So I’ve got this old friend from college. At first, we had fun. Now I only hear from when he needs something. Then after I help him out … he disappears again.
“The goal with nurturing is not just always be closing or always be selling,” Brian said. “It’s really, always be helping.” Watch the above video to see what other insights Brian shared. Here are a few key pieces of information that may help you: Read more…
When you’re converting inquiries into qualified leads, it’s widely believed that time is of the essence. Even research published in the Harvard Business Review says you’re almost seven times more likely to qualify a lead if you respond by phone within five minutes than if you respond an hour later.
That’s why, when one of our Research Partners, a B2B telecommunications company, wanted to convert more inbound leads into sales-ready ones, we cut our response time. The results were surprising, as you’ll see in a moment.
We typically phoned people who submitted a Web form on the company’s site within about five hours. We slashed that to five minutes or less with:
Automated alerts — Our IT team developed a program that notified our lead generation specialists to make a call the moment someone submitted a Web form.
Adjusted hours — A lead generation specialist was always available during the hours when someone would most likely submit a Web form.
An easier-to-use database — Lead generation specialists had to go through several steps to access the partner’s database; we revised it so they could reach the lead they needed in one click.
As a result, whenever someone submitted a form, the person received a call back within five minutes more than 85% of the time. At the end of six months, I was eagerly looking forward to the results. Here they are: Almost nothing changed! Even though we cut response time by more than 98%, the number of qualified leads remained virtually the same and the amount of calls it took to get a qualified lead actually increased slightly.
Our effort did not have much impact. So what did this teach us? To slack off and not respond to inquiries for days? Absolutely not. Instead, we learned three valuable lessons:
Lesson #1: Know your customers and their needs
Will they lose interest or select another vendor in the next hour or two? If so, then instant follow-up may be a good idea. But in the case of our partner, the potential customers? needs for B2B telecommunications were not going to change dramatically in a few hours, so cutting response times did not have much impact.
Lesson #2: Know what you’re selling
If it?s a transactional sale, five-minute follow-up may very well be worthwhile. Not so much, obviously, for the complex sale. However, again, that doesn’t mean if you have a complex sale you can kick back and wait to respond to inquiries. Our research in complex sales has consistently demonstrated that follow-up within 24 hours is always optimal.
Lesson#3: Test before investing
What works for someone else may not work for you — even if it was featured in the Harvard Business Review. Begin by identifying your key performance indicators: What you want to achieve. For this test we wanted to:
Increase sales-ready leads — Our partners were satisfied with the amount inquiries their inbound marketing efforts were producing. They wanted more sales-ready leads — leads that fit their Universal Lead Definition.
Improve lead qualification — Our goal was to reduce the number of dials required to attain sales-ready leads. We were hoping this could ultimately make our team more productive.
Once you set key performance indicators, measure them before and after the test, and compare. It’s really that simple. Start on a small scale, and then implement the program across your entire organization if the results merit it.
In my most recent research project, the MarketingSherpa 2012 Executive Guide to Marketing Personnel, we identified key behavioral and motivational differences between marketing specialists. Much of what we learned applies beyond HR and can improve your lead nurturing and sales efforts.
The key to navigating your way to a sales-ready lead is navigating through individual personalities. When you apply the human touch, you must establish credibility and, essentially, establish and manage relationships with many different people at many different levels in an organization.
“Fully 95% of your leads are like harvested green bananas, and, off the top, your sales team needs only the other 5%, those that are ripe…
“Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful dialog with viable prospects regardless of their timing to buy. It’s about building trusted relationships with the right people. In the end, it’s the act of maintaining mind share and building solid relationships with economic buyers. It’s not a salesperson calling up every few months to find out if a prospect is ‘ready to buy yet.'”
— Brian Carroll, Executive Director, Revenue Optimization, MECLABS
Lead nurturing based on personality
Below are some characteristics you will want to identify in your prospects as early as possible. They will improve your understanding of the people you’re contacting, and set a path for helping them “sell up” or move to the next stage in the buying process.
The person you are talking to in a lead’s organization might be:
1.
Your champion
2.
Your influencer
3.
Your decision maker
As you communicate with each of these three levels, try to identify which of these characteristics are prominent in the person:
1.
How assertive and controlling is the person?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
2.
How strong of a communicator?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
3.
How process-oriented, methodical?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
4.
How analytical/detail-oriented?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
5.
How objective/task-oriented?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
6.
How subjective/free-flowing?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
7.
