lead nurturing a multi touch journey exec summary

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Lead NurturiNg: a MuLti-touch JourNey

speakers

Ruth P. Steves, Adjunct Professor, Columbia Business School; Author, MaximizingLead Generation: The Complete Guide for B2B Marketers

Erik Matlick, CEO Madison Logic

moderator

Laa McGilvray, Principal, Blast PR

WEbInAR APRIL 4, 2013

Madison Logic | (646) 937-5800 | www.madisonlogic.comCreated for Madison Logic by BullsEye Resources, www.bullseyeresources.com.
http://www.madisonlogic.com/http://www.bullseyeresources.com/http://www.bullseyeresources.com/http://www.madisonlogic.com/


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Lead NurturiNg: a MuLti-touch JourNeyRuth P. Steves, Adjunct Professor, Columbia Business School; Author, Maximizing Lead Generation: The

Complete Guide for B2B Marketers

Erik Matlick, CEO Madison Logic

Laa McGilvray (Moderator), Principal, Blast PR

OverviewWith the right execution, an eective B2B lead nurturing program begins as soon as a prospect becomes alead and continues until a relationship has been built, the lead is qualied and forwarded to a sales personfor follow up, which can take months. However, nurturing has proven to be extremely worthwhile, as half ofall buyers inquiries eventually result in a purchase.

Te es t eetie, eiet e rtri prrm re:

Begin nurturing immediately after interest is expressed

Oer content appropriate for every stage of a prospects buying journey

Use marketing automation technology to personalize interactions and track responses

Leverage multiple communication channels for a multi-touch program

In the world of B2B marketing, the purpose of lead nurturing is to convert prospects into qualied leads andultimately into customersin an ecient, cost-eective, scalable way.

Cotext: WeiarPressr Rt P. Stees dened lead nurturing in todays world, described its importance and sharedbest practices for maximizing lead-nurturing eectiveness. Eri Mti outlined the B2B customer

journey and described the role lead nurturing and marketing automation can play in improving marketingeectiveness by providing Madison Logic research helping to clarify the timing of the discovery phase.

Key TakeawaysThE B2B cuSToMER jouRnEy can BE long and coMPlcaTEd.

In the consumer world, there is just one decision maker and the sales cycle is often very short and simple.The B2B sales journey is very dierentand much more complex. It typically begins with a discovery andresearch process, where information is gathered and reviewed. It then proceeds to a decision process,which can be lengthy and complicated, and can involve bids, RFPs, and multiple inuencers. This journey canlast six, twelve or even eighteen months or more.

oncE lEadS aRE gEnERaTEd, T S ESSEnTal To nuRTuRE ThEM unTl ThEy aRE REadyfoR a SalES.

Marketers engage in various lead-generating activities to identify prospective customers. However, allmarketers (and sales people) know that merely generating a lead is just the rst step in having a qualiedlead. The job of a marketer is not just to generate a large quantity of leads, but to furnish sales people withhigh-quality, qualied leads to ensure the most productive use of sales time.

As a result of the long-tail nature of the B2B buying process, many of the leads that are generated are earlyin their discovery and research process, and are neither qualied nor ready to be passed o to a salesperson. While many of these prospects may not yet be ready to buy today, many will buy eventually. This iswhere lead nurturing comes in.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


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Lead Nurturing: A Multi-Touch Approach

Professor Stevens denes lead nurturing as A series of communications to build awareness and trust andmaintain contact until the prospect is ready to see a sales person,and she outlined a strong business case forlead nurturing:

45% of all business inquiries result in a saleeventually. Building a relationship through lead nurturingreduces the odds of that sale going to competitors.1

80% of sales teams do not call unqualied leads. So, through lead nurturing, sales is furnished only withqualied leads who are ready to see a sales person.2

Best-in-class marketers are twice as likely to have a nurturing program as their average peers. Theyexperience better campaign response rates, lead qualication rates and average order sizes.3

Nurtured leads place 47% larger orders on average than non-nurtured leads.4

EffEcTvE lEad nuRTuRng PRovdES ThE nfoRMaTonThaT PRoSPEcTS nEEd, whEn ThEy nEEd T MoST.

Todays buyers conduct online research for solutions independently,only engaging with sales people towards the end of their information-

gathering process. By providing relevant educational materials,marketers have an opportunity to help potential buyers in their researchand begin building a relationship with prospects earlier than everbefore. Ultimate success requires sustaining the relationship. To holdprolonged interest, communications need to be in sync with variouspoints along the buyers journey.

Some lead nurturing best practices include:

Persoalize. Lead qualication forms need to ask the right questionsto yield specic interest- and need-related data. Marketers can thenleverage that data by providing links to customized landing pagesthat speak directly to the buyers precise needs and interests.

