Contenu connexe
Similaire à The definitive guide to measuring lead nurturing 8-2013 (20)
Plus de Marcia Kadanoff (7)
The definitive guide to measuring lead nurturing 8-2013
- 1. August 2013
Deep Dive
The Definitive Guide to Measuring
Lead Nurturing
About the Pie Chart
The data presented in the pie
chart is derived from the Q2 2013
Marketing Automation survey
(n=220). The data serves as the
basis for this Gleansight Deep Dive,
which provides analyst commentary
related to a particular aspect of the
topic. The objective is to provide
additional perspective and illuminate
certain key considerations regarding
the implementation of the related
technology-enabled business initiative.
Additional survey data utilized:
»» Q2 2013 Gleanster Survey on
Inbound Marketing (n=305)
»» Q1 2013 Gleanster Survey on
Nurture Marketing (n=268)
To learn more about Gleanster’s
research methodology, please click
here or email research@gleanster.com.
From tangible justification to ongoing measurement; essential
metrics for nurture marketing success
Lead nurturing is a popular subject these days, particularly among Top
Performers. According to Gleanster research, 95% of Top Performers
report that they currently leverage lead nurturing, versus 57% of Everyone
Else. The thing is, lead nurturing can be defined in many different ways,
so it’s difficult to ascertain real trends from stated use of lead nurturing
in our surveys. Everyone seems to be sending newsletters or periodic
campaigns, which are technically a form of lead nurturing. But a closer
look at the data reveals that Top Performers are not only more likely to
leverage advanced capabilities such as lead scoring and trigger marketing,
they are also much more likely to physically measure the success of lead
nurturing. But there’s the rub. Measurement is perhaps the most troubling
of lead nurturing challenges, although it ranks the third most common
challenge according to Top Performers. How do you actually measure
lead nurturing? This Deep Dive will explore tangible ways to justify lead
nurturing and the metrics that are essential to Top Performer success.
65%
68%
centage of Top Performers that regard “Generate
Insights” as a top reason to monitor Social Media
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
Percentage of respondents that rank “measuring return on investment”
as one of the three most challenging aspects of lead nurturing.
Lead nurturing can be loosely defined
as a series of tactics and processes
designed to build relationships with
prospects and customers, even when
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
they aren’t actively looking to buy. It
therefore comes as no surprise that
the two biggest challenges with lead
nurturing are developing content to use
- 2. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
2
Figure 1: Challenges with Implementing Lead Nurturing
Top Performers Defined
Gleanster uses 2-3 key performance
indicators (KPIs) to distinguish “Top
Performers” from all other companies
(“Everyone Else”) within a given data
set, thereby establishing a basis
for benchmarking best practices.
By definition, Top Performers are
comprised of the top quartile of
qualified survey respondents (QSRs).
The KPIs used for distinguishing Top
Performers focus on performance
metrics that speak to year-overyear improvement in relevant,
measurable areas. Not all KPIs
are weighted equally. The KPIs
used for this Deep Dive are:
• 12-month change in revenue
• Growth in new customer
acquisition
• Average lead-to-sales
conversion rate
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
Top 3 Challenges with Lead Nurturing
Currently using
Lead Nurturing
92%
Developing nurture
marketing content
95%
Top Performers
57%
95%
81%
Quality of customer data
61%
56%
Measuring return on
investment
Everyone Else
73%
0%
Top Performers
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Everyone Else
Nurture Marketing Survey 2013, n=268, Qualified Survey Respondents n=219 (Top Performers n= 43, Everyone
Else n=176)
in campaigns (92%) and data quality
(81%). (See Figure 1.) Nurture marketing
is about using value-added content to
build relationships and earn a reputation
for your brand as a trusted advisor in the
purchase cycle.
Content can be used to educate,
qualify, and sell to individuals. But as
most markets are all too aware, the
explosion of content and emerging
marketing channels has shifted the
power into the hands of the buyer,
and informed buyers can make for
hyper-competitive environments. On
top of that, not all content is created
equal; it must be relevant and timely.
That means extracting value from lead
nurturing requires alignment with the
buyer’s purchase cycle. Marketers have
to expose relevant and personalized
content at just the right time in the
purchase cycle across any channel
a prospect or customer prefers.
Unfortunately, all of these forces
complicate lead nurturing efforts, which
is why even Top Performers sometimes
struggle to measure the success of lead
nurturing.
