By smart, I don’t mean intellectually smart, but that your lead generation goals are:
-
Specific
-
Measurable
-
Attainable
-
Relevant
-
Time-bound
Let’s say you’re a business owner, and you would like to know how many leads you need to generate this year in order to hit your revenue target. So the first thing you need to decide on is your annual revenue target for the year, which you can also break down into monthly buckets if you would like to.
So what is a high quality goal?
Let’s break it down so you can see exactly what I mean. A specific goal is precise, well-defined, clear, and therefore, more likely to be achieved. A goal like increase leads, is vague and it lacks clear direction. You have to be much more precise. For example, lets say you want to make a cool million this year. And your customer typically spends 20k with you. Now we’re starting to get closer to having a SMART Goal defined You already know that in order to make that cool million, you’re going to need to close 50 deals this year – trust me, I did the math. You better get hustling, because that means you need to close just over 4 deals a month.
How many leads will you need?
If you have the right measurement tools in place, and you know that your average lead close rate is 10%, you can calculate the value of each lead by multiplying your average sales price, in this case $20,000 by your average close rate, in this case 10%, and you’ll find out the value of each lead you need to generate, which comes out to $2000. Now you can take your sales goal for the year, $1,000,000 and divide it by the average value of a lead, $2,000, and you’ll find out you need to generate 500 leads over the course of a year. Doesn’t sound overwhelming, but it does mean marketing is going to need to deliver 42 Sales Qualified Leads every month. On the other hand, perhaps you would rather spend your time closing deals and don’t have the time, budget or skillset to generate those leads yourself. There might be another way, but there are some questions you need to ask yourself before you decide whether virtual lead generation is the right approach for you. That’s why we prepared a short checklist on Virtual Lead Generation for you to help you decide if it is the right approach for you to achieve your SMART goals.
