Archive for the ‘Nurturing’ Category

The Ins and Outs of Inbound and Outbound Leads

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Marketing, especially B2B Marketing has its own unique language. Attend any professional event and you’ll hear jargon tossed around as freely as the coffee flows at the refreshments table. Sometimes it is important to return to the basics and make sure you review the terms so that you can keep up.

Aaron Ross at Build a Sales Machine provides a rundown (and even some fun illustrations) of the sometimes confusing definition of inbound leads versus outbound leads. According to Ross:

Inbound leads are, as it implies, leads that come to your company and into your website or 800#: usually through word-of-mouth and referrals, public relations, search engines or perhaps through marketing campaigns… these leads generally are already interested in what you have to offer, and are about to start a buying cycle.

Outbound leads are lead that you had to go dig up, whether through market development campaigns or a Cold Calling 2.0 or other “proactive” methods to let prospects who aren’t already interested know who you are, what you do and why it should matter to them.

Ross goes on to explain how a marketer should approach or nurture these different types of leads and what to expect from each group.

Too Close For Comfort?

Friday, March 7th, 2008

With the introduction of sophisticated products that can track a lead’s every move, down to their search queries and attempts at giving you an invalid email address, it can be all too tempting for the sales team to pounce on prospects and come on a little too strong. Marketing automation suites can provide worlds of knowledge with minimal effort by displaying recently active prospects, sending daily email digests and alerting the sales and marketing team if a designated form is completed.

If a prospect realizes they are being closely tracked, it can be a real turn-off, completely negating the advantage you had by monitoring their movements. There’s a fine line between knowing your customer’s needs and becoming a prospect stalker.

In an age where we are cookied on most pages we visit and sites posing as social communities are feeding our hobbies and habits to advertising partners, where is the line? The key is to show your prospect you understand their challenges, as they relate to your product, without being as obvious as stating that you observed they visited the Benefits section of your website earlier this afternoon. Though most people are aware of tracking technology, they don’t like to be reminded of it.

This applies to both sales calls and email marketing. For another take on this topic, as it relates to email marketing, visit BeRelevant for Can a campaign be too targeted?.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Friday, February 15th, 2008

I’ve often discussed the benefits of using Drip Marketing, or Drip Irrigation, to nurture prospects along the sales cycle. New marketing automation technology has made it so easy to stay in constant contact with leads who aren’t quite sales ready yet.

I came across a brief interview with Jim Cecil, marketing consultant and founder of the Nurture Institute in last month’s B2B Magazine. Cecil emphasizes the importance of irrigating, not irritating, your customers. He also talks about the challenges small-to-medium sized businesses face when using a CRM to nurture leads. Tying in the sales team, Cecil does not discount the importance of building personal relationships as you move toward closing the deal.

What can we take away from this?

  • CRM’s and tools built for larger sales organizations don’t always meet the needs of a small or growing business, who can benefit from other marketing automation tools.
  • You must always follow the best practices of permission-based email marketing. Overwhelming your prospects with information that is not targeted to them creates negative feelings toward your company.
  • Teach your sales team to be patient, but not lazy. Drip Marketing is a great tool to keep you top-of-mind, but it can’t take the place of traditional sales calls. Conversely, the sales team has to let your marketing tools plant the seed before they go in guns blazing.

$58 Million Buys a lot of Suspects

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

KnowledgeStorm, an Atlanta startup made good, was just acquired by Tech Target for roughly $58 million. KnowledgeStorm hosts white papers for vendors and guarantees a certain number of leads (from white paper downloads), each of which must register for the site before accessing any content.

Though these leads are hardly prospects (and indeed at the point they are transferred, they are really “suspects” at best), KnowledgeStorm has built up a sizeable business in lead generation.

Companies who take advantage of leads like these must realize that they are most often far from sales ready. The white papers they downloaded did not even come from the authoring company’s website. The suspects may indeed be quite surprised if followed up with by a sales rep.

It probably makes more sense to do a little lead nurturing or qualification first, whether that is through an automated system or a marketing coordinator. Only once they have started to show some buying signals should they be handed off to the sales department. Companies incorporating nurturing programs will see the most value from the suspects they purchase from third parties.

Use Marketing Automation to Do More with Less

Monday, October 29th, 2007

B2B marketers who have budget surpluses, more than enough staff to accomplish all of your objectives, and work from 10-4, please raise your hands. Why don’t I see anyone with her hand up? Yep, you guessed it, B2B marketers are chronically overworked and understaffed. What’s worse is that most organizations require the marketing department to spend significant time and resources on items that will not necessarily increase lead generation effectiveness or return on marketing investment, the two most import key performance indicators for a b2b marketing program.

Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, states that B2B marketers spend too much time on non-revenue-driving activities. He cites a post from Michael Webb of Six Sigma selling who lists the following tasks that take up valuable time and resources from already understaffed marketing departments:

  • Time spent on administration, reporting, and menial tasks (leaving little time for customers)
  • Trade shows and events that generate boxes of “leads” not worth calling on
  • Marketing literature that no one reads
  • Wasting time with the wrong prospects

Each of these tasks can be made more efficient or alleviated altogether through technology. Marketing automation solutions provide advanced micro-level analytics and automation allowing marketers to focus their efforts on their most promising leads and marketing vehicles.

Less time spent on reporting — by consolidating all marketing vehicles into one interface, slicing and dicing data should be a lot easier than when using disparate tools

Automated nurturing for “boxes of trade show leads” — let the software do the work by nurturing these “suspects.” The ones who respond will be flagged by your system and the ones who don’t… well… they were probably interested in your free iPod.

Marketing literature that no one reads — micro -level web analytics shows you exactly which white papers your promising prospects are downloading and reading. Use what you have learned from your first few papers to tailor any future collateral.

Wasting time with the wrong prospects — automatically scoring and/or grading prospects will show your sales teams exactly where to spend their time. Scores are typically based on implicit factors (online behavior — clicks, page views, etc.) and grades are based on how well the prospect fits your ideal customer profile (industry, job title, etc.). Combining these two factors gives your reps a very objective way to prioritize their time.

There are a number of good solutions available and they are starting to generate some press. It is only a matter of time before these tools are mainstream. In the mean time, marketers who take advantage of marketing automation will reap the benefits of streamlined marketing and sales processes.

Who has time to reengage leads? You do.

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Everyone talks about lead reengagement. Very few companies do it. Even fewer companies have found a reliable way to automate it.

If you are a B2B marketer, it probably seems as though your marketing budget is always too small, no matter how cleverly you stretch your dollars. One way to get more out of your lead generation spend is to reengage old leads when the end of the year (and the budget crunch for most companies) rolls around. Just because some of your leads haven’t been converted to opportunities doesn’t mean that they’re worthless. In fact, some of them might be waiting to hear from you!

If your organization makes the small initial investment in software that lets you track leads and automate your marketing programs, reengaging leads can be easy and profitable. Setting up a drip marketing program specially designed for old leads will ensure that even if your sales reps forget to follow up, your marketing automation software won’t.

You can create an emails that are less about advertising and more about thought leadership. This is a much softer sell and can be especially effective when reengaging dormant leads who may be turned off by receiving what amounts to a sales pitch. Many leads that fell through the cracks earlier were simply not sales-ready, but that things might have changed. Talking to old leads is the perfect way to get the most of a tight marketing budget and can improve the bottom line.

How much does it cost you to generate a lead? A lot, right? I thought so. Fight hard to keep that lead in play.