How individualistic?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
8.
How strong is his/her corporate attachment?
□ a little
□ at times
□ a lot
Once you have communicated with your first contact or two, ask them about the decision maker so you can prepare them for the process of helping to achieve your mutual objective — putting Sales in touch with a decision maker ready to make a purchase.
Here’s an example of how to make this system work for you:
Scenario #1 — Wants to be a champion, but not very assertive
Let’s say your champion is not very assertive or a good communicator. He is much more detail- and process-oriented as well as very objective about his approaches. That means he will not be very subjective and will have an average or low individualistic profile.
Even if his corporate attachment is strong, he is going to need your help motivating the influencer. On your call, help him understand that you are there to support his efforts and achieve his goals so he can obtain what you are offering.
Work with him until he is comfortable with all the technical benefits of your product. Then ask if you could get on the phone with him and the influencer. Remember: You are his team member. Use phrases like “we,” “our,” and “us” a lot!
Scenario #2 — Is an assertive influencer but not convinced yet
Now, if your influencer is the exact opposite, then he will be less than excellent with details but an excellent relationship person. When you talk to him, focus on how this will help the individuals within the organization and make the department more efficient and effective.
Provide “global” concepts and images since he is more subjective in his thought processes. This is where your role becomes critical, because to influence a decision maker (who is obviously assertive and controlling), you must provide this “people person” with a compelling sales proposition. You must formulate that concept in his mind so it is the first thing out of his mouth when he meets with the decision maker.
Now, since we know the decision maker is assertive, let’s say he is also somewhat analytical and highly objective, only considering the bottom line. Then you must prepare the proposal or PowerPoint for the influencer with a “bottom-line” focus.
You want to help the influencer see that you want to help make him “look good” by identifying the key points most decision makers look for — “What’s it going to do for me today?” It can be as simple as an opening statement like, “How much effort does it take to add $100,000 to the company’s bottom line? ABC can do that with little to no long-term investment.”
However you set your approach, using this form can help you identify the key traits of the people you’re contacting. Instead of marketing to job titles, you can market to people and their personalities.
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.
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:
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:
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:
B2B marketing has always been complicated, and has only become more complex over the last few years thanks to evermore empowered buyers, new technologies, a difficult economy and growing international organizations that make navigating potential buyers and influencers in target companies harder by the day.
So, I sat down with Jen Doyle, Senior Research Manager, MECLABS, for a look at her recent discoveries from her 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report to see what marketers are telling us about these challenges …
Here are some of the research discoveries Jen and I discussed in the video, along with the source charts: Read more…
That’s the sum of what lead nurturing could produce considering that long-term leads — the ones often ignored by salespeople — represent as much as 80% of your sales. (In Chapter 18 of his book, “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale,” Brian Carroll outlines the startling research.)
I know this is an extreme oversimplification, but it does represent the potential that is leaking out of your pipeline.
So now that I have your attention, let’s talk about what you can do about it.
If you want to ensure these future customers remain in your funnel, you must have a relevant,
consistent conversation with them. I am not implying you pick up the phone this minute and start calling them (although that’s a good idea further down the marketing funnel — when you want to be certain Sales won’t toss out that lead you thoughtfully nurtured).
What I mean by “conversation” is engaging them with information — content like articles, newsletters, whitepapers and videos — that they’re eager to read, share and act on.
Make sure they can benefit from what you give them regardless of whether they choose to buy from you.
But, of course, if you utilize lead nurturing correctly, potential customers will choose to move forward with your organization when they’re ready to purchase.
You’ll be the one they know and trust.
You’ll have made their lives easier by helping them make their purchasing decision. You’ll also have avoided the mistake of pushing them too hard, too fast.
I wish I could say that lead nurturing is as easy as simply collecting a few articles that promote your latest products and blasting it out across your email lists. But, like anything else, results begin with smart planning. If you want lead nurturing to work, you have to set the groundwork by completing the following:
As the MECLABS Research Partnership analyst team, my colleagues and I speak with professionals who attend our events (like the next month’s MarketingSherpa Email Summit in Las Vegas), purchase our publications, and want more information about how MECLABS can help grow their business. So every day we hear about the challenges they’re facing.
One issue that surfaces all too often is optimizing databases: When you have a database of thousands upon thousands of names, how do you help your team easily and effectively prioritize who to contact? Nearly every company I talk to does some kind of lead scoring, but rarely do those lead scores align with their database in a way that allows their sales teams to determine — at a glance — which prospects are the right fit at the right time.
