This is one of my favourite topics. I will let it out right away, it should reside with Marketing and this post will tell you the reasons why it should remain with Marketing.
Few things to look at:
1. Only 25% of the b2b leads buy in the first six months; 25% buy between the 7th and 12th month; 25% buy between 13th and 18th month and the remaining after 18 months
2. Sales focus is only on immediate revenues and they do not have the patience to follow up leads for 18 months, and it is agreeable
3. As it is, generating leads is a difficult task and letting 75% drop from it, is equivalent to committing suicide
In many small and medium sized-organizations, sales typically does the nurturing as the organization wants to keep the sales force busy and occupied and also the fact that they wouldn’t have the marketing bandwidth. Eventually, neither the sales nurture the leads effectively nor do they pass it back to marketing and they fall off from the target database itself, which is a lot of money and efforts down the drain.
Marketing can keep nurturing these leads that aren’t interested in buying today but at a later date through a mix of messaging, thought leadership and other touchpoints and be visible in the buyer’s radar. As an when they decide to initiate their buying process, you are available to take that forward and this is where it again gets passed to sales as a sales-ready opportunity.
This communication cycle will ensure that no efforts are spared in converting a lead into a customer. Primarily, you are controlling what you can control.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:32 am
can you elaborate some more on how marketing can ‘nurture’ the leads, apart from the points mentioned in the article?
December 8th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
AZ,
As your question is open-ended, I am taking a point example on how nurturing can be done. For instance, if someone registers and downloads your white paper, you consider them as a lead, though it is not sales ready.
Marketing will have to ensure that they become sales ready before it gets passed to your sales. Some of the line items that you can use are:
1. Pointing them to another link related to the white paper that they have downloaded
2. Pointing them to a case study related to the whitepaper
3. Inviting them for a webinar related to the white paper
4. Asking them to be a part of a survey that you are conducting related to the whitepaper
5. Do a teleconference on a topic related to the white paper and ask them to be a part of the panel
6. Point them to some industry research published by analyst types/researchers related to your white paper
7. Also, get to have a conversation with them as a part of nurturing to understand if an opportunity really exists now; else is there a possibility for an opportunity at a later point in time etc.
8. Even if there exists no opportunity, thank them for being a part of this mix and leave a good impression on them.
If you have any specific needs, do write to me at saba@djargon.com
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