It’s Q4 for most salespeople  and often the biggest quarter of the year. It can be the difference between lots of money and a great end of year season with the family, or in the worst cases, hunting for a new role at the start of the new year for missing a target.

The secret to a great Q4 sales period relies largely on how well the prior quarters have played out and the quality of the leads that the salesperson has been given. So the question becomes: how do generate great lead pipeline (at scale) for your all your sales people?

Alarmingly only 13% of businesses describe their lead generation as very successful. Clearly whatever the majority of marketing teams are doing to help sales teams is not working.

However, there is a new way of marketing that is transforming the volume, the quality, and the speed of leads going from an acquisition campaign right to a salesperson’s phone.

When you see results that produce a 50%+ lower cost per lead, a 2-3x increase in lead volume, all combined with the ability to reach people who share similar attributes to your existing best customers, then you are beginning to deliver on the promise of effective marketing that truly employers your sales team to succeed.

Here’s how this works

1. It all starts with the data

The best way to find your next best customer is using what you know about your existing customers. Using platforms like Facebook and Google, you can securely sync segments of your customers (i.e. highest lifetime value or all customers closed in last 6 months) and then use the power of their data to build lookalikes to tailor specific messaging too.

2. Run campaigns that are mobile friendly

We spend more hours of our day on our phone than any other screen and 90% of that time is spent in apps according to Yahoo. Additionally with 44% of researchers use mobile devices when making business purchasing decisions and 50% of those professionals doing the research being under 35 according to Google, a business product or service that is not visible across mobile may not even make the first cut. With ad formats like Facebook Lead Ads, not only can we reach that ideal lookalike audience, we can capture multiple fields of information quickly with a couple of taps.

3. Get the lead info to your sales teams ASAP

So often the problem with lead generation is the disconnect between marketing technology and the CRM system meaning delays in response times and ultimately close rates. According to Inside Sales, 35-50% of sales goes to the vendor that responds first and if you follow up a digital lead in the first 5 minutes, you are 9x more likely to convert. That is why it is crucial that for your always on the go, uber busy sales professionals, that you have a way of getting that lead from your acquisition campaign immediately into their CRM lead queue. Ideally, of course, with an alert on their phone.

4. Close the loop

This step is often forgotten, however your customer acquisition campaigns should constantly be informed by data from the performance of current leads. According to Forbes, 69% of CEOs believe they are wasting money on marketing by not ‘closing the loop’ between marketing and sales so this challenge is recognized right at the top of the organization. In other words, campaigns should continue to reach people similar to those whom salespeople are actually closing. Then people who have actually bought the service and those deemed unqualified should stop see acquisition messaging to prevent both a bad user experience and waste of advertising investment. Ultimately this is the advanced strategy to truly align your brand, your customers, and your marketing and sales teams for optimal performance.

Talk to an executive at Salesforce to learn more about how you can make this work for your business today.