Fit Your Marketing Pipeline Into Your International Lead Generation Plan

In my previous articles, you have seen:

• How important it is to have an international marketing pipeline to get sales-ready leads for your business.
• Why it is important to define what a lead is for you and your company

This article is part of the Guide To International Lead Generation, which is just one of the marketing strategies in the Business Guide 4 - Build Your International Marketing Strategy essential for effective international business development. Be sure to check them both out.

Creating Your Marketing Pipeline

Let us look at two different aspects of your international sales system.

• Your lead generation system to increase international business.
• You international marketing pipeline to feed your lead generation system.

There are three parts of your lead generation system. These three parts are what happens prior to your clients buying your products.

1. Lead Generation System For Inquiries
2. Lead Qualification System
3. Lead Nurturing

You need to add an international marketing process parallel to each of these three different parts of your lead generation system.

As you identify the specific functions of each marketing effort, in each of the three phases, your communication will become more targeted. Your online international leads will increase.

Let’s look at the three different phases of lead generation and the different marketing efforts associated with each phase.

1 - Lead Generation System For Inquiries

This is where you fish for inquiries. These are first time inquiries. They represent your first touch with your prospect.

You target your communication to a defined audience.
Your marketing reaches across a variety of different platforms.

Solution - Your Marketing Pipeline For Inquiries

Goal: Your international marketing strategy here is to get inquiries

Marketing Tools:

• Website
• Blogs and RSS feed
• Email marketing
• Article marketing
• Newsletters
• Podcast marketing
• Event marketing
• Joint ventures to reach new lists

All of your communication here is targeted to get the most targeted inquiries you can. Good copywriting and cross-cultural marketing touches improve your results.

2 – Lead Qualification System

Once you get inquiries for your products and services you must qualify them. This step is essential to build your business.

A lead qualification system will help you determine whether each of your inquiries is:

• Fit to be a qualified lead.
• Ready for a sale

You need to decide on the criteria to qualify your leads. It is important to create criteria you can measure. You may want to incorporate scoring. You may also want to include identification of market segments in your qualification system.

A lead qualification system has two big benefits:

• It stops you from wasting time on inappropriate inquiries.
• It helps you to get to know your international market potential.

Qualify each of your inquiries to see if they are qualified leads for you. Here are your basic qualification guidelines:

• Hot sales-ready leads - It tells your sales team who to follow up with.
• All leads not yet sales-ready – You integrate these into your active lead nurturing program.
• Nonsales leads - You can put these other inquiries on a lower priority automated customer relation program.

This gives you an easy process to follow. It is easy for all of your employees to know what to do with each inquiry that comes through your international lead generation program.

If you skip this step, it is like waiting for sales to drop in your lap. Do not wait for sales. You will miss too many opportunities.

Solution - Your Marketing Pipeline Lead Qualification

Goal: Your international marketing strategy here is to facilitate effective lead qualification.

Marketing Tools:

• Phone
• Surveys
• Special offers

The best way to qualify leads is by phone. A direct human contact also has the huge advantage of providing a great opportunity for international market research. You will be surprised at just how much you can learn from the simplest of phone calls.

Surveys and special offers can also be a good source of qualification, or prequalification. Use these as unique opportunities. For example, ask for information before downloading a gift.

These online techniques work best within an integrated marketing strategy.

3 – Lead Nurturing

This process helps your qualified leads remember you well. Your good leads may not buy from you immediately. In fact, most sales take time to mature. You can close many more sales with a good lead nurturing program. International leads will appreciate the time you give them.

• All business-to-business leads take many, many marketing touches before making a sale.
• There is more money to be made with these long cycle sales than with the fast sales.

Once you have qualified your leads, and passed on the sales ready leads to your sales team, put all the other qualified leads on a lead nurturing program.

It is important to set up a nurturing program for your international leads.

You need to nurture your international sales inquiries a lot during your international business expansion. This is one of the best ways to learn about your international market opportunities.

Solution - Your Marketing Pipeline For Lead Nurturing

Goal: Your international marketing strategy here is to create the right communication to nurture your qualified prospects to buy from you when they are ready at some stage down the road.

Marketing Tools:

• Phone calls
• Emails
• Personalized letters
• Invitations to events
• White papers
• Case studies
• Reports
• Articles
• Third-party reports

You need to target your communication to nurturing your international leads. The more you know about your foreign markets the better you will be able to target your communication to their needs, desires and goals.

Creating Your Marketing Pipeline

You can see how the different parts of your lead generation system affect your international marketing pipeline.

• You have your definition of your ideal lead.
• You understand the different functions of each part of your marketing pipeline.

So now, it is time to write your international marketing pipeline strategy. Next, I will look at your basic lead nurturing plan.