Lead Qualification & Nurturing Overview
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The document discusses lead qualification and nurturing in B2B marketing. It notes that lead qualification helps reduce lead loss by ensuring only sales-ready leads are passed to sales. It also discusses how lead nurturing can educate and maintain engagement with prospects not yet ready for sales, reducing costs and increasing deal conversion over time. Effective lead nurturing involves personalized, segmented communications to prospects at different stages in their buying process. Companies that properly qualify leads and nurture prospects are shown to close more deals with fewer resources.
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Lead Qualification & Nurturing Overview
- 8. The Need for Lead Qualification Implicit Factors: What they do Explicit Factors: Who they are Finding the right 20%: A Blended Model
- 19. About Pardot Pardot – No Hassle Marketing Automation Pardot is a user-friendly, month-to-month solution designed to simplify online marketing for B2B companies with a complex sales cycle. Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions you may have. www.pardot.com
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- The Campaign – You execute a perfect campaign that drives a third party opt in list and Pay Per Click traffic to a landing page that offers a whitepaper to individuals who convert. The Results – The Whitepaper is downloaded by 500 individuals. The Leads – All of the 500 respondents who downloaded the whitepaper are passed to sales for immediate follow up. The Cost - $10,000. The Results – Sales gripes about the quality of these new leads, and notes an inability to contact the respondents.
- Should These Leads Have been Assigned to Sales? The Experts Agree - Marketing Sherpa and Forrester both estimate that 80% of all inbound leads (like the ones we just discussed) never have a meaningful conversation with a sales professional. Do Sales Reps Just Drop the Ball? - No. Sales often attempts to make contact with these leads (e.g., several call attempts and emails), however is unsuccessful. Low Hanging Fruit – Sales is judged on meeting their short term goals (Quotas), and it generally not interested in chatting with prospects who are going to close far into the future. Then What is the Problem? – Often these leads have been advanced to sales too quickly, without an objective level of qualification. Often these leads are too early in the buying process to respond favorably to a call from sales ( Like Finding a Needle in a Haystack ).
- In truth, a large number of the leads who were assigned should have never crossed the chasm into the Sales arm of the organization. Anecdotally – Whitepapers like the one we discussed in our Marketing Campaign are generally considered to be quite generic, meaning that the individual who downloaded that whitepaper is likely an early stage prospect who is attempting to educate him or herself. Sales Calls. The Prospect does not answer. But something else happens…Statistics indicate that nearly 70% of your mishandled leads (those who don’t speak with your Sales people) will buy from a competitor within 24 months. With proper qualification, the 80% of leads who statistically will be mishandled by Sales are retained by Marketing until they show “Buying Signals”
- Aligning Sales and Marketing Best in Class companies know that both Sales and Marketing must get on the same page and align themselves. This requires: A Mutual Definition of a “Lead” – agreed upon by Marketing and Sales Service Level Agreement (SLA) - Sales commits to timely follow up and closes the loop on every Marketing Generated Lead, agrees to reject unqualified leads back to marketing for nurturing Measure - Ongoing communication between both parties to evaluate progress toward goals and gaps in the process Greater alignment between these teams leads to: Less Lead Loss - Sales commits to follow up on all leads Higher Conversion Rates - Gartner noted that when greater integration is accomplished between marketing and sales, conversion rates for leads (defined as earning the designation as qualified and/or committed to the sales pipeline) can increase by as much as 50%.
- Lead Qualification 101 Many B2B Marketers do not have a definition of a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). Some examples: BANT – Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline – (EXPLICIT) - This is one of the most traditional models of lead qualification, however BANT is actually a model for Opportunity Qualification, not Lead Qualification. Furthermore - BANT is generally people-powered (e.g., Inside Sales Team) Explicit (e.g., Job Title, Company Size, etc…) – (EXPLICIT) - Many Marketers leverage a numeric scoring model based upon Explicit factors, to ensure that the lead fits the company’s “Ideal Customer Profile” Activity – (IMPLICIT) - Many Marketers leverage a subjective “Activity Based” model that advances prospects who have downloaded multiple whitepapers, attended a webinar, etc… Eyeball Approach – (SUBJECTIVE) - a member of marketing reviews and subjectively determines if the lead should go to Sales.
