Recent B2B blog posts have been discussing the topic of how aggressive should a salesperson be in their response when they see a lead is visiting their site. Mike Damphoux’s post in Smashmouth Marketing on Web leads (Pounce, Pause, Nurture, or Wait) highlighted a unique difference in selling tactics and approaches for the modern marketer. The blog posed the question of how quickly a salesperson should pounce when they see a lead is visiting their site. With modern marketing automation solutions, getting alerted when someone is on your site, and having sales have access to easy-to-digest prospect insight information is now fairly easy (including a nice little widget Engage B2B has called “Who’s Online,” in case you want to sit and watch the activity of your sales prospects in real-time).
However, the question of what is the best response is definitely up for debate. Mike asks a number of industry experts which of the four responses they believe are best:
Pounce - Call immediately
Pause – Give it 15-30 minutes, then call
Nurture – Let the visitor keep educating themselves, educate them softly if you can identify them
Wait – Wait a day or two, then casually call
A number of people have jumped into the debate, including a strong opinion by Craig Rosenberg on the Funnelholic in favor of “The Pounce.” Craig makes a very compelling argument and highlights key points as to why pouncing delivers results. As you can imagine, most of the nurture marketers (myself included) leaned to a more wait and call/nurture approach. I think many of us use our own experiences as a reference point, and loathe the suggestion that we want someone calling us uninvited. That being said, I believe some basic lead management principles that should be considered before we turn sales loose on those weary web visitors.
You can Kiss a Lot of Frogs:
One of the main tenants of modern lead management is that you can prioritize and lead score incoming inquiries. Remember, not all leads are created equal. If sales sits and watches as inbound leads come to their site, they are just falling into the same typical cherry picking mode as when marketing sends each and every lead directly to sales. Without having a scoring or worth assigned to which leads are better than others, they could spend a lot of valuable time tracking down people who are not ready to engage in a buying cycle. Think tire kickers, researchers, and people just trying to self educate. And even if they get a few “wins,” they are missing the opportunity to work with really qualified leads and may have harmed a future potential relationship.
Of course, if the lead is visiting the site, is a good target fit for the company, and your scoring threshold dictates a sales call, then by all means alert sales. In addition, it is now easy to include a “chat now” or “may I help you” function on your site for those people that want instant answers. Otherwise, a well defined nurture program can be more cost effective while still proving a timely response to someone while your company is top of mind.
I participated in Mike’s discussion so let me flesh out my thought with a shopping analogy.
You are walking down Main Street and stop to look in the window of boutique. The owner of the boutique comes out of the store and says “I saw you looking at that dress. That dress is made of the finest silk and was designed by Tom Ford. Similar dresses have been worn by Cameron Diaz and Demi Moore. Would you like to learn more about that dress?”
Now, the owner certainly provided value in their communication with the buyer but….maybe the buyer was just looking. Maybe the buyer wanted to look around at a bunch of dresses and then come back with questions. Maybe the buyer was just walking down the street and happened to glance in the window.
My point is this….do you think that buyer will ever stop and look in that window again knowing that the owner will probably come out and start “telling and selling”?
Some will but most won’t. We have to be careful with technology. We all love it because we drank the Kool Aid but the question is…
Do our buyers feel the same way?
Pouncers, beware. You may pounce on a hive of resentment — and your target may speak up to your target audience about their experience.
For example:
From the Shocking Marketing No Nos Department
From a marketing ROI perspective, we waste resources if we try to ‘corner’ savvy B2B buyers.
Too, getting permission is essential for
* Building trust
* Protecting your brand
* Qualifying
Will,
Your comments are so true. Since writing the article, I’ve been thrown heavily into the depth of inbound marketing and have formed a couple more opinions on the topic.
Inbound marketers can sometimes be overly focused on volume as opposed to the quality of leads. Outbound marketers doing appointment setting would rather have 5 quality conversations a day than 50 wasted ones. Lead scoring can identify that quality.
Don’t forget to Be Human. Sales relationships are all about the human conversation. Don’t sit behind google searches, landing pages and emails forever. Use the technology available to allow you to engage the prospects as early as they can be engaged (meet your lead score). People want to buy from people.
If “early” means right now. Then POUNCE. If not, then Nurture or Wait.
Great stuff!
Great debate Will, I believe there is a heart and mind aspect to the conversation. I know there is a further dimension with respect to men and women making engagement decisions differently, but, to generalise I believe that pounce or nurture is much like fishing. You use a different strategy to land a shark than a trout. One you strike, one you play. I’ve structured a PowerPoint slide that depicts that people also change their “pouncability” as the contact goes “out in time” (e-mail me for a copy). There is a WOW moment when it is right to strike and that normally is when the heart is fully engaged and they “smell the sizzle of the steak hitting the fire!”
You can get the “Head or Heart” PowerPoint slide at;
http://www.supersmous.co.za/DownloadFiles/Head or Heart.ppt