Nurturing in a Nutshell
Over the last 3-4 years, research has
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
consistently shown that marketers
are seeing diminishing returns from
traditional marketing tactics like
mass email campaigns. For B2B
marketers, it’s all about relationships,
not broadcasting marketing
communications. Prospects don’t just
disregard generic communications, they
are frustrated by them. That’s why Top
Performers who embrace emerging
B2B marketing tactics like lead nurturing
excel in market-share growth, revenue
growth, and customer satisfaction.
Before jumping into the ways to
measure lead nurturing, it’s a good
idea to get on the same page about
what it means to use lead nurturing.
Technically, a periodic newsletter is a
form of lead nurturing, which is why
survey results constantly suggest
that eight out of ten organizations
engage in some form of lead nurturing.
But in the context of maximizing a
return on investment, lead nurturing
should be defined by the tactics that
Top Performers are more likely to
leverage. These include things like
trigger marketing, lead scoring, content
marketing, multi-channel engagement,
and the use of multiple lead nurturing
campaign types (discussed in the
- 3. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
section: Aligning Lead Nurturing
Campaigns to the Lead Lifecycle).
Top Performing Use of Lead
Nurturing Consists Of...
Lead nurturing typically involves
one, or ideally all, of the following:
• Value-added content. Lead
nurturing is about engaging
prospects with relevant content
along the entire spectrum of the
lead lifecycle: from lead to prospect
to customer. For this reason, it
demands a variety of different
content strategies. Some content
will be informational, some content
will be technical, some content
will be “salesy,” and some will be
a combination of all of the above.
• Multi-channel communications.
Know your target audience.
What are the channels through
which are they likely to be
receptive to receiving valueadded communications – email,
direct mail, social media,
blogging, webinars, etc.
• Drip-marketing & triggermarketing tactics. With
drip marketing, marketers
pre-configure the time intervals
between communications with
prospects. But this is a static
form of communication that
doesn’t necessarily engage
prospects at just the right time.
Top Performers are 7x more
likely than Everyone Else to use
trigger marketing techniques that
initiate communications based on
prospect behavior – a click of a
link, a form fill, a download, etc.
• Lead scoring. Lead scoring is
an automated way of aggregating
prospect behavior to qualify and
determine the propensity to buy.
Top Performers are 9x more
likely than Everyone Else to use
marketing automation tools,
which provide lead scoring and
integration with CRM for automated
escalation of the hottest leads.
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
Justifying Investments in
Lead Nurturing
Over the last 3-4 years, research
ha It’s a mistake to think that lead
nurturing is “just for marketing,” and
it’s not just about nurturing leads;
it’s about acquiring and engaging
customers. For this reason, the success
of lead nurturing is largely measured
by revenue, and that’s the goal for
marketing and sales. As a business
tactic, lead nurturing primarily falls
on marketers to execute, but without
alignment with sales and a holistic
approach to fostering relationships
across the entire lead-to-close sales
cycle, lead nurturing cannot deliver a
positive return on investment. While
technologies like marketing automation
play a critical role, Top Performers
invest heavily in exposing the buying
and sales cycle to optimization and
improvement. That means both
marketing and sales will have metrics
that impact success, and both functions
will likely need to contribute to process
improvement and ongoing commitment
to collaboration. In fact, justifying lead
nurturing investments isn’t possible
without some level of understanding
about sales performance. After all, what
you do after you source a qualified lead
is every bit as important as the process
of qualifying and nurturing the lead.
Plus, new customer acquisition with
lead nurturing represents just one-third
of the ways organizations can apply
lead nurturing to capture revenue.
Lead nurturing can be used to plug the
holes in the pipeline when, for whatever
reason, a deal falls through but may
close at a later time. It can also be
used to engage existing customers in
up-selling and cross-selling campaigns.
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
3
Figure 2 provides a basic structure for
defining the benefits of lead nurturing in
a tangible and numeric way. This should
be a useful framework for demonstrating
to a CFO or CEO the expected benefits
of lead nurturing relative to what your
organization is doing today. If your sales
reps continue to perform at the same
level and you invest the same money
in marketing, what impact would lead
nurturing have on your revenue?
Let’s take a closer look at how to fill in
the model.
Average Deal Size (a). This is a
dollar value, and it should be the
same amount with and without lead
nurturing. While this may increase
over time with lead nurturing, it
should be defined as a static and
consistent amount when justifying
the investment. You should be able
to find this metric from your CRM or
sales dashboard.
