Frontline Perspectives

A lot of marketing time and money is spent generating leads. And these leads often go directly to the sales team for follow up. If the leads don’t immediately turn into sales, the complaints start flying. Marketing generally complains that the sales team doesn’t follow up quickly and effectively, and sales generally complains that the leads aren’t worth the effort. And management is left to wonder why this is so difficult to resolve.

There are lead management process changes every company can make to improve their close rations, reduce sales cycle length, and increase their return on investment for marketing initiatives. One of the most effective is a lead nurturing process. Trigger marketing, drip marketing and lead nurturing are all phrases for the process of moving leads further down the pipeline, ensuring that leads are followed up and that only sales-ready leads are passed to the sales team.

There are several reasons why lead nurturing has become increasingly important for B2B companies today:

1. New leads are more difficult (and costly) to come by. It costs a lot of money to generate leads, and these days there are fewer people purchasing. Every lead should be treated like gold.
2. The sales cycle is longer. Many leads are now taking six months to two years to convert to a sale.
3. Sales reps won’t (can’t?) stay on top of their lead flow. More than 70% of leads aren’t followed up by the sales team. Sometimes they’re just too busy, sometimes they’re cherry-picking and sometimes they just don’t get the value.

So, what are the first steps in putting a nurturing program together? First you need to map your sales cycle to understand what a qualified lead is for your organization, and what a sales-ready is for your sales team. Then you need to determine what materials (videos, datasheets, testimonials, case studies, white papers, demos, etc.) you can create and send to your leads that will help them move down that path. Determine what options you have for the timing: sending something right after someone visits your website, sending something after 30 days of no response, etc. Start with small and easy steps to ensure you’re using the right metrics and materials.

Most nurturing programs are e-mail because it offers such a low cost point. Each e-mail contact should be personalized. Offer additional information about products and services relevant to their industry or application, and ask three to five questions to clarify their needs and their point in the decision process. The answers to these questions will help you determine the next contact date and material to send, whether they are ready for sales contact, or if this lead should no longer stay in your active database.

While there are significant positive effects of nurturing, one negative most firms will encounter is that the sales team will complain their lead flow has decreased (despite the fact that they weren’t following up on most of what marketing sent them in the first place). This complaint is usually short-lived because the leads now passed to the team will be closer to presentation or quote stage.

So, if you’re not the nurturing type yet, you should be.