The Basics of Lead Nurturing

Picture this…you’ve just returned from a tradeshow or seminar where you met and made a lot of great sales contacts. What do you do next? Unfortunately some businesses wait too long to follow-up with these new prospects, and the leads go cold. Others will begin to bombard these leads with unwanted sales materials and annoying sales calls. Still others will simply pass on the contact because they weren’t immediately ready to purchase.

The breakdown between marketing and sales. Some experts estimate that up to 80% of marketing expenditures spent on lead generation are wasted or ignored by salespeople. But this isn’t necessarily the sales department’s fault. Predictably, the marketing department will be quick to point out that their collateral and campaigns generated new contacts, so they did their job. The sales department argues that the contacts marketing generated weren’t qualified leads because they weren’t ready to buy. These types of contacts are typically longer-term prospects and salespeople need more immediate sales leads to meet their quotas and monthly goals. So the finger pointing for not generating enough new business continues. This is where the process of lead nurturing can help turn mere inquiries into qualified leads and qualified leads into sales.

Lead nurturing defined. Lead nurturing is the process of building trusted relationships with qualified prospects so that when they are ready to buy, they will buy from you. Anyone who’s ever been in a long-term relationship will tell you that you can’t force someone to commit. A sales relationship is the same way. And just because your readiness to sell doesn’t conveniently coincide with their willingness to buy, doesn’t mean the lead should be ignored or forgotten. Most leads that aren’t ready to buy eventually will, and a savvy salesperson will provide them with relevant information until they are ready to make a purchase.

What lead nurturing is not. Lead nurturing is not repeatedly calling a contact every month essentially asking if they’re ready to buy yet. Lead nurturing is not sending unwanted and often irrelevant brochures, newsletters or white papers every few weeks. It is not blanketing your database contacts with sales content promoting your company’s products or services. Lead nurturing is about providing regular and meaningful dialogue with qualified prospects regardless of whether they’re ready to buy or not.

Why use lead nurturing? In a nutshell, lead nurturing results in trust. When you’re providing prospects valuable education and information up front, you are perceived as an expert. And because you’re not trying to sell or make a pitch, you become a trusted advisor. Many prospects will view how you sell to them as an indication of how you will ultimately serve them. If they’re happy with you before the sale, they’ll be happy with you after the sale. If you’ve been nurturing them properly and providing helpful insights and solutions along the way, when there finally is a need, you will almost always be the first call a prospect makes.

How it all works. Thanks in part to the Internet, the fundamental buying process has changed considerably. Prospects are spending more time researching and obtaining independent information long before ever wanting to engage with a salesperson. That’s why the best lead nurturing programs try to actually become part of a prospect’s information-gathering process. Generally speaking, a successful lead nurturing program includes a steady string of meaningful communications such as letters, emails, white papers, case studies, success stories, third-party articles, webinars, research reports, workshops and more. The key word here is “meaningful.” Honestly ask yourself if the information you provide is really going to be useful to them even if they never buy from you? Does it help them consider all the issues they will face in the buying process? Does it provide practical information they can use to educate themselves and others involved in their buying process? Providing content that is valuable to prospects is essential in ultimately converting more qualified leads and expanding sales opportunities.

A sample plan. There are hundreds of lead nurturing plans available for varying degrees of buying cycles. Obviously the right plan will depend on the product or service being sold, the industry or other demographic criteria. A sample lead nurturing program for a three-month cycle might look something like this:

Day 1 -            Follow-up email or phone call

Day 10 -          Email offering an article of interest from a third-party relating to previous     communications

Day 15 -          Personal email from sales rep

Day 30 -          Email promoting a relevant webinar series

Day 45 -          Call from sales rep to “check-in”

Day 60 -          Email providing a similar case study or a best practices white paper

Day 75 -          Personal email from sales rep offering a product demo

Day 85 -          Call from sales rep to schedule a face-to-face meeting

Day 90 -          Submit a sales proposal via email

Notice that the contacts are more frequent the further along in the buying process you get. But what works for one industry, client or salesperson will clearly vary because of the customization to each prospect and business involved.

Determining a sales-ready lead. There are many ways to determine whether a lead is sales-ready or needs more nurturing. It’s usually helpful if marketing and sales agree on some definitive criteria that must be met for a prospect to be considered sales-ready. Thanks to today’s marketing solutions, you can often use technology to ascertain some of these criteria. They may include tracking:

• How often a prospect has visited your website?
• Which pages have they visited?
• Did they view “high-value” pages like pricing or contact pages?
• Have other prospects from the same company visited your site?
• Have they responded to email campaigns or offers?
• What kind of interaction(s) has the sales force had with the prospect and how often?

The next step is to create a scoring system for new leads. This can be as simple as labeling leads “cold, “warm” or “hot” or creating something more complex with a scoring methodology based on specified standards. The leads that don’t qualify as sales-ready should be returned to marketing for more nurturing.

Return on Investment. Research shows that nurtured prospects are more likely to have a greater overall positive impression of your company. Plus, companies that are willing to invest in a lead nurturing program will usually see an increase in sales-ready leads, a more potent sales pipeline, higher close ratios, and shorter regular sales cycles. In general, you may also see a more predictable sales pattern and an improved ability to produce more qualified leads. If you can get everyone from the CEO to marketing to sales onboard with a top-notch lead nurturing program, and give it the proper time to grow and develop, the results are sure to be worth the wait.

Content for this post has been provided by Marketo.  For more about lead nurturing, check out their Lead Nurturing Cheat Sheet.

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