Free Lead Generation App for Salesforce – Inspired by Mike Volpe

We’ve always been inspired by the work of Mike Volpe, the Chief Marketing Officer at HubSpot who is one of the top authorities among marketing executives in high-tech industries. As the 5th employee to start at HubSpot, Mike helped the company grow into one of the biggest names in marketing software and built one of the best lead generation programs in the world based on metrics.

Mike has always been a thought leader in marketing and last year he wrote a blog post about a graph that marketers should review daily which he calls the Lead Waterfall.  Mike noted that “using a daily leads waterfall graph is a great way to ensure that you hit your leads goals and never fall far behind the pace you need to stay afloat.” It’s a simple yet brilliant report! In my view, this leads waterfall report is critical for marketers to do their jobs effectively.

HubSpot users have this report and can see it daily in their HubSpot marketing software. And we thought to build this report for users of Salesforce too and, inspired by Hubspot and Mike Volpe, we wanted to make it available for free to all marketers using Salesforce.com. We launched our Free Lead Generation Report this past week at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2013 in Boston and it is now available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

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The Insights Marketers Need

The Free Lead Generation Report from InsightSquared allows marketers to perform a “daily check” (as Mike Volpe calls it) of their lead number vs. to their goal. The report – in a waterfall format, similar to what Mike discussed – tracks the number of leads that have been generated to-date, in any given time period, be it the month or the quarter. Marketing managers can also break their leads generated down by source, while measuring themselves against a pre-established team goal. With each passing day, marketers can see if they are on track to meet their monthly or quarterly goal…or not.

This is critical so that Marketing VPs and managers don’t find that they are behind goal at the end of the month but can actually be in control on a daily basis to be able to adjust if they see their lead generation is behind their goal.  This report can make a difference between success and failure.

Mike once described marketing analytics as a ‘Check Engine’ light that tells you something is wrong and needs to be fixed. In that regard, the Lead Generation Report is a tremendously useful gauge. With daily monitoring, marketers can determine if their ongoing efforts are sufficient to hit the team’s goals. If the leads generated to-date appears to be well off the pace, marketing managers can then take the necessary action.

For example, let’s say the marketing manager has one particular lead source that is highly regarded. He or she dips into that source frequently, believing that it produces copious amounts of leads. However, what if the lead generation waterfall reveals that particular lead source to be underperforming? Perhaps the marketing manager should choose to focus his or her efforts on other campaigns and lead sources then. Identifying underwhelming lead generation sources is just one of the actionable insights revealed to marketing managers through the lead generation report.

 

For marketers looking to not only achieve, but over-achieve, their goals as set by the CEO or other executives, the lead generation report is essential. It can keep you on track, let you know if you are not on track, and help you prove to the CEO that your marketing efforts are succeeding. Don’t ignore the ‘Check Engine’ light; figure out what’s wrong with your marketing today and fix it as soon as possible, with the help of the Free Lead Generation Report on the Salesforce AppExchange.

 

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