Brian Carroll

Lead Nurturing: 12 questions answered on content, tactics and strategy

March 20th, 2012

B2B and other lead nurturing marketers are beset with challenges. Many are struggling to improve nurturing, scoring and alignment with the sales team, but they have a laundry list of questions.

I received 21 questions from the audience in recent a webcast for the American Marketing Association,The One-Two Punch of Effective Lead Engagement: Accurate Lists and Powerful Content” (a replay of the webcast is posted below). Yesterday, I answered nine of the questions in a post on the B2B Lead Roundtable Blog. Today, I am answering 12 more below.


Questions on content

Q: When your sales team consists of medical reps who sell to doctors and show up at their offices twice a month, how do you nurture? Especially considering doctors aren’t Internet savvy?

A: I disagree doctors aren’t Internet savvy; there are social networks for the medical community that engage a quarter of a million physicians. That said, equip your sales team to ask for each doctor’s preferred means of communication: email, video, executive summaries, reports, etc. It could be a simple questionnaire.

 

Q: Should we consider paying outside subject matter experts to develop educational content?

A: Leverage internal experts first to build authority. But be sure the content you’re sharing will be valuable even if the prospect never buys. If your content doesn’t meet that standard, then you’ll want to think about using third-party experts to fill the gap.

 

Q: If you keep sending your contacts repurposed content (although the same information), won’t they be annoyed?  Wouldn’t they prefer fresher info?

A: Research suggests it takes at least seven to nine interactions for a message to be remembered.  If you have a complex offering, your audience will appreciate you breaking it down and presenting it in a variety of ways so they can better understand it. We have to look at our content from our customers’ point of view, not our own. Don’t be afraid of repetition — embrace it.

 

Q: What’s the right amount of emails with video versus straight emails?

A: You need to know your audience and how they prefer to consume content. Test and measure.


Questions on tactics

Q: My team has auto-communications that go to prospects once a week for eight weeks, and we have a team of callers that supplement this. Do you believe this will help nurture/re-engage older leads?

A: It could. Here are some thoughts and ideas:

  • Nurturing is about building a relationship based on trust to continue a conversation. It’s not just about sending irrelevant information that could cause prospects to emotionally unsubscribe.
  • Examine the cadence of your emails to determine if once a week is too frequent. Nurturing is a marathon, not a sprint. Nurture them at least the length of your sales cycle.
  • Look at your results. How many opt-outs do you have? What are the call-to-lead conversion rates? How many opens and clickthroughs are your emails getting? The key is measurement.
  • These resources will help:

Five nurturing tips to create relevant and engaging emails

How ECI Telecom Developed a Content-Marketing Program from Concept to Completion and the Surprising Results

 

Q: How do you know which marketing tactic attracted your customer? Email? Direct Mail? Print? TV?

A:  That’s a challenge every marketer faces in the complex sale. The answer depends on whether you’re measuring first touch or last, and if you’re focused on gathering names or closing the deal immediately.  Leverage your CRM to capture every touch point: Have they attended a webinar, downloaded a whitepaper, or registered for a newsletter? All of these actions contribute, so measure all of them. Make sure your CRM allows you to track multiple campaigns.

 

Q: What is the best way to treat leads from a purchased list versus inbound leads?

A:  Your answer can’t be quickly summarized, in fact, a book could be written on the topic. However, these blog posts will help:

How to Build a Quality List and Make Data Drive Leads

Lead Generation Check list – Part 5: Treat your marketing database as a valued asset

Do you expect your inside sales team to practice alchemy?


Questions related to strategy

Q: Any thoughts on lead engagement for B2C versus B2B?

A: In B2B, more people are involved in the buying decision, but, ultimately, people buy from people and the lines between these groups have blurred. MarketingSherpa will soon release its first-ever lead generation benchmark report that includes feedback from more than 1,900 B2B and B2C organizations on their lead generation challenges. In the meantime, here are some resources:

Lead-Gen: Top tactics for a crisis-proof strategy

B2B vs. B2C: What does it really mean?


Q: How does lead-nurturing ROI compare for B2C (rather than B2B)?

A:  As I mentioned above, MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report will be published soon and will have a very detailed answer. Again, reference this post: Lead-Gen: Top tactics for a crisis-proof strategy


Q: Can you set up a simple lead nurturing strategy without lead scoring, and then add scoring later, when you have data to evaluate?

A: Absolutely. In the beginning, simplicity is best.

 

Q: What’s a good lead score for a technology company?

A: You’re in charge of developing your score based on your requirements. There’s no industry-wide scoring system. Here are some lead scoring resources that will help:

Lead Scoring: CMOs realize a 138% lead gen ROI … and so can you

The Lament of the Inside Sales Team: Data, Data Everywhere, but Who’s Ready to Buy?

How to Use Lead Scoring to Drive the Highest Return on Your Trade-Show Investment

Funnel Optimization: Why marketers must embrace change

 

Q: Do you have a buying process model and a list of stages of the sales cycle?

A: Please refer to Pages 7 and 17 in my free e-book: Start With A Lead: Eight critical success factors for lead generation

 

A link to a replay of the webcast is included below. Do you have additional questions? Feel free to ask them in the comments.

 

 

 

Related Resources:

The One-Two Punch of Effective Lead Engagement: Accurate Lists and Powerful Content

How to Get the CEO to Support Your Next Marketing Plan

B2B Marketing Research: 68% of B2B marketers haven’t identified their Marketing-Sales funnel … and it shows

Lead Scoring: CMOs realize a 138% lead gen ROI … and so can you

Categories: B2B Marketing Tags: , , , ,



  1. March 20th, 2012 at 19:05 | #1

    Thanks again for teaming up with us for the webinar, Brian!

    Seth Resler
    Content Manager
    Marketo

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