Lead Nurturing Checklist

You operate or work within a medium-sized business. Over the last few months, you and the team have created some great marketing content. You’ve been sharing it and seeing conversions like crazy… at first. But now you notice that all these great inbound leads have started to disengage from your business. The content is still great. The pathways are still open, but it’s as if customers are “window shopping.”

Don’t fret! All this means is that your business is now ready for a shiny new Lead Management program.

Lead Management, or “Lead Nurturing,” is the process of qualifying inbound leads by educating them with resources, and building trust with them until they’re ready to buy. A lot of salespeople and marketers think that once a lead subscribes to a blog, or downloads a piece of content, they’re ready to buy. Not the case. In fact according to SiriusDecisions, 98% of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) don’t result in a closed deal or business. This is where Lead Management/Nurturing comes in. Let your consumers and prospects teach themselves and get more comfortable with what you’re selling.

Reported Symptoms of Effective Lead Management:

• Leads who are effectively nurtured produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities. (Source: DemandGen)
• Effective lead nurturing generates 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost. (Source: DemandGen)
• Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (Source: The Annuitas Group)
• Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails. (Source: Juniper Research)
• 82% of prospects say lead nurturing content targeted to their specific industry is more valuable. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

Before you break into a cold sweat thinking that Lead Management is unattainable, don't worry. Have comfort in knowing that anyone can build an effective Lead Management Program. Here is your CloudAnswers Prescription to get started:

Your Lead Management Program Prescription:

• A (single) designated strategy

Lead Nurturing begins with making sure you have a clear objective in mind. Are you looking to engage with new inbound leads through generally useful resources, or are you providing educational awareness about why your solution helps them? Make sure you define lead engagement and lead education. For example: if your business resonates with the story at the beginning, you’ll now start to educate your inbound leads.

• Content that is relevant to your Nurturing Strategy

You've decided on your strategy, awesome! Now it’s time to build content around that goal. Keep your content simple and easy to read. Especially if your leads are just learning about your brand and products. Keep content relevant and useful to whatever stage they’re at in the buying process. If you’re executing on an engagement strategy, make sure you’re resonating with the same ideas and interests as your leads.

• Organize and Analyze with Technology

You know what you’re trying to attain with your lead nurturing, you have the proper content, now you just need the tools to catalogue your leads and measure your inbound activity. This is where CRMs like Salesforce and Marketing Automation tools like Marketo or HubSpot come in. These help automate your marketing campaigns and identify behavioral trends of your inbound leads.

Once you’re read to launch your Lead Management operation, get your team on the same page. Make absolutely sure that Sales and Marketing are aligned. This is critical in identifying leads that are ready to consider purchasing decisions. Have an expert take a look at your CRM. Have that expert properly organize leads, and fully optimize marketing activities.

Implement Lead Nurturing to turn your Pipeline from sickly to sprightly. You’ll thank yourself later once you do it.