Marketers face lengthy time spans as they progress from lead generation to conversion, making it difficult to nurture prospects while moving them through the pipeline. This chart highlights the percentages of leads in each stage of the pipeline that are likely to advance to the next stage.
One of the most challenging obstacles to marketing is the time span from lead generation to sales conversion.
These long sales cycles put pressure on marketers to streamline the lead nurturing process. When prospects first enter the pipeline, they may be months away from defining specifications, a budget or purchase timeline.
It is marketing’s responsibility to identify and fulfill the information needs of prospects at each stage and to advance prospects through the pipeline to a sales-ready stage as rapidly as possible.
What percentages of leads in each stage of the pipeline are likely to advance to the next stage? As this chart shows, on average, nearly four in 10 leads move from initial inquiry to being sales-ready, and approximately the same ratio advance from sales-ready to qualified prospect. As might be expected, the trend deteriorates moving to the next stage where only three in 10 qualified prospects convert to a sale.
The internal sales force has an edge – albeit slim – over top channel partners in percent of distributed leads closed. An organization’s own sales force is also three times as likely to close leads distributed to them as are their average channel partners.
The Deal. The Close. The Win.
Ultimately, making the sale is up to your sales team, but by implementing a sound nurturing and scoring process, you have helped them by establishing a relationship and positioning your company as a leader with the prospect. The Tools Just as a nice haircut and a manicure prepare you for that first date, every marketer should prepare for that introduction. You’ll need easy to use tools to help you nurture leads, including email, landing pages, forms, and lead scoring: essentially, a lead management solution.
Send triggered emails
Send a series of emails as part of a drip marketing campaign, or triggered based on specific prospect activities. Each email offers a document (or webinar, or trial software, etc.) that helps move your target along in their decision-making process.
Use custom landing pages
Don’t forget that custom landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 48% during your lead nurturing as well as your lead generation activities. You only have eight seconds to get their attention, so use bullets, short forms, and no external navigation. And have only one call to action!
Use smart forms
You will get better response rates by using a form as the call to action on your landing pages, but why use the same form with the same fields over and over? Just like you wouldn’t ask your date for his or her name every time you see them, you shouldn’t ask for contact information again and again. Smart forms recognize known visitors and can fill in the fields you already know. Since you don’t have to ask for this, ask for other info, such as company size, time until decision, etc. Building the profile over time will help you in scoring the lead.
Use web analysis and lead scoring
Knowing which pages your prospects visit on your site can be very beneficial to determining their interest as well as their level of engagement. Being able to connect anonymous visits to actual prospects? Priceless.
Automate and measure
Salesforce.com and other customer relationship management (CRM) products are great, but they typically fall flat in their marketing capabilities. As marketers we need to automate the everyday tasks of building and managing lead generation and lead nurturing campaigns. We also need to more objectively score leads according to their company demographics as well as their activities on our websites, landing pages, emails and other campaigns. And a single lead source doesn’t cut it when lead nurturing. It’s great to know where we first encountered the prospect, but knowing what happens between that first meeting and closing the sale is imperative in these days of marketing accountability.
Evaluate
As you move through the nurturing process, you’ll probably discover that some of the assumptions you made are incorrect; for instance, that downloading a particular white paper means that they are close to buying or that sending a particular email would elicit a good response. Don't forget that lead nurturing – and marketing in general – is constantly changing. You'll want to stay flexible and be ready to change your lead nurturing process as you experiment with new tactics and learn what works.
What are you doing to lessen the cycle from lead generation to conversion?
By Jennifer Pricci
Showing posts with label lead generation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lead generation. Show all posts
November 16, 2011
How to Monetize Social Media
As someone who provides Social Media Marketing solutions, both on behalf of employing organizations and clients, I am often asked... "OK, I am onboard, but how do you make money from all of this?"Today's story?...
How Marketers can help themselves by helping sales monetize their social media efforts.
Companies are not only getting the word out about their brands using social media such as Facebook and Twitter but are also making money.
Many businesses have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube useful in making money. Building genuine online relationships that are also good for the bottom line is not so easy. There is a lot of trial and error. But while monetizing social media is difficult it is not impossible. There are companies that are getting the word out about their brands using social media and are turning a profit.
Take The New York Jets. The NFL team launched their Ultimate Fan social game in September 2010, which was the first revenue generating Facebook app to be backed by a pro sports team. The application lets football fans do online what they would normally do at home and in stadiums—root for their favorite teams and players, predict game scores, and hold a virtual tailgate party with other fans from across the globe. Ultimate Fan has since lured four major sponsors integrating their brands: MetLife, Motorola, SNY and HotelPlanner.com.
