Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

This article was first published  June 24, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog

In previous articles on the topic of lead nurturing, I’ve looked at developing a universal lead definition, installing a marketing database, and understanding your prospects’ buying process. These are all key parts of an effective lead nurturing system.

Now we get to the good part – the program itself.

Objectives

There’s a good choice of tactics you can use to nurture and develop leads. And there are several different goals to meet with these tactics. As you design your program, keep these in mind:

• Your lead nurturing program acts as a subtle reminder to your prospects that you exist. Some people call it a Stay-in-Touch program or a Drip Marketing system. Whatever you want to call it, be sure to create a slow, steady, consistent pace.
• Your lead nurturing program should provide helpful information that moves the prospect along the buying process toward the sale.
• Your lead nurturing program is a great way of creating a relationship of trust and credibility, and removing some of the risk and doubt inherent in a business technology purchase.

Tactics

In business technology marketing, email is consistently the best overall channel of communication – especially because it can be easily automated.

Telemarketing can be useful as the prospect moves deeper into the buying process. It also plays a big role in increasing attendance at webinars and other events. Some companies add direct mail to the mix with good results.

Information continues to be the best offer during the nurturing process. Your prospects are trying to solve a problem and the more you can do to help them, the better your chances of being selected.

Technology marketers commonly use these tactics to help nurture their prospects:

• Webinars
• Offline events
• Papers and reports; tip sheets
• Case studies and success stories

Multiple Paths

Lead nurturing can get complicated because of the complexity of the buying process and the different types of “buyers” involved. Eventually you’ll want to establish different paths for different types of buyers and buyers in different stages of the process. For example, a C-level executive is probably looking for different information than an IT manager or the person who is likely to actually use your product.

But one path is much better than none. If you haven’t been doing any kind of formal lead nurturing, you’ll find that the addition of a single program will increase the number of leads the marketing delivers to the sales team.

Frequency

What’s the best frequency for contact? That depends on what a) you’re selling, b) the length of the normal buying process and c) which buying stage the prospect is in.

Early in the buying process, once a month may be plenty. Once a month is also good as a slow-drip system for prospects who aren’t responding to your messages.

As the prospect moves closer to a buying decision things begin to heat up and you may find that weekly or even daily communications are needed.

A few reminders

Include a call to action in every communication – and give the prospect a good reason to take that action.

When you’re using an automated response system, be sure to move your prospects out of the current nurturing program if/when they contact you. In other words, if the prospect decides he or she is ready to speak with a sales person, it’s time to stop the automated messages.

Be ready and able to move the prospect back into the nurturing program if the sales communication doesn’t pan out.

And finally, remember that 80% or more of your best prospects won’t be ready to buy when they first come into contact with you. Research – and experience – shows us that most of this 80% will eventually buy. But they won’t buy from you if you don’t stay in touch with them.