Average Opportunity-to-Close (b).
This is a measure of how successful
sales is at closing deals after a
qualified lead has been added to
CRM as a potential opportunity.
What percentage of leads move from
opportunity to close on average? It
should be the same for both boxes.
Quarterly Leads Generated (c).
Assume the same number of leads
is generated. If you aren’t sure, use a
simple number like 1,000. The model
still works if the deal size and close
ratio are directionally accurate
On average, research suggests
that Top Performers qualify about
50% of the leads they source, and
about 25% are considered sales
ready leads. If your organization has
different levels of success for (d) and
(e), use your own percentages here.
- 4. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
4
Figure 2: Interactive Framework for Justifying Lead Nurturing
WITH
LEAD NURTURING
WITHOUT
LEAD NURTURING
Dollar Amount
Dollar Amount
%
%
# of Leads
# of Leads
50% are Qualified (d)
c x 50%
c x 50%
25% are Sales Acceptable (e)
c x 25%
c x 25%
exb
exb
d x 20%*
d x 8%
Average Deal Size (a)
Average Opportunity-to-Close Ratio (b)
Quarterly Leads Generated (c)
# of Closed Deals (f)
# of Qualified Leads that buy later (g)
Tangible Revenue
fxa
fxa
+
+
gxa
Estimated opportunity cost of not
using lead nurturing.
Total
gxa
-
Total
=
*279 survey respondents to Q3 2010 “Capitalizing on Lead Nurturing” indicated average close ratio on nurtured leads is 25%.
*279 survey respondents to Q3 2010 “Capitalizing on Lead Nurturing” indicated average close ratio on nurtured
leads is 25%.
Row (g) is where the benefits of
lead nurturing are easy to point
out. According to Top Performers
in a 2010 survey from Gleanster
research, approximately 8% of the
leads that were deemed qualified
but not sales ready come back and
purchase at a later time without any
intervention from marketing. With
lead nurturing, this number can
be increased fourfold to as much
as 20-25%. We will use 20% to be
conservative, and this assumes
your organization is truly developing
quality content that is personalized
by stage in the buying cycle.
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
Aligning Lead Nurturing
Campaigns to the Lead
Lifecycle
Each stage in the buying journey is
unique. In fact, the traditional concept of
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
a sales funnel is increasingly becoming
obsolete because purchase decisions
are rarely linear. Nurture marketing
allows your organization to embrace
each prospect’s uniqueness in the
buying process and educate them at a
customized pace. Depending on your
organization’s objectives, different
nurture marketing tactics can be
configured to address different stages of
the buying cycle. In some respects it’s
like capturing different types of revenue
with lead nurturing.
• Revenue from new unknown
prospects (Leads)
• Revenue from known prospects
who chose not to buy in the past
(Prospects)
• Revenue from customers through
cross-selling and up-selling
(Customers)
- 5. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
5
Figure 3: The Seven Types of Lead Nurturing Campaigns
?
LEADS
LEAD
LIFECYCLE
!
PROSPECTS
*
CUSTOMERS
Qualification Campaign
Call-to-Action Campaign
Post-Purchase
• Route prospects to sales or
nurturing campaigns.
• Drive prospects to sales
engagement.
• Up-selling, cross-selling, customer
support.
Awareness Campaign
Re-Engagement Campaign
• Generic ongoing communications.
• Stay in communication with leads
that engaged sales but did not buy.
Accelerator Campaign
• Use prospect behavior to trigger
engagement.
Acquisition Campaign
• Encourage leads to talk with sales.
Goals: Conversion, ClickThroughs, Multi-Channel
Interaction, Form Fill,
Downloads
Goals: Sales Acceptance,
Engagement, Opportunity
Creation, Contact with
decision maker(s) &
influencers
Goals: Conversion, ClickThroughs, Sales or
Service Engagement
Most organizations that leverage
lead nurturing are heavily invested in
campaigns and tactics for the front end
of the funnel (finding and qualifying new
leads), and rightfully so. Figure 2 shows
the different types of lead nurturing
campaigns relative to the lead lifecycle
and the goals of each stage.
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
Top Performers are 9x more likely
than Everyone Else to automate lead
nurturing campaigns for sales engaged
leads that don’t buy in the short term.
