Dynamic Lead Generation System

A blog post I read about a month ago got my gears turning on an idea for a dynamic leads generation system, which modifies the information collection form based on the length of the work queue. It's one of those instances where I think I have some "good thoughts" about something I'll not likely be called upon to produce in the near future, so I'm dropping my working notes here in case I ever need them ...

The Notion

The post in question suggests, in an general way, that the number of questions on a lead generation form decreases the response rate, but increases the quality of the leads. The conclusion is that your sales force may be wasting a lot of time with unqualified leads if you don't ask enough questions, but not getting a sufficient number of leads if you ask too few.

I was a bit frustrated by the lack of detail - it's is a conclusion that most people can come to on their own, and without the facts to back it up, it's not of much use. So I dug a bit for some facts, and found there were none to be had. A few "sources" suggested that every question you add after three (name, e-mail, phone) decreases the number of leads generated by 25% - but don't provide any reference to the research that backs that claim.

Even so, I don't think it's an entirely unreasonable assertion or guess, and lacking hard numbers (plus, given the fact the numbers will vary according to the specific product being sold and the audience being marketed) , I'll go with it for now.

That said, this means that asking "just four simple questions" will decrease the number of leads by almost 70% - add flour more, and 90% of people who (arguably) would have submitted contact information will go away.

While there's something to be said for quality over quantity, my sense is that when you get to the point of throwing away 90% of interested prospects, you're likely cutting deeply into the number of qualified prospects.

And yes, this is also based on the assumption that the most qualified prospects are willing to answer a longer questionnaire than less qualified ones - but I don't think the two are necessarily connected. However, it would be logical to assert that the most eager/interested ones will suffer more in order to give you their contact information (though being eager and being qualified are two entirely separate things).

The Solution

The idea that occurred to me from this is for a dynamic lead-generation system that balances the number of questions on the lead generation form against the work queue for the staff who follows up on those leads.

The form would consist of a number of questions, ranked in order of importance. Let's say that the "default" form has four questions and generates 700 leads on a typical day, and that's about the number of leads that a sales staff of a given size can effectively work.

On a day when the traffic is low, fewer leads will come in and the staff will have idle time. If you drop the least important question, it will increase the number of leads (but decrease their quality) to make more productive use of spare time - they have the time to "waste" with less qualified leads (but given that some percentage of them will turn out to be good leads, it's not really a waste of time to work them, just less efficient).

On a day when the traffic is high, more leads will come in than the staff can handle. If you add an additional question to the form, it will decrease the number of leads (but increase their quality) to make more efficient use of scarce time - they don't have as much time to "waste" on less qualified leads and need to be focused on the better-quality ones.

The System

The system to implement the solution should be relatively straightforward: an automated script checks the length of the work queue and compares the number of leads waiting to be worked to the number of staff who are in the office (cross-reference against the number of staff "logged in" at the time) to determine whether the amount of work is too much or too little for the staff available to handle it.

Once that determination is made, the results are fed to the content management system that generates the form and instructs it to display more or fewer questions on the lead generation form, to adjust the number of leads that come in.

It should also be possible to monitor the system to check the question-to-lead ratio and adjust the algorithm accordingly: for example if the difference between having four questions and having five questions is less than a 25% decrease in leads generated, that can be considered. It could also be cross-referenced against call times to consider whether working a lead that has answered fewer questions takes more time than one that has answered more. And it could also check the basic assumption, to see if the close rate for individuals who have answered more questions is actually higher than those who answered fewer, though adjusting the questions would require a more organic process (a human being to consider what might be "wrong" with a given question and write a better one).

The Obstacles

There may be obstacles to implementing such a system. Three come to mind: greed, tyranny, and wastefulness.

A greedy company wants every lead it can get, regardless of whether the customer is qualified. More is better, and people can be browbeaten into buying something they don't really need. This is an ethical problem that technology cannot address.

A tyrannical company wants a limited staff to work unqualified leads. If the staff aren't producing more sales with more leads, they're just bad employees and need to be disciplined or fired. That's another ethical issue, shades of Glengarry Glen Ross.

A wasteful company will want to work every lead it gets, regardless of whether it is productive, and instead of whipping staff to work harder on bad leads, will hire additional staff to deal with the volume.

But at this point, I'm probably getting away from the notion of a technical solution and more into ethics and corporate culture. It's probably worth keeping, but grist for a more general meditation than the present one.