This hit way too close to home. Here at MECLABS, my team was struggling with the same issue. Through events, publications, and general inquiry, we add hundreds of interested potential partner inquiries to our database every few weeks, sometimes even thousands. We have an ace IT team that has set up platforms so we can quickly identify who fits our Ideal Partner Profile, and we’d contact them as soon after they express interest in our Research Partnership program. We are very well aware of the importance of timeliness for marketers who are struggling to optimize their sales and marketing funnels. And we’d follow up based on the next action that was associated with their file.
But it took Brooke Bower, our data-analysis whiz, to help our team look at our database from a new perspective, one that would help us get the highest return on our time by focusing on the most promising potential partners, as opposed to merely the most urgent.
What we realized was missing was a comprehensive at-a-glance snapshot that basically shows us the key factors that define a successful research-partnership engagement:
If the individual making the inquiry is a decision maker or an influencer
How many events the individual, and his team, have attended and publications they’ve purchased compiled in an easily sortable list
Their organization’s firmographic details — such as revenue, marketing budget, sales cycle and size
We enlisted the IT department to add fields to our existing platform to bring together these details into a single “opportunity grade” that would be applied to each potential partner’s account. (The concept of an “opportunity grade” was recommended to us by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director and CEO of MECLABS.) The higher the grade, the better fit for a long-term, strategic research partnership.
Within just a few days, through the teamwork of IT, marketing and sales, we have sorted our database so that it reveals to us that “opportunity grade” for each partner. It wasn’t rocket science, just taking the time to ask the hard questions (thanks Brooke), and look at what we do from a fresh perspective, to give IT the parameters they needed to bring it all together. This is a project that will never be completed, of course. We’re going to continually work with Brooke to analyze what qualities make up our most qualified research partners and make sure our database can easily and accurately help us identify them.
Great results happen when people and departments with different skill sets take time to put their minds together — in this case it was Brooke’s data savvy combined with my hands-on experience talking to potential Research Partners about their challenges.
I’d really like to hear about your experiences in building a database that helps you engage more efficiently and effectively. I welcome you to share them in the comments.
In last week’s blog post, I looked at the importance of lead nurturing. Some readers wanted more, so this week, I’ll dive even deeper into the complex B2B sale with a few data points and some very actionable tips on lead scoring.
First, let’s look a few data points from the 2012 MarketingSherpa B2B Benchmark Report, featuring Jen Doyle, Senior Research Manager, MarketingSherpa, as the lead author.
This chart shows the value of scoring leads based on a survey of CMOs:
Click to enlarge
Here is commentary on this chart from the report (italic emphasis is mine in the quote):
Once organizations establish lead qualification practices and define the criteria for a qualified, sales-ready lead, they need lead scoring methodologies to accurately and precisely identify qualified leads. Lead scoring is the process of adding and subtracting points to a lead’s value over time based on various lead attributes or demographics, and behaviors.
Lead scoring is one essential component of an overall funnel optimization strategy; however, the above chart analyzes one of the key benefits of only implementing this one feature. On average, organizations that currently use lead scoring experience a 77% lift in lead generation ROI, over organizations that do not currently use lead scoring.
Okay, so lead scoring is clearly a good B2B marketing practice, but the next data point isn’t so positive. Our research, through a survey of 1,745 marketers, found that 79% of B2B marketers are not engaging in lead scoring.
I interviewed Paula Reinman, Senior Vice President Marketing, Bersin, to learn the process Marketing and Sales at the company went through to create and implement a lead scoring program that fit in with the existing marketing automation software and CRM environment.
I think if you take the time to read the case study, you will take away a solid sense of implementing lead scoring, but as they say in New Orleans, this week I’m offering some lagniappe, a little something extra from Paula in the form of six lead scoring tips.
Hopefully these will help either improve your lead scoring activities, or even spur you to set up a program of your own if you aren’t currently engaging in lead scoring.
In his most recent post, Dave Green pointed out how marketers invest most of their budget on trade shows even though it ranks fourth in effectiveness. He went on to explain how to get a better return on your trade-show investment through lead scoring.
Now I’m going to share nine tactics that will drive those lead scores — and your ROI — even higher:
Do thorough research. Find out which attendees fit your Universal Lead Definition. If you have access to the registration list, analyze it. Look up registrants on LinkedIn. Develop a list of targets you want to seek out during the event. Research the sponsors, too. They should all be on the event website. There may be ways to join forces with them to reach your audience.