The Jets also communicate regularly on Twitter. They even advertised a Twitter-based contest to win tickets to their 2011 AFC playoff championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Jets are able to engage with their fans and make them feel like they are part of the team. They are leveraging social medial to capitalize on their fans' passion for the team and their willingness to share that fervor.
Like many companies, your social media efforts have started small and grew organically. To capitalize on those efforts to generate sales and revenues you need to have a team of people dedicated to your social media presence. You also will need a deep understanding of your audience, a creative vision, and a way to measure results in order to execute a successful strategy.
Here are some ways your social media can be monetized…
How to Monetize Social Media: Build Brand Awareness
The first step is to use traditional media or word-of-mouth advertising to drive awareness and traffic to your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages. Unless you already have a recognizable brand like Nike or Apple, your brand needs to develop social media magnetism before you can look to make any money. You also need to create circular momentum across many platforms when designing your social media campaign. By providing multiple channels for users to talk with you, you let customers choose the channel that they are most comfortable with, by doing this you increase the likelihood that they'll connect with your brand in any number of ways.
How to Monetize Social Media: Engage Your Audience
Social media is about having a dialogue. When you have a dialogue with a customer or prospect, the communication is much more fulfilling and much more profitable. The PETCO brand has developed a strong presence in social media. The pet store chain has a YouTube channel, its Facebook page generates a lot of discussions among pet owners, and there's lots of activity on its PETCO Scoop Blog, which has received hundreds of “Likes” and Comments. PETCO's customers are true pet lovers and treat their pets as part of the family. The company tries to keep conversation going by aiming Facebook and Twitter posts so that there's an explicit question to answer, or at least a specific piece of information to which people can react. You have to know your community and know how to take part within that community and through that create great content or conversation that will raise awareness and increase sales.
How to Monetize Social Media: Offer Special Promotions
Dell Computers exemplifies a company that is selling products using social media. Its Twitter page, @DellOutlet, offers discounts exclusively to followers. Dell might tweet 15 percent off any Dell Outlet laptop or desktop with a special coupon code entered at checkout so they'll know which tweet you are seeing. @DellOutlet also points you to a specific web page. There is some interaction in terms of chats with tweeters. @DellOutlet has garnered more than 1.6 million followers and generated more than $2 million in incremental revenues for Dell. Traditionally, Dell would have spent a lot of money running print ads. Today, they can write a 140-character promotion to reach customers.
PETCO is yet another example. The company provided a promo code to their customers for $40 in free shipping. The person who shared their code with the most people won a $500 PETCO gift card. About 40% of the sales that resulted from this promotional push came from new consumers. The desire to save a few bucks drove loyal PETCO customers to connect with the larger pet owner community and spread the word about the store via social media.
How to Monetize Social Media: Use Media Advertising
Many companies have used display advertising (banners) and contextual advertising such as Google AdWords. Many bloggers use Google Adsense to make money. There are plugins to help; you make money from clicks. There are also ad networks that you can join that pool several advertisers. You get a code and banner ads rotate from their network. This is an item that you will want to include in your advertising rate sheet. Major advertisers who buy display ads are finally beginning to figure out how to reach audiences through social networks, and have begun to shift significant dollars into Facebook.
Instead of a typical banner ad, consider offering a microsite, which would be equivalent to a paid supplement. For example, you could devote one page (a link on your website) specifically to an advertiser's products and services. Or you can become an affiliate. With affiliate marketing you get paid to refer people to another business.
Consider combining rich media advertising with display advertising. Video advertising and promotional material can be quickly and easily streamed to your social community. Another consideration is charging for sponsorship on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Of course, attention needs to be paid between balancing the delivery of the rich media advertising against the comfort level of your customer base.
How to Monetize Social Media: Brand Within Applications
The best way to use apps is to create something that is functional such as a calculator, entertaining such as a game, or provides some sort of social connection such as an app just for your community. Your app can be fee based or you can give it away to build a relationship with customers. A number of well-known company brands use mobile apps to interact with their loyal customers, including Target, Coca-Cola, Nike and Gucci.