These fall under the Prospect category,
and they typically plug holes in the
pipeline that are hemorrhaging revenue
opportunity.
Lead nurturing is a powerful tool for
pulling opportunities into the pipeline.
Content is used like bait to attract
prospects, educate them, and qualify
them based on their engagement across
one or more channels. Generally,
about 80% of nurture marketing efforts
will target the lead stage of the lead
lifecycle. At this stage the goal is to
educate and build a relationship as a
trusted advisor to a purchase decision.
Prospects may not even know they have
a challenge your products and services
can solve. But exclusive focus on new
customer acquisition and lead nurturing
is also where most organizations fall
short of realizing the full potential from
lead nurturing. Research shows that
A Guide to Essential Lead
Nurturing Metrics
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
To effectively measure lead nurturing,
organizations actually have to track
about a dozen different metrics. That’s
because, while the goal is definitely
to measure an impact on revenue,
a nurtured lead enters a variety of
different stages in the lead lifecycle
before becoming a paying customer.
Figure 3 shows the different goals of
each stage. Naturally, the metrics used
to measure success are also unique
to the stage in the lead lifecycle. As
such, measuring lead nurturing is about
tracking metrics that can provide insight
into optimization of marketing and sales
processes.
- 6. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
Marketing Metrics for Lead
Nurturing
Click-through Rate
What does it tell us? Click-through
rates are a measure of engagement
in digital media on the website, email
campaigns, landing pages, etc. This is
a great way to ascertain how effective
different lead nurturing messages are at
engaging the right target audience.
What data is required?
Click-through rates can be calculated
within email marketing and marketing
automation tools. Theis required?
What data nice thing about
marketing automation tools is that
click-through rates can calculation?
What is the be captured
across multiple channels in one
centralized platform.
What is the calculation?
The click-through rate is calculated by
dividing the number of clicks by the total
number of impressions.
Conversion Rate
What does it tell us? Conversion can
be measured in tangible revenue or
as a measure of engagement. In lead
nurturing, many times the goal of a
campaign isn’t a sale. Sometimes, lead
nurturing campaigns are exclusively
focused on education, and therefore
conversion would be a measure of
the number of times an asset was
downloaded, or possibly visit duration
on a critical webpage.
What data is required?
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
There are many different types of
conversion rates, and generally it’s best
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
What is the calculation?
6
to configure them in web analytics or
marketing automation and allow the
tools to track things like number of
pages visited, visit duration, asset
downloads, etc.
Lead Score
What does it tell us? Lead scoring is a
marketing automation specific feature
and the only way B2B marketers can
qualify prospects in a structured way.
Lead scoring assigns numeric scores to
prospects based on behavior, activity,
and profile attributes. The aggregate
lead score tells marketers which
prospects are qualified and have a
higher propensity to purchase.
Thresholds can be set to route high
scoring leads directly to CRM from
within marketing automation.
What data is required?
Lead scoring methodologies can be as
complicated as marketers desire. In
general, each time a score is assigned
to a lead, it should contribute toward
qualifying the propensity to purchased
What is the accepted
based on the internally calculation?
definition of a qualified lead. Seventy
What data is required?
percent (70%) of Top Performers report
that they start with pre-configured
scoring methodologies from vendors
and then tweak them over time to meet
the unique needs of the business.
What is the calculation?
Lead scores can be assigned based
on a variety of criteria, and typically
the calculation would happen within a
marketing automation tool. Consider
using detractor scores to reduce the
lead score for prospects that don’t
engage for long periods of time or
display undesirable characteristics (such
as a student or job seeker).
- 7. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Tracking the Lead-to-Sale:
A Note on Attribution
One of the most difficult aspects of
measuring lead nurturing is attribution.
Frankly, that’s one of the most
difficult parts of measuring anything
in marketing. How do you associate
different marketing interactions with the
ultimate metric of success, revenue?
The value of lead nurturing programs
is often understated because the most
popular way of attributing credit to
marketing engagement is “first-touch”
or “last-touch” methodologies. With this
approach the campaign that generated
the lead, or the most recent campaign
to touch the lead before it became
an opportunity, is assigned full credit
for the revenue associated with the
opportunity. But, as Top Performers
can attest, lead nurturing is about
engaging prospects across the entire
lead lifecycle, so these methodologies
fail to capture aggregate interactions.
