immediately.

Qualifying And Following Up

Qualifying your leads and assigning a priority to them is a unique process for every organization. That is, your company's scoring factors are likely to be different than those used by other companies, even those within your industry. The key is to ensure that your criteria reflects the highest likelihood that prospects will purchase from your company.

Once leads have been generated through your survey, you or your sales team must follow up with them according to their prioritization. The best prospects represent zero value unless they are encouraged to take the next step with your company. That can mean offering them a low-priced entry product in order to move them further into your marketing funnel. Or, it might mean having a salesperson contact them.

Ideally, your survey software can parse out the leads who represent the highest quality based upon your scoring system. That software can automate the process, thereby freeing your time to focus on your marketing efforts.

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