An opportunity killer
Because timing is everything.
In addition to understanding the difference between CoRe and non-CoRe leads, Oracle knows that time is the most valuable commodity. This goes for their own sales team, but it also applies to buyers.
How you treat your buyer’s time makes a huge difference in lead generation outcomes. Let’s consider two possible scenarios as an interested buyer visits a product website:
Whitewhale’s technical decision-maker is in full researchmode because her executive team gave the greenlight on a major new initiative. Your company has a perfect solution for their problem, but she’s not quite ready to commit to a 30-minute sales conversation. She’s just researching, gathering ideas from vendor websites.
This decision-maker is impressed enough by your content to complete a form to download a whitepaper developed by your product marketing team. Her information gets processed according to the traditional MQL process, and, 24 hrs later, she – a 15-year veteran in the industry – receives a generic follow-up email from a BDR with little industry expertise.
Now, with the odds stacked against you, the BDR begins the cat-and-mouse game of trying (often unsuccessfully) to get this high-value prospect to schedule a discovery meeting.
It’s a cringe-worthy situation.
Next, imagine the Whitewhale’s buyer landing on your #1 competitor’s homepage. This time, instead of a form, a chat window powered by chatbot technology pops up with a personal greeting:
“Hi Whitewhale,
We work with lots of companies in your industry. Would you be interested in learning more? BTW, your account manager is Emily Jones who can help answer any questions you may have.”
The decision-maker engages in the chat. Based on her inquiries and responses, the bot offers the decision-maker case studies and other content relevant to her vertical industry.
Next – having been alerted by the chatbot – the company’s sales rep joins the chat to answer the decisionmaker’s top three to four technical questions. Satisfied with the sales rep’s responses (and impressed by how personal and easy the process has been), Whitewhale’s buyer responds,
“Thanks Emily, looks like your company has the baseline functionality we are looking for. Let’s schedule a meeting.”
Emily, the sales rep, gives her a choice of two options, “Great, we can meet now if you like, or here’s my calendar and you can choose a time that works for you.”
Emily and the decision-maker have a meeting that afternoon, and Emily opens an opportunity for $100K by the end of the day.
Boom. That’s how it’s done.
Meanwhile, your whitepaper download-triggered MQL is sitting in a BDR’s queue because they only qualify whitepaper leads between 9 and 10 each morning, and your MQL arrived at 11 am.
You don’t even know it, but you’ve already lost this deal to the competition.