- Finding the right 20% Reaffirm the 80% Lead Loss statistic. A Blended Model – Identifying the truly “Sales Ready” leads might look something like this: Implicit – Did this prospect take key activities such as downloading multiple whitepapers, or the combination of downloading a whitepaper and attending an educational webinar? Explicit - Does this prospect have: A Buying Title (This is the “A” of BANT) – Is this person capable of making a buying decision (e.g., VP, Chief, Director or Manager)? The Right Department – Are they in the appropriate department to benefit from your solution? The Appropriate Company Size – Is the lead’s company able to afford or have the staff to benefit from your solution. Author’s Note - LinkedIn and Jigsaw can help determine these.
- Interest vs. Intent These two concepts are quite different, however they can both be measured and utilized to qualify a lead: Interest (e.g., “Tire Kickers”) Examples of Interest - When a prospect: Views 25 pages on your website Downloads 2 whitepapers Attends a webinar Telling Statistic - Forrester estimates that 70% of the mis-handled leads that are erroneously passed to Sales purchase from a competitor within 24 months. These prospects show interest, but may not show intent to be contacted as part of a sales process. Intent (e.g., “Buyers”) Examples of Intent - When a prospect: Completes the “Contact Me” form Searches for your company by Name (Google) or directly enters your website URL – These show brand recognition Signs up for a product trial / test drive For people who show Interest rather than Intent – Nurturing is a key way to move these prospects down the funnel;
- Lead Nurturing 101 As we discussed in the first portion of this presentation – 80% of all leads should not be advanced to Sales. Additionally, due to economic drivers, many buyers of B2B technology (particularly CAPEX), are taking longer to close. The Experts Say – In 2009, Aberdeen Group noted that 80% of the “Best In Class” companies will implement a Lead Nurturing strategy by 2010. To Stop Lead Loss by Sales To Stay Top of Mind with prospects across a long sales cycle ROI Statistic - Marketing Profs noted that a basic ROI calculations can demonstrate how investing in additional marketing touch points prior to handing leads off to Sales can generate significant returns from increased revenues.
- Although Nurturing Technology will empower Marketers to stay top of mind with prospects, many Marketers do not have a vision for how this technology can be impactful to their business processes: Education for leads who do not meet the MQL definition – Nurture these leads until they show buying signals and are passed to Sales. Standardized Communication during a Product Trial or Test Drive – Send consistent messages to prospects to engage them during a trial, without relying on sales to manually deliver these messages Stay Top of Mind throughout the Sales Cycle – Design programs that deliver high level information to responsive / non-responsive prospects who are being called on by Sales. Timely Reconnect after a Loss – Personalized, “On Behalf Of” the sales rep communication can be delivered prior to a technology refresh / contract renewal.
- Education for Leads who are not yet a MQL Nurturing, pre engagement by a sales professional, is considered to be the most critical form of nurturing. Leads have likely shown interest (downloaded a whitepaper) but not intent (completing the “Contact Me” form). Content should be of an Educational Nature, and should appear to come from the Marketing Department (not Sales). Push v. Pull – Push out relevant educational content, rather than hoping that the prospect will return to your website and Pull the data. The recipients of this type of program are the 80% who will likely not engage with Sales, so rather than pass them over to be lost, these leads are retained as a Marketing asset.
- Standardize Communication Through a Product Trial / Test Drive Clearly defined Sales Cycles such as a product trial offer a great opportunity for consistent messaging to be delivered The message can be designed to move the prospect through the steps of the trial: Initial login Deliver instructions / How To Videos to Accomplish simple tasks Have the message terminate when the prospect takes the desired action (e.g., creating an account in the Trial) Send Messages indicating that the trial is nearing completion
- Segmentation – Based upon Personas, Vertical, Products. Just make sure it is granular Timing – 3-4 times / month at a maximum (however if you are nurturing for a trial, you may elect to send out 1 email over each of the first 5 days). If you touch too frequently, the prospect will opt out If you touch too infrequently, the prospect will not be acclimated to getting email messages from you. Accelerate when prospects respond to messages, Decelerate when prospects are non-responsive 3. Know when to stop – If you have achieved your goal (e.g., deal won) – STOP NURTURING.
- Rapport / brand building shows in the Pipeline- As a general rule, at companies without lead nurturing, very few Closed - Won opportunities are derived from older leads (e.g., Generated more than 90 days prior to Qualification as a SQL or Opportunity Creation). Companies that excel at lead nurturing attribute as much as 50% of Closed - Won opportunities to older leads that have been nurtured. This broad nurturing keeps CPO lower, since all leads are retained by Marketing, and only passed to Sales once they have met a level of qualification (MQL).