Lead nurturing thoughts
It’s surprising how many marketers now say they do “lead nurturing” but in reality they are just sending monthly email campaigns or monthly newsletters with some call to action.
If all you do is send generic email marketing messages to your early stage leads over and over and over again, you’re missing the point. Consistency is good but being relevant and then consistent is even better.
To be truly effective, marketers must get over the “automated only” approach to lead nurturing (meaning there’s no actual human interaction just a blind system that can’t think). The point of nurturing is to build relationships and to do that we need to have a dialog between people that’s relevant and consistent. We need the human touch.
I was interviewed on the subject of lead nurturing by Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo and he writes the Modern B2B Marketing Blog.
Link: "Lead nurturing with Brian Carroll"
In the interview we discuss the importance of the human touch in lead nurturing, the best ways to encourage early stage leads to start an active buying cycle, and the ROI of thought leadership.
Human Touch, Lead Generation, Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Sales Leads
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I agree with your insights that many businesses have reduced “lead nurturing” to little more than a monthly newsletter or email touch.
In my experience, there is no substitute for a conversation — either face-to-face or on the phone. Projects are initiated and deals are closed after a relationship has been established, and that relationship can be as simple as talking about the weather, sharing a joke, or listening to a prospect describe his/her business issues.
It is next to impossible to establish that kind of relationship via email, particlulary as part of a campaign.
You are right about one thing, most businesses don’t nurture leads the way they should. You mentioned that we need to get away from the “automated” approach to lead nurturing. If by “automated” you mean no personal touches, then yes, I agree with you. Because I whole heartedly believe that the more you “automate” (systematically design) your lead nurturing process, the more results you can produce.
CASE and POINT:
One of our clients has meticulously designed and automated a series of emails, faxes, mailers, and even PHONE CALLS to their prospects. By automating all these activities, the number of touches to their prospects have increased several fold. But just as important, they were able to schedule these activities at their optimal times which more than doubled their conctact and qualifying rates.
My point…automating saves time and helps you to schedule activities at the right times for optimal contact rates.
I think that a good lead nurturing process should include not only email but phone calls and maybe even direct mail. Software can help but it is not a magic answer to the lead nurturing dilemma. An automated dialer can help facilitate calling and make it more streamlined as well. Person to person contact is really important.