The fashion designer touts a luxury lifestyle application that is a quintessential example of branded mobile marketing. Through "Gucci Connect" users were able use their mobile devices, such as iPhone or iPad, for virtual access of a Milan fashion show, watch live runway and behind the scenes video coupled with live chat between virtual guests through Facebook and Twitter. Exclusive also to iPhone app subscribers are interactive games. The "Gucci Live" section features a music channel. Subscribers stay "in the know" with a calendar of upcoming brand events and feature articles. The Gucci "Little Black Book" provides recommendations to the hottest restaurants, nightclubs, and hotels in various cities throughout the world.
How to Monetize Social Media: Set Up Shop on Facebook
Facebook fan pages are another way to generate sales and enthusiasm especially if you have loyal fans that follow your updates. You can list your products on your Facebook page for fans to easily share with their own friends and essentially allow your product offerings to go viral.
Businesses are increasingly selling their goods on Facebook. There are various e-commerce solutions available. One is 8thBridge which is helping companies like 1-800-Flowers and HuateLook sell from Facebook. A special deal 8thBridge ran for the designer brands retailer HauteLook along with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg generated more than $100,000 in sales in one day, 40 percent of which came from new customers. Users were given a $10 coupon for every new member that they brought in. Using 8thBridge, 1-800-Flowers is drawing people into buying flowers and other gifts for friends and family while they are already thinking about them on Facebook.
Payvment is another storefront option that provides online stores for companies to sell on Facebook. It has a network of more than 60,000 merchants using its self-serve technology. Payvment generally serves smaller clients while 8thBridge caters to small- and medium-sized businesses. According to a study released by Forrester Research, Facebook is more suitable for small retailers, niche products, or steeply discounted items. Most of the benefit that big retailers get from Facebook is branding their company but not actual purchases, Forrester further reports. Moreover, some products are inherently social such as books, DVDs, and event tickets, which have been successful because they are easy to buy and sell online.
How to Monetize Social Media: Use as a Retention Tool
Companies don't always need to use social media as a sales tool or to acquire news customers, they can use it as a customer retention tool. If someone likes or follows your business, it's because they're interested in hearing from you on some regular basis. It's important that you have a routine schedule for your blogs, tweets, and postings. Keeping your fans and followers up to date on what's new and happening with your business or industry will keep them engaged with you and keep your brand top-of-mind.
What have you done to monetize your social media marketing efforts?
By Jennifer Pricci
www.jenniferpricci.com
jennifer@jenniferpricci.com
July 11, 2011
6 Reasons Businesses Need to Blog
A business blog is central to a successful inbound marketing strategy that will help you get found and generate more inbound leads online. Why?
Here are 6 reasons your business needs to blog:
1. Build thought leadership
Build thought leadership by showing your expertise and becoming a go-to resource for prospects and media.
2. Get SEO value for each blog article
More content = more opportunities to get found online.
3. Engage in a dialogue with customers and prospects through blog comments
Host conversations and respond to issues or questions.
4. Attract social media followers
Businesses that blog enjoy more social media reach because they have content to share.
5. Generate more leads online.
A HubSpot study found that businesses that blog generate more than 67% more leads online compared to businesses that don't blog.
6. Humanize your brand
Give your company a voice of the people behind your brand.
What benefits is your business seeing by blogging?
By Jennifer Pricci
January 12, 2011
RIP Cold Calling
Survived by Social Networking
Cold calling has been served notice, a new era beckons and with it an altogether different way of working. Social networking has arrived and will soon replace cold calling as the predominant method of prospecting in business.
I know many people will think that there is no replacement for activity, specifically picking up the phone. Yet, no matter how intelligent you are about cold calling, it is what it is – speculative, scatter gun selling, not to mention costly and increasingly ineffective.
Consider the following data I found online...
In a test which spent an equal amount of time cold calling and using social media (9 AM - 5:30 PM; M - F).
Cold Calling Results
Social Media Results
The central question, however, is do modern-day sales people have the level of skill required to conduct a social media campaign individually? The simple answer is no. Not all salespeople will have the necessary skills, but having a skills gap is nothing new on the sales floor otherwise we wouldn’t have the multi-million pound training industry!
Can the skills be taught quickly and cost effectively? Yes. I have always taught people that sales is a process: follow steps one through five to achieve your aims. Social media networking can be processed as well, giving salespeople clear guidelines on the ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’. We spend millions every year teaching salespeople to cold call better, use the latest CRM (customer relationship management) system, be better team players and so on; and so it must come to pass that companies will need to train all staff to be ‘social media savvy’ as it extends far beyond just sales – marketing and service need to be in on the picture as well.
Naysayers?... Agreed, updating your Facebook page with pictures of the weekend, playing silly games, nudging or poking other people is not the best use of your company’s time. But creating engaging, thought-provoking, discussion-opening content, centred around your products or services is.