Leverage social media before, during and after the event. Connect with attendees and build your profile before the event through your blog and updates on Twitter and LinkedIn. Tweet relevant content during the event. Invite customer feedback afterward. There’s so much more than can be addressed in this post, so I advise looking online for more great ideas.
Creatively partner with event organizers. If you’re holding an educational or social event, brainstorm with them to see how they can help you attract more and better attendees. This could be everything from sending pre-event emails to including information in registration packages. Negotiate support before signing contracts to minimize costs and maximize opportunity.
Get involved with the event. Don’t just be a statue at a booth. Try to attend a few sessions, switch off with your team members to sit with attendees at lunch and engage on a personal level. It will help you build relationships and you will be able to strike up more relevant conversations if you just sat through the same keynote. Best of all, the conference will be more fun and you’ll learn a lot more.
Provide value, not trinkets. People attend events to gain knowledge and share it with their teams. Time is always tight as they try to take care of work back at the office while absorbing as much information as they can. That’s why you must always think about what’s in it for them to engage with your brand. Provide what they really can use: resources to drive their business to the next level — whether that’s a strategic piece of content, a tool or an opportunity to network with their peers.
Focus only on those who have expressed genuine interest. Trade shows often reward people if they visit as many booths as possible. At too many events, I’ve witnessed sales professionals requiring attendees to sit through a 10-minute presentation to “prove” they’ve visited the booth, when the attendees clearly don’t care about their product.
Are they interested? Take note. At minimum, jot your name and notes about their issues on their business card, and assign one person to collect and enter information into your database for follow up. Include the solution they’re interested in, the issue they’re trying to resolve, other contacts they’ve had with your organization, and any qualitative intel that will help the person following up — such as “launching a new website in Q2” or “unhappy with solution X.”
Promptly and professionally follow up. Before the event even begins, be ready to follow up. Prepare a brief, customizable email template to send out immediately afterward. It can come directly from the sales professional who spoke with the prospect, or it could reference the conversation and any key information you were able to capture. If the prospect doesn’t respond, follow up with a thoughtfully scripted phone call where you position yourself as a resource they can turn to when they are ready to talk. Don’t stalk and don’t be pushy, but do be responsive and close the loop. And be absolutely sure that only one person is doing the follow up. (This is why it’s critical to work from a single database.)
Track and measure the results. After the follow-up emails have been sent and calls have been made, note how many are still in your marketing and sales funnels, and how many deals closed. Monitor this throughout the year to determine whether the trade show is worth investing in the next time.
Do you have additional ideas on how to make the most of your tradeshow investments? I’d love to hear about them. Share them in the comments below.
Now that 2012 is upon us, we wanted to share what marketing thought leaders and practitioners have identified as some of the biggest B2B opportunities for the upcoming year.
If you’re familiar with MarketingSherpa research, I must warn you that, in this case, the data gathering was completely unscientific. MECLABS A/V Specialist Luke Thorpe and I simply wandered around the networking event at MarketingSherpa B2B Summit 2011 in San Francisco, and thrust a microphone and camera into the face of every willing participant.
Many speakers and attendees were kind enough to put their drink down, pick up a mic, and share insights with you. Here are a few of our favorites …
So what’s on the horizon for B2B marketing in 2012?
(00:38) Jay Baer, President, Convince & Convert, and author of “The Now Revolution,” discusses multimedia for B2B
(1:34) Tracy DeMay, Marketing Manager, CenterBeam, talks about leveraging social media
(1:53) Ge Moua, Senior Demand Generation Manager, Unify, shares her thoughts on the importance of tools
(2:23) Beth Toeniskoetter, Product Marketing, ReadyTalk, thinks deciphering which new technologies to invest in is key
(2:39) Tony Doty, Senior Manager, Research & Strategy, MECLABS, reminds marketers of the importance of segmentation
(3:21) Pamela Markey, Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy, MECLABS, sees a huge opportunity for content in this new year
(3:42) Karen Hayward, EVP and CMO, CenterBeam, urges marketers to slow down so you can go faster
(4:30) Kristin Zhivago, President, Zhivago Management Partners, and author of the book “Roadmap to Revenue,” wants you to pick up the phone and interview customers
Infographic: How to Create a Model of Your Customer’s Mind
You need a repeatable methodology focused on building your organization’s customer wisdom throughout your campaigns and websites. This infographic can get you started.
