Research firm MarketingSherpa says12.5 percent of leads are genuine, ready or willing to buy and get moved into the sales cycle, while 17.5 percent get discarded right away because they clearly didn't qualify or couldn't be verified. BtoB marketers are then tasked with what to do with the other 70 percent of leads that remain in limbo. This is your prime opportunity to "touch" those prospects through your lead nurturing campaigns.

Use lead nurturing to enhance your drip campaign (a campaign using a series of messages distributed based on prospect data, timing and/or user actions) by sending your prospects automated responses. According to Silverpop's "Benchmark Study of Lead Management Practices," drip campaign response rates consistently outperformed single-message campaigns, often 2-to-1 and even 3-to-1. In fact, the lowest-performing drip campaigns outperformed almost all of even the best-performing single-message campaigns. Also, the drip campaigns generated click-through rates that were three times those of single-message campaigns.

When creating a successful lead nurturing program, you have to capture the prospects that leak from the sales pipeline and allow them to flow into a special marketing program. It also includes incorporating the following:

• Communication – Use a single or multi-channel communication, such as email, telesales or direct mail to maintain contact with leads in need of warming. Also, it's okay to diversify the communications. For instance, you can send a newsletter, follow that up with a phone call from inside sales and then send a thank you card.
• Relevance – Because people buy for different reasons, it's important to increase the relevance of your messaging whenever possible. Since time only permits so much, ask prospects to select their greatest need, challenge or top priority related to the products or services you offer. Then, base subsequent messaging on each person's response.
• Lead Scoring – Once you've got a solid lead nurturing program in place, it'll be easy to propel the nearly sales ready leads forward in the sales funnel. Communications campaigns based on the leads location in the buying cycle can be automated to deliver the right information to the right prospect at the right time.

Your program may very well be profitable enough to leave money on the table, but if not, there's real value in lead nurturing.

Posted by Will Schnabel at 1:44 PM | Permalink

Determining what stage in the buying cycle each lead is at and moving those deemed ready-to-buy to sales is lead scoring. But what happens after the scoring process, to all the leads that aren't ready to buy? How can you guide them along in the right direction?

Lead nurturing is the practice of maintaining ongoing contact with prospects not yet ready to make a purchase. Marketers gather information about where leads are in the buying cycle and work to move them along in that process while favorably influencing them toward the company and its products.

Lead nurturing  is a critical component in a BtoB marketers' abilities to support revenue generation. According to industry research firm SiriusDecisions, only about 53-68 percent of leads that are qualified by marketing as sales-ready are accepted by sales. And, of those that are accepted, only about 50-57 percent are subsequently deemed as sales opportunities. Essentially this means that leads frequently fall out of the sales funnel after being handed off to sales. Yet many of those leads will eventually make a purchase. Possibly from your competitor. Ouch!

Lead nurturing consists of a series of automated, timed communications designed to keep your company top-of-mind until a prospect has received enough information and is ready to buy. Lead nurturing communications activities can include informative emails, direct mail or telephone calls, Webinars, white papers, studies, newsletters, product information, industry news and more.

In creating lead nurturing messages, it's important to answer the following questions:

• How can we build credibility with our prospects?
• How can we show that our products and services will help them achieve their goals?
• How can we differentiate ourselves from the competition?

As analysts at Aberdeen Group discovered, companies with the highest lead qualification rates and lead-to-sales conversion rates are twice as likely as less successful companies to leverage formalized lead metrics that manage the flow of leads from marketing to sales and back again when warranted. If your career and your company can afford to ignore a gold mine of not-quite-ready-to-buy leads, there is no need to implement lead nurturing. If you're serious about driving revenue, you will.

Posted by Will Schnabel at 2:19 PM | Permalink