BearingPoint Closes the Gap Between Marketing and Sales

By Elizabeth Glagowski, 1to1 Media

Consulting firm BearingPoint has 16,000 employees in more than 40 countries, providing nearly 600 technical services solutions to its clients. And with a lead cycle of anywhere from nine to 16 months, the company takes its lead generation and nurturing activities very seriously.

To keep a prospect engaged after initial contact, BearingPoint provides numerous forms of contact and interaction across various channels. "We're getting good at creating a single piece of content and having it spawn other pieces of content that are similar, without just repurposing it," says Paul Dunay, global director of integrated marketing. "I believe in creating something that's right for the media we're using." He cites its "New Thinking for a Changing World" blog, podcasts, and other content like email campaigns, videos, virtual events, and case studies as examples. "I feel like I have a really big tool belt to connect with leads."

However, it's not just the quantity of communication that makes a good lead nurturing program. "Just because a marketer sends an email, hosts an event, or writes a piece of content doesn't mean anyone wants to buy anything," Dunay says. "Prospects are at different stages of development, and we are mindful of that." Working with lead management company LeadLife, Dunay and his team learn as much as possible about different types of leads, score them, and interact accordingly. "It's about noticing important subtleties [of leads] and closing the gap between marketing and sales."

Dunay cites five attributes of a lead, based on behavior resulting from campaigns or other marketing activities that are tracked in BearingPoint's marketing database:
1. BearingPoint has interacted with and received positive response to create a conversation
2. The topic of that conversation
3. A need has been identified
4. Budget has been allocated
5. Timeframe has been confirmed

Once three of the five attributes are defined, Dunay's team will receive an alert, and a BearingPoint marketer will take a closer look at that specific lead. He will then either redirect it to the appropriate sales team, or continue to nurture the lead, depending on the marketer's assessment of readiness and prospect engagement. Dunay says it's a marketing funnel that precedes the sales funnel.

Leads are separated into four categories that each align with a dedicated sales team and solutions specific to the category: risk compliance and security; information management; next generation IT; and finance and operations.

In addition, BearingPoint created a Fast Lane program for prospects that have a high lead score and have done a number of activities in succession, so the company can interact with them right away. For example, Dunay says the system may trigger a Fast Lane alert if a certain downloaded link has been clicked on 20 times. It could be a technical issue, or it could be that the lead is sharing it with colleagues and is interested in BearingPoint's expertise and services. Either way, a field marketing representative will call that person the same day to initiate a deeper conversation and identify a need.

Critical to the success of the lead nurturing program is that marketing does not work in a vacuum, Dunay says. Sales and marketing have a shared definition of what constitutes a lead. "A lone wolf won't make it in this situation," Dunay says.

It's been two years since the strategy was put in place, and Dunay says that marketing can now source leads that have booked business within the past several quarters. And for 2008, marketing beat its projections in terms of the leads and revenue driven. "We've been very pleasantly surprised with the speed and the pace of the program, because it is designed for prospects across all ends of the spectrum."

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Tags: Marketing Automation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing