Sitting in a freshman course on communications, I will never forget our first lecture. It was about effective communications between two parties and how messages go back and forth. It was actually really basic and I think I still remember it today because it seemed a little insulting to my intelligence. Heck, I had been communicating for years, and I knew how to transmit and receive messages.

When I got out into the workforce I began to realize that communications can be a tricky matter and that I wasn’t nearly as fluent as I had thought. I learned that large departments in an organization can reside in the same building but have no idea what the other is doing. At one company, thankfully not my current employer, I saw how management could build a fortress around each other and guard it like a castle in the dark ages. Most importantly, I began to realize that a lack of communications equated to a lack of understanding, which equated to a lack of respect. That’s an equation for failure every time.

If you Google “communication between sales and marketing” you’ll find nearly thirteen million results. It’s a classic business problem and it has been written about at nauseam, so my objective in this post is not to give you advice on how to improve your company, there are plenty of consultants that do that. I just wanted to highlight the issue and share a marketing story that is a perfect case study of the problem. Perhaps you can relate this story to your own experience and be motivated to start evaluating how your business communicates.

My wife and a close friend she went to culinary school with contacted a consulting company that helps people open businesses. Specifically, they specialize in the food industry and they offered a turnkey service that helps you find a location for your business, negotiate a lease, find the best vendors, acquire the necessary licenses and insurance, build your store, and then open for business.  It’s a pretty expensive service because essentially you get a business-in-a-box. It’s great for people who are passionate about their work but lack the necessary skills and connections to start a business.

They sat down and had a lengthy meeting with the head sales representative from the company.  He presented their entire process and convinced my wife that they were competent in the food industry and could make her business dreams a reality. It seemed like the perfect fit and my wife and her friend moved from the exploratory phase to the planning phase of their business. Then, oddly, the marketing department at this company seemed to take over!

My wife began to receive one or two emails a day about the consulting firm and the services they offer. I am sure it was marketing’s way of supporting the sales team and turning prospects into buyers. The problem was that many of the emails addressed issues that were already discussed with their sales person at the consulting firm. What’s worse, marketing sent these emails on behalf of the individual sales people so it really just looked like the sales person was sending a cold-email (also know as spam) to someone who was already in the buying cycle. It was really frustrating because she would respond to some of these emails and say, “hey don’t you remember me, we already discussed this”. She never got responses so the marketing department obviously didn’t forward email responses to the respective sales person.

It was a complete mess and it wasn’t the only reason my wife didn’t end up signing with this firm, but it didn’t help that their company seemed to be totally disjointed. If they couldn’t coordinate email messages, how could they possibly coordinate all of the different aspects of launching a new business?

I like this example because it goes right to the heart of the issue of communication between sales and marketing. Here at Structural Graphics, we’re not perfect, nobody is. But we use a powerful CRM program coupled with regular email communications from marketing to be sure we’re on the same page. Well, maybe not always the same page, but we’re at least in the same book. Of course, it gets frustrating at times when a marketing initiative goes seemingly unrecognized by sales, or a sales initiative goes seemingly unrecognized by marketing.  I say “seemingly” because perception often doesn’t match reality, especially with something as personal as your hard work. At the end of the day we maintain a mutual level of respect because we both know that those folks we sometimes roll our eyes at, ultimately keep us employed.

A few years ago Structural Graphics was working on improving our lead follow-up process. The goal was to deliver web leads to the appropriate sales person in real-time, while at the same time capturing the lead’s information and recording it in our CRM program.  It seems like something that should be easy to do in the 21st Century, but many companies struggle with their own lead follow-up process. Around that time I read a great article about lead flow strategies and was introduced to the 15 Minute Rule.

A quick Google search on the 15 Minute Rule will bring up some interesting results, but nothing about lead follow-up. The first result I found in Google was about the rule of students being able to leave class if the professor fails to show up after 15 minutes.  So here’s the deal. This is the unofficial 15 Minute Rule of lead follow-up that you’ve never heard of because in Google’s world it doesn’t exist. Well, it might but I usually only skim the first page or two of results.

The 15 Minute Rule says that you must make contact with a lead that has filled out any sort of lead generation form on you website within… wait for it… 15 minutes. It could be a brochure or literature request or a request for a sales contact. Regardless of what they are looking for, they should be contacted by sales within 15 minutes.

Now you may be thinking that this is ridiculous. Not only is it unrealistic, but it’s just not necessary. I suppose you could make a valid argument for that, but there is some reasoning behind the rule. It’s always best to contact people when you’re fresh on their minds. If they just submitted the request a few minutes ago they are going to know exactly what they wanted and are probably more likely to take your call. It’s really that simple.

I can remember several instances where I received a sales call several days after submitting a request for information, and not taking the call. It was either because I had moved on and found another provider or I didn’t remember the name of the company calling so assumed it was a cold call. So what would have been a very warm call for a sales person turned into a cold call simply because of my bad memory and their delay in follow-up of my inquiry.

This is not to say that the 15 Minute Rule applies to all companies and all sales situations. However, with the overwhelming availability of information and services online, your competitor is only a few clicks away.

So what do you do if you market to your prospects using off-line methods? Our clients that market primarily with direct mail understand the value of driving prospects to the web for this very purpose. They may not be aware of the 15 Minute Rule per se, but they know how valuable an online response is. We have helped our clients develop landing pages and pURLs with the goal in mind of bringing them from a high-impact dimensional mail piece to the web. This integrated approach offers you the high-impact results of a direct mail piece coupled with the effectiveness of online lead collection.

Either way you choose to go after your prospects, the 15 Minute Rule should apply. I am not going to tell you the value of a lead, but I am sure it is not as great as the cost of a lost prospect;  a prospect with below-average memory, or maybe just someone who’s too busy to wait for your call.

This week we wanted to share a great article that was written back in 2008 about the pending recession. Looking back now, his predictions seem to be accurate as he foreshadowed a tough two years for marketers. However, I am not sharing this because I want to bring you down on this bright, beautiful October morning. There are many indicators that we are in fact coming out of an economic downturn. Furthermore, recent reports say that ad spending is on the rise.

What I like so much about this article “7 Strategies for B2B Marketing During a Recession” is that it is relevant for all times, not just good, not just bad. These are sound strategies for all marketers to consider, regardless of the size of your company, your budget, or the economic conditions.