Social media networking will reduce dependence on cold calling. I am not saying it will eradicate the need for the telephone – that perhaps is to bold an idea. But I am certain it will become the first step in prospecting for new business.
What kind of results are you seeing when you pin Cold Calling vs. Social Networking?
By Jennifer Pricci
I know many people will think that there is no replacement for activity, specifically picking up the phone. Yet, no matter how intelligent you are about cold calling, it is what it is – speculative, scatter gun selling, not to mention costly and increasingly ineffective.
Consider the following data I found online...
In a test which spent an equal amount of time cold calling and using social media (9 AM - 5:30 PM; M - F).
Cold Calling Results
- Outbound calls made 325
- Meaningful conversations (pitches) and brand touches 80
- Meetings made 4
- Sales made (as a direct result of cold calling) 0
Social Media Results
- Inbound calls generated 8
- Meetings as result of inbound calls 3
- Sales as a result of inbound calls 2
- Brand touches (from site statistics unique views of content) 422
- Visitors to sales associate's blog Subscribers (RSS) to sales associate's content 27
- People following sales associate's Twitter 12
- New contacts 71 (on LinkedIn, Facebook, WeCanDo.BIZ, etc)
- Listeners to sales associate's Podcast 83
- Opportunities to sell found 21
- Online conversations had 39
- Warm call list (names generated expecting a call) 11
The central question, however, is do modern-day sales people have the level of skill required to conduct a social media campaign individually? The simple answer is no. Not all salespeople will have the necessary skills, but having a skills gap is nothing new on the sales floor otherwise we wouldn’t have the multi-million pound training industry!
Can the skills be taught quickly and cost effectively? Yes. I have always taught people that sales is a process: follow steps one through five to achieve your aims. Social media networking can be processed as well, giving salespeople clear guidelines on the ‘how to’ and ‘how not to’. We spend millions every year teaching salespeople to cold call better, use the latest CRM (customer relationship management) system, be better team players and so on; and so it must come to pass that companies will need to train all staff to be ‘social media savvy’ as it extends far beyond just sales – marketing and service need to be in on the picture as well.
Naysayers?... Agreed, updating your Facebook page with pictures of the weekend, playing silly games, nudging or poking other people is not the best use of your company’s time. But creating engaging, thought-provoking, discussion-opening content, centred around your products or services is.
Social media networking will reduce dependence on cold calling. I am not saying it will eradicate the need for the telephone – that perhaps is to bold an idea. But I am certain it will become the first step in prospecting for new business.
What kind of results are you seeing when you pin Cold Calling vs. Social Networking?
By Jennifer Pricci
December 15, 2010
Enourmous Benefits of Blogging
I am already on record as pointing out that if you want to raise your visibility and get in touch with your audience, it’s a good idea to blog. It does take a little chunk of time out of your agenda, but it’s probably no more than you should spend on marketing, anyway. Also, I’ve seen many outstanding blogs….most notably by Guy Kawasaki… that are all photos and captions. But then Kawasaki goes to really interesting places like a battle ship or Red Square. And if he photographs something ordinary like a tech company office, you can rest assured it is no ordinary office but an incredibly creative, way out there, in a class of its own, office.
My point is, blogging can take as much or…almost… as little time as you want it to. And if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you should take a look at the following:
1. Blogs initiate dialog with web visitors
Blogs start a two-way traffic with web visitors. When you write about your products and services and write with authority, as though you are the master of your business and with in-depth knowledge about your products and services, you not only create awareness of the benefits and disadvantages about the product and service you deal in, you engage people’s attention. Your blog should also have a call to action, to make the readers of the blog interact with your website.
A call to action can mean asking them to leave comments, encouraging them to speak out. Comments left by the readers of blogs might include inquiries and leads that could lead to sales.
Blogs generate a prospective about your company. It silently speaks about the culture and vision of your company and even helps in building a brand image.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Blogs peppered with targeted keywords, keyword phrases and search terms related to your business puts blogs in plain sight whenever web visitors use related search terms. Instead of using long-tail keyword phrases, targeting niche keywords will help in attracting more qualified web traffic.
3. Blogs attract more links
Blog are meant to be informative and not advertisements. Informative quality, industry related articles that provide insight or a critical analysis of product and services you deal in helps you to get more links.
Links will get better search engine rankings for your website and will help in generating more traffic.