It’s therefore critical for marketers to
embrace a “multi-touch” campaign
attribution approach that recognizes
and gives weight to multiple nurture
campaign responses. This can be
accomplished in one of two ways. The
first model assigns an even weight
across all campaign interactions. As
such, partial credit is assigned evenly
to each campaign or engagement. The
second approach assigns a heavier
weight to the first and last touch, but still
gives credit to other nurture campaigns.
What does it tell us? The term
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
became popular among B2B marketers
about 5 years ago, thanks in large part
to the work of the analyst firm Sirius
Decisions. MQL classifications are
typically defined by a lead score, and
therefore this metric is a measure of a
prospect’s propensity to purchase. The
definition of a qualified lead should be
defined in collaboration with marketing
and sales. Some organizations will
use the term MQL and sales-qualified
lead interchangeably, and for all intents
and purposes they are the same
thing. It’s generally good practice not
to have salespeople spending time
qualifying opportunities, and the MQL
classification ensures that marketers
are educating and qualifying leads
before they are passed to sales. As
such, the Marketing Qualified Lead
should really be defined by sales. Some
Top Performers will add a subsequent
classification called “Sales Accepted
Lead (SAL).” The Sales Accepted
Lead is merely a classification in CRM
that forces sales to take ownership
of the MQL prospect. This allows
organizations to track the conversion
from MQL to SAL and therefore
determine if there are bottlenecks in the
lead handoff from marketing to sales.
Campaign Attribution
What does it tell us? Campaign
attribution tells marketers which
campaigns are sourcing qualified leads
and the number of leads generated.
With campaign attribution, marketers
are assigning a partial value to each
interaction that drives a desired
outcome.
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
What data is required? In order to track
campaign attribution, marketers need to
be capable of tagging campaigns and
assigning weights to each touch. (See
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
7
sidebar “Tracking the Lead-to-Sale: A
Note on Attribution.”)
Sales Metrics for Lead
Nurturing
Average Deal Size
What does it tell us? Average deal size
helps marketers determine the impact
that lead nurturing can have on the
sales pipeline. This is especially
powerful when applied to middle stage
opportunities that don’t purchase. Lead
nurturing plugs the holes in the pipeline
and ensures that money spent
identifying leads isn’t lost to competitors
just because the prospect chooses not
to take action in the short term.
What data is required?
What data is required?
Total revenue and total number of
opportunities, both available from within
CRM.
What is the calculation?
What is the calculation?
Total sales in dollars divided by the
number of opportunities for a given
period of time.
Sales Cycle Time
What does it tell us? Sales cycle time
is a measure of how long the average
opportunity takes to move from qualified
to a closed sale in days. Monitoring the
sales cycle over time after implementing
lead nurturing can tell marketers if
content is contributing to shorter sales
cycles. Theoretically, a more educated
and qualified lead should lead to shorter
sales cycles. Likewise, longer sales
cycles might be an indication that
buyers needs aren’t being addressed, or
lead nurturing content isn’t targeting the
right buyer or buyers within a target
audience.
- 8. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
8
What data is required?
What data is required?
The accuracy of the sales cycle time is
100% contingent on how diligent
salespeople are at updating opportunity
status in CRM.
What is the calculation?
What is the calculation?
Average number of days an opportunity
in CRM takes to move from sales
qualified to closed won.
Sales Qualified-to-Close Ratio
What does it tell us? The Sales
Qualified-to-Close ratio is the
percentage of qualified leads that
convert to paying customers over a
given period. This metric should be
measured before and after lead
nurturing to determine if lead nurturing
has an impact on sales success.
Eighty-two percent (82%) of Top
Performers indicate this is a top three
metric for measuring the impact of lead
nurturing on the sales pipeline.
What data is required?
The quantity of closed deals over a
given time period.
What is the calculation?
Total number of closed opportunities
divided by the total number of
opportunities for a given period of time.
Ongoing Reporting
The aforementioned metrics and
methodologies will help give visibility
into the success of lead nurturing
efforts. But marketers must also use
the data to extract qualitative insights.
Figure 4 shows how marketers can use
lead nurturing performance to replicate
current success in future strategy.
Recommendations
Establish priorities and stick to
low-hanging fruit. For marketers
that are new to lead nurturing, the
biggest mistake you can make is
to over-engineer nurture marketing
programs. In fact, Top Performers
consistently demonstrate that less
complex campaigns generate the
highest return. Naturally, the success
of lead nurturing is largely contingent
on the availability of content and the
personalized nature of this content. But
the easier it is to back into the attributes
that contributed to a score, the more
likely it is that sales will embrace the
Figure 4: Reporting Requirements for Top Performers
What is the calculation?
