The Post-Event Puzzle: MarketingOps and the Struggle to Deliver Actionable Leads

Imagine this: You’ve just completed a high-energy marketing event, and your inbox is brimming with fresh leads. Sellers and BDR teams are eager to engage, but there’s one big challenge—piecing together the puzzle of who gets which leads and how to ensure those leads are actionable. This is the real task that MarketingOps teams face, and it’s no small feat.

Puzzle Piece 1: The Avalanche of Data

Post-event, the first puzzle piece MarketingOps needs to sort is the data itself. Event attendees register, leave their details, and sometimes interact with your booth or webinars. But how good is that data? Some leads might be missing key information, like contact details or company names, while others might contain outdated or irrelevant information.

For MarketingOps, it’s like sorting through a box of puzzle pieces where some pieces are blank, others don’t seem to fit, and a few might even belong to a completely different puzzle.

Puzzle Piece 2: Matching Leads with the Right Sellers

Once the data is cleaned up, the next piece of the puzzle is figuring out who gets what lead. Here’s where things get tricky. You’ve got different sellers and BDR teams, each with their own territories, industries, or account assignments. But when you have a fresh pool of event leads, how do you ensure they’re assigned fairly and strategically?

Imagine having 100 leads but only 10 sellers—how do you match leads based on industry, buying signals, or company size? Some leads may overlap regions or fit multiple criteria. Without clear rules or processes, assigning leads can quickly become a chaotic, manual task. MarketingOps teams often struggle to keep this process streamlined, and it’s easy for leads to slip through the cracks.

Puzzle Piece 3: Determining Lead Quality

Then comes the big question: Are these leads actionable? Not every event attendee is ready to buy. Some may just be curious, while others are decision-makers looking for immediate solutions. MarketingOps teams are responsible for qualifying these leads before passing them to sales. But how do you know which ones are worth pursuing right away?

The puzzle here is aligning with sales and BDR teams on what makes a lead "sales-ready." Without this alignment, you run the risk of sending leads that aren’t ready to buy, frustrating the sales team, and potentially wasting valuable time and resources.

Puzzle Piece 4: Timely Follow-Up

Even if you solve the data and assignment puzzles, the work doesn’t end there. Another critical piece of the puzzle is ensuring timely follow-up. Time is money, and when leads are fresh from an event, the quicker they’re contacted, the better.

But what happens when sellers are already juggling their existing pipeline? Leads sit in a queue, cooling off. This creates a bottleneck where MarketingOps might be handing over quality leads, but the follow-up is delayed, reducing the chances of conversion. This timing issue is one of the most common challenges for MarketingOps after events.

Solving the Post-Event Puzzle: Strategies That Work

So, how do we fit all the pieces of this puzzle together? It’s not easy, but there are some key strategies MarketingOps can use to deliver actionable leads and streamline the process.

1. Data Hygiene: Start by ensuring the data collected during the event is clean, accurate, and complete. Use automated tools to fill gaps, validate contact information, and format the data consistently.

2. Lead Assignment Framework: Implement a lead assignment system that matches leads to the right sellers based on clear criteria—whether that’s geography, company size, industry, or lead score. Automating this process through CRM tools can reduce manual errors and speed up assignments.

3. Lead Scoring and Qualification: Work with sales and BDR teams to establish a shared lead scoring model. This ensures that leads passed over are primed for follow-up, minimizing wasted effort on low-priority contacts.

4. Automated Follow-Ups: Help sales teams follow up faster by setting up automated email cadences for the first touchpoints. This keeps leads engaged while sales teams get to them and helps prevent leads from going cold.

5. Regular Post-Event Debriefs: After every event, hold debriefs with both the sales and marketing teams to evaluate lead quality, assignment processes, and follow-up effectiveness. This will help fine-tune the approach for future events.

The Completed Picture: Actionable Leads, Faster Sales

When all the pieces fall into place, the post-event puzzle can be solved. Clean data, strategic lead assignments, timely follow-up, and aligned teams all come together to ensure that every lead is actionable and ready for sales engagement.

The result? Sellers and BDR teams are equipped with high-quality leads they can work with immediately, MarketingOps has a clear and repeatable process, and your event’s success translates directly into sales outcomes.

Your Turn: How Do You Solve the Post-Event Puzzle?

Have you faced similar struggles after marketing events? How do you ensure the leads passed to sales are ready for action? 

Share your experiences and let’s work through these challenges together—piece by piece!