Lead nurturing is an excellent way to advance prospects further along the purchase funnel. While marketers acknowledge this and use it in order to generate qualified leads, they often complain that it does not give the best results. Whether you are already using lead nurturing to manage leads, or are planning to use it in the future, here are some facts that will help you find success with your lead nurturing efforts:
Most Qualified Leads Are Not Ready to Buy
50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy. If you’re wondering why the sales team is unable to close qualified leads handed over to them by the marketing department, it is because of the above stated fact. You might have a highly engaged qualified lead with you who is not in a position to buy yet, which calls for frequent interactions with the lead to ensure that you stay at the top of the mind with him/her. Hand them over to the sales team only when they’re ready for purchase.
Use Event Triggered Marketing
Trigger based marketing or event-triggered marketing refers to the practice of communicating and approaching a buyer based on change in events. These can be automated using marketing automation platforms to automatically communicate with prospects as soon as an event occurs (for instance: form download, liking a social media page etc.).
Event-triggered marketing can potentially save 80% of your direct mail budget. While nurturing prospects, ensure that you set up event based triggered marketing for best results.
Prompt Action by Sales Team
25% of marketers who adopt mature lead management processes report that sales teams contact prospects within one day. Only 10% of marketers report the same follow-up time without mature lead management processes.
Once marketers ensure that only qualified ready to buy leads are passed on to the sales team, the sales team needs to be prompt and contact them within 24 hours.
Use Personalized Emails
It was found that personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%. Email blasts are a thing of the past. For best results, personalize your email as much as possible to increase the relevancy of your message to the target audience.
Invest in Marketing Automation
A study found that companies that have automated lead management saw a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months. (Source: Gartner Research) Manually nurturing leads is a time-consuming not to mention a costly affair with resources dedicating crucial time and energy on tasks that can be automated. The solution is automating the lead nurturing process using a marketing automation solution such as Marketo, Eloqua etc. so that top of the funnel leads are automatically passed on and nurtured through the funnel.