By Closed
Won
By Lead
Volume
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
By Content
•- Number of interactions
•- Number of nurture campaign interactions
•- Top content assets by closed won
• - Number of leads by first touch
• - Number of leads by channel
• - Number of leads by last touch
• - Most compelling first touch content
• - Most compelling last touch content
• - Most popular content by lead stage
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
- 9. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
qualification rankings inside of CRM.
Complex scores lead to questions from
sales that marketing can’t answer;
that’s bad news for a new lead nurturing
initiative.
Establish a baseline for
benchmarking. Marketers need to
benchmark and track performance
over time. This is especially important
during the initial launch of a lead
nurturing program. Make sure you have
documented baseline metrics for sales
success, average leads generated,
the volume of qualified leads, and
average deal size. This is the only
way you will be capable of measuring
a delta between life before and after
lead nurturing. In addition, it’s critical
to start with a common understanding
of what defines a qualified lead. This is
the baseline for which initial programs
will be configured. This definition can
change over time, but only if both sales
and marketing are in alignment on the
changes.
A comprehensive approach. You
don’t have a marketing problem and
you don’t have a sales problem.
You have a revenue problem, and
solving it demands equally important
contributions from marketing and sales.
9
As such, it’s not just about tracking
how many leads marketing generated,
it’s about taking that measurement all
the way to the closed sale. You should
know exactly how much revenue can be
attributed to marketing and how much
marketing spend it took to generate it.
Top Performers measure success based
on marketing and sales performance.
For this reason, marketers have to
understand the average deal size, lead
conversion, and the sales cycle time to
really measure lead nurturing effectively.
Standardize metrics. If possible, rely
on technology to provide standardized
measurement for key metrics. The
only way to establish a benchmark
is to consistently measure metrics
in the same way over time. Before
developing custom metrics, think
long and hard about the business
case for supporting these outside of
a core system of record. Generally,
changes in metric performance will alert
marketing or sales of potential issues
in the pipeline. So don’t complicate
the process by calculating customized
metrics in spreadsheets. This also
makes it extremely difficult to maintain
consistency if there are changes to the
organizational structure.
Deep Dive Talking Points
• There are seven types of lead nurturing campaigns. There are three stages
in the lead lifecycle: lead, prospect, and customer.
• Consider a multi-touch attribution model instead of a first-touch or last-touch
approach. First and last touch undervalue lead nurturing interactions.
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
• According to Gleanster, lead nurturing delivers 4x higher engagement with
prospects who are not ready to buy in the short term but still represent viable
prospects. That means with the same spend and the same lead volume, your
organization could quadruple revenue by plugging the holes in the pipeline
with lead nurturing.
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.
- 10. The Definitive Guide to Measuring Lead Nurturing
10
Lead Author
Ian Michiels, Principal Analyst
Related Research
Recently published research that may be of interest to senior industry practitioners
include:
Gleansight: Marketing Automation
Deep Dive: Targeting B2B Buyers on Social Media
Deep Dive: The New Rules of Digital Engagement
Gleansight: Revenue Performance Management
Headquarters
Gleanster, LLC
825 Chicago Avenue - Suite C
Evanston, Illinois 60202
Deep Dive: Linking Inbound Marketing to Sales Results
Deep Dive: 5 Marketing Automation Capabilities Top Performers Can’t Live
Without
The Gleanster website also features carefully vetted white papers on these and
For customer support, please
contact support@gleanster.com
or +1 877.762.9727
other topics as well as Success Stories that bring the research to life with real-
For sales information, please
contact sales@gleanster.com
or +1 877.762.9726
About Gleanster
world case studies. To download Gleanster content, or to view the future research
agenda, please visit www.gleanster.com.
Gleanster benchmarks best practices in technology-enabled business initiatives, delivering actionable insights that allow companies to make smart business
decisions and match their needs with vendor solutions.
Gleanster research can be downloaded for free. All of it.
Note: This document is intended for individual
use. Electronic distribution via email or by posting on a personal website is in violation of the
terms of use.
For more information, please visit www.gleanster.com.
Entire content © 2013 Gleanster, LLC. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use or reproduction prohibited.