4. Fresh, original content for blogs
Fresh and original web content is the feed for search engine spiders. Websites that are updated frequently get crawled by the search engine spiders more often. Your website gets more authority and better search engine ranking.
By now, you should have enough reasons to be seriously considering blogging. For your interest and for the interest of getting more visitors to your website, blogging is the way to go. You can get started now by viewing the following tutorial videos:
How to Create a Blog on Blogger
How to Create a Blog on Wordpress
By Jennifer Pricci
My point is, blogging can take as much or…almost… as little time as you want it to. And if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you should take a look at the following:
1. Blogs initiate dialog with web visitors
Blogs start a two-way traffic with web visitors. When you write about your products and services and write with authority, as though you are the master of your business and with in-depth knowledge about your products and services, you not only create awareness of the benefits and disadvantages about the product and service you deal in, you engage people’s attention. Your blog should also have a call to action, to make the readers of the blog interact with your website.
A call to action can mean asking them to leave comments, encouraging them to speak out. Comments left by the readers of blogs might include inquiries and leads that could lead to sales.
Blogs generate a prospective about your company. It silently speaks about the culture and vision of your company and even helps in building a brand image.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Blogs peppered with targeted keywords, keyword phrases and search terms related to your business puts blogs in plain sight whenever web visitors use related search terms. Instead of using long-tail keyword phrases, targeting niche keywords will help in attracting more qualified web traffic.
3. Blogs attract more links
Blog are meant to be informative and not advertisements. Informative quality, industry related articles that provide insight or a critical analysis of product and services you deal in helps you to get more links.
Links will get better search engine rankings for your website and will help in generating more traffic.
4. Fresh, original content for blogs
Fresh and original web content is the feed for search engine spiders. Websites that are updated frequently get crawled by the search engine spiders more often. Your website gets more authority and better search engine ranking.
By now, you should have enough reasons to be seriously considering blogging. For your interest and for the interest of getting more visitors to your website, blogging is the way to go. You can get started now by viewing the following tutorial videos:
How to Create a Blog on Blogger
How to Create a Blog on Wordpress
By Jennifer Pricci
July 14, 2009
Cancel the Blamestorming Session: 3 Tips to Marketing / Sales Alignment
Historically, the relationship between marketing and sales has been (to put it politely) problematic, with lots of finger-pointing, and lots of valuable sales leads falling through the gaps between the two functions. But in an age of cautious spending, no company can afford to have sales leads disappear because of poor internal processes. To pull through the downturn successfully, you need sales and marketing teams that work together seamlessly and effectively… you need sales and marketing alignment.
And while sales may once have been the alpha in a not-so-happy-marriage, today the tables have turned. In the digital era, B2B marketing is not just responsible for getting names into the top of the funnel. They must also build relationships with those contacts, nurture them over time, provide guidance and information at every stage, and bring them to the point where they are qualified opportunities ready to convert.
1. Score Your Leads Collaboratively
Effective lead scoring is essential to ensuring that only well-qualified leads are handed over to sales. The focus should be on bringing marketing and sales teams together to agree on the definition that will be used to score leads at each stage in the funnel. Establishing this together will avoid finger-pointing later, and will enable you to develop appropriate content for leads at every stage.
Together, the teams should decide on the criteria for scoring potential buyers all the way from a basic name entering the top of the funnel, through engaged party, prospect, lead, and finally opportunity. Lead scoring will consider factors such as the prospect’s interaction with your website and social media profiles, the amount and type of content viewed, shared and downloaded, information given in registration forms, and the results of any direct mail, events or other activities.
More importantly, don’t forget to score for negative behaviors, too. Activities like unsubscribing from emails or negative social media comments are signs that a prospect no longer wants to engage. Again, these definitions need to be agreed upon between both teams.
2. Stop Valuable Leads From Falling Through the Cracks
Once you have decided on how to define and score activities during the complete sales funnel, you will also need to set the ground rules for when a lead should be handed over to sales. Handing over only highly-qualified leads means Sales focuses all of its efforts on leads that are ready to convert, resulting in increased revenue and a better B2B marketing ROI.
But what if the weeks or months pass and the lead doesn’t move on to the next stage? That’s when many leads tend to fall into a limbo where neither marketing nor sales feels responsible for them. With budgets tight, marketing has understandably wanted to focus on getting more sales leads into the funnel, and on pursuing the ones that show a greater propensity to buy. There simply hasn’t been time or money to lavish attention on stalled leads that may never become customers.
But now, technological advances have made it possible to nurture leads over the long term cost-effectively, by keeping in regular automated contact and providing useful content based on what you already know about the lead.
But lead nurturing can’t be conducted independently by sales. There needs to be regular two-way communication between the functions, so that sales knows what activity the lead has undertaken and what messages and content have already been communicated to them. There also needs to be a smooth process for sales to hand back leads that have failed to convert, so they can be put back into the funnel for further nurturing.
3. Use Metrics to Show What’s Worked
One of the biggest challenges for any marketing team is to demonstrate how marketing spend is driving revenue for the business. Done properly, regular lead scoring and comprehensive lead nurturing deliver ample data that demonstrate how leads have been progressed through to conversion.
You still need to choose the right metrics. To truly demonstrate marketing’s value, you need to be measuring things like marketing program performance, impact on revenue and profit per customer.
Key Takeaway
Marketers, avoid a shotgun wedding by creating a long-term, healthy and happy relationship with sales. Strive to understand their needs like they understand the customer. Rely on them for the great information they bring from the field. Work together to define your ideal lead. That information will inform all of your marketing activities. The rest is doing your due diligence when it comes to getting the job done. While your role may be getting those leads into the funnel, it’s also about keeping that funnel clear of debris.
By Jennifer Pricci
And while sales may once have been the alpha in a not-so-happy-marriage, today the tables have turned. In the digital era, B2B marketing is not just responsible for getting names into the top of the funnel. They must also build relationships with those contacts, nurture them over time, provide guidance and information at every stage, and bring them to the point where they are qualified opportunities ready to convert.
Let’s cancel this week’s blamestorming session…
Here are 3 tips to promote effective sales and marketing alignment:
Here are 3 tips to promote effective sales and marketing alignment:
1. Score Your Leads Collaboratively
Effective lead scoring is essential to ensuring that only well-qualified leads are handed over to sales. The focus should be on bringing marketing and sales teams together to agree on the definition that will be used to score leads at each stage in the funnel. Establishing this together will avoid finger-pointing later, and will enable you to develop appropriate content for leads at every stage.
Together, the teams should decide on the criteria for scoring potential buyers all the way from a basic name entering the top of the funnel, through engaged party, prospect, lead, and finally opportunity. Lead scoring will consider factors such as the prospect’s interaction with your website and social media profiles, the amount and type of content viewed, shared and downloaded, information given in registration forms, and the results of any direct mail, events or other activities.
More importantly, don’t forget to score for negative behaviors, too. Activities like unsubscribing from emails or negative social media comments are signs that a prospect no longer wants to engage. Again, these definitions need to be agreed upon between both teams.
Once you have decided on how to define and score activities during the complete sales funnel, you will also need to set the ground rules for when a lead should be handed over to sales. Handing over only highly-qualified leads means Sales focuses all of its efforts on leads that are ready to convert, resulting in increased revenue and a better B2B marketing ROI.
But what if the weeks or months pass and the lead doesn’t move on to the next stage? That’s when many leads tend to fall into a limbo where neither marketing nor sales feels responsible for them. With budgets tight, marketing has understandably wanted to focus on getting more sales leads into the funnel, and on pursuing the ones that show a greater propensity to buy. There simply hasn’t been time or money to lavish attention on stalled leads that may never become customers.
But now, technological advances have made it possible to nurture leads over the long term cost-effectively, by keeping in regular automated contact and providing useful content based on what you already know about the lead.
But lead nurturing can’t be conducted independently by sales. There needs to be regular two-way communication between the functions, so that sales knows what activity the lead has undertaken and what messages and content have already been communicated to them. There also needs to be a smooth process for sales to hand back leads that have failed to convert, so they can be put back into the funnel for further nurturing.
3. Use Metrics to Show What’s Worked
One of the biggest challenges for any marketing team is to demonstrate how marketing spend is driving revenue for the business. Done properly, regular lead scoring and comprehensive lead nurturing deliver ample data that demonstrate how leads have been progressed through to conversion.
You still need to choose the right metrics. To truly demonstrate marketing’s value, you need to be measuring things like marketing program performance, impact on revenue and profit per customer.
Key Takeaway
Marketers, avoid a shotgun wedding by creating a long-term, healthy and happy relationship with sales. Strive to understand their needs like they understand the customer. Rely on them for the great information they bring from the field. Work together to define your ideal lead. That information will inform all of your marketing activities. The rest is doing your due diligence when it comes to getting the job done. While your role may be getting those leads into the funnel, it’s also about keeping that funnel clear of debris.
By Jennifer Pricci
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