Deliver real value. Communications should be educational, relevant and unique, with a high perceived

value. Delivering appropriate communications requires marketers to develop a content strategy thatmaps the type of content (white papers, infographics, webinars, etc.) to the stage where prospectsare in their buying journey. Early in the information-gathering, buyers seek out general, educationalinformation. Later in the process, marketing materials can (and should) be more persuasive and conveyto prospects what is unique about your company and why they should buy from you.

Track resposes. All user actions (e-mail opens, clicks, page visits and time spent, downloads, etc.)need to be tracked. This response data can be used to ensure that subsequent messages are relevant,targeted and rened over time.

MaRkETng auToMaTon S now ESSEnTal To lEad ManagEMEnT.

Another key factor to successful lead nurturing is personalization: delivering the right content to a prospectat the right time and tracking responses. These practices cannot be implemented at scale without proper

automation. Using marketing automation technology improves a marketers lead-nurturing eectivenessand boosts returns.

Results of a survey among senior-level marketers indicate that the utilization of marketing automationcorrelates with a more robust sales pipeline, provides greater visibility into marketing activities and yieldsbetter customer insights while improving eciency and accountability. (Figure 1)

Based on these benets, marketing automation is extremely benecial to marketers from companies of allsizes. The industry is expected to reach $1 billion in sales in 2013. Marketing automation company Eloquawas acquired at the end of 2012 and Marketo has recently gone public.

Nurturing is

not selling, or

blasting, orchest-thumping.

Keep the

communications

non-salesy.

Ruth P. Stevens


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However, penetration rates for marketing automation remain low: only 6% of companies that conductmarketing activities have thus far automated their marketing. Among large companies with at least $500million in annual revenue, about 36% have done so.5 This implies a compelling value proposition amongthose aware of marketing automation.

fire 1Marketingautomation isnow essentialto leadmanagement.

auToMaTEd lEad-nuRTuRng PRacTcES aRE STll n ThER nfancy.

While marketing automation is garnering much attention, the lead-nurturing practices that use automationare still in their infancy. Common strategies being employed today do not fully leverage what is known aboutB2B buyers, or their position along the purchasing journey.

Consider the typical marketing automation campaign timeline: A users action (e.g., lling out a form on awebsite or downloading a white paper) triggers a series of e-mails that typically start arriving about twoweeks later. E-mails continue at a deliberate pace until the recipient either becomes a qualied lead or optsout (which occurs 2025% of the time on a yearly basis). Multiple e-mail touches forge relationships anddrive engagement, which is good. However, many problems exist in how automated lead nurturing is oftenexecuted.

Common problems include:

Poorly timed messagig. Messages often go out slowly, particularly theinitial e-mails which typically tend to arrive 14 days after a prospectsindication of interest. By then, many buyers in the discovery and researchstage have already gathered all of the information needed to make apurchasing decison. Ironically, even though the buying cycle can take

many months, the initial discovery process can begin and end within amatter of days. By not responding quickly to buyers inquiries, a marketermay miss out on a potential sales lead.

Research y Madiso Logic ad others has foud that:

The discovery phase of a buyers journey lasts only 110 days afterthe initial interaction, or expression of interest. Downloading activityis at its peak during the discovery pahse, as prospects researchand evaluate their buying options. Tis 10- i is rir beii rtri, te rst 5 s re prtirimprtt. (Content during this period of nurturing should focus oneducating versus selling.)

The lead

opportunityvirtually dies

after 10 days.

Erik Matlick

Source: Forrester Research, novemer 2009


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Striking when the iron is hot dramatically improves success rates. A MarketingSherpa case study6found that timing communications more frequently during the discovery phase dramatically boostedopen and click-through rates for a world wide IT software provider. After the 10-day markwhenmarketers often begin their nurturing activitiesthe opportunity withers. (Figure 2)

fire 2. The discovery phase is shorter than you think!

Sigle chael. Typically, only e-mail is utilized in marketingautomation campaigns. Online display ads were similarly one

channel back in the 1990s. But now display ads have evolvedto be driven not by content but by data. By using data anddeveloping insights about targeted customers, ads can bemuch more precisely targeted. Marketers are learning fromthis experience and making lead nurturing more targetedand meaningful.

Oe-dimesioal. Nurturing campaigns usually messageto just one recipient: the person who made the inquiry orsignaled interest. However, purchase decisions in a corporateenvironment are complex with multiple decision makers andinuencers; the inquirer often isnt the eventual user (e.g., an ITperson who is looking into HR software).

Lack of targetig y customer itet. Marketers often assumethat people who indicated interest will retain this interest overtime. Doing so will ignore a potential buyers actual intent,which can change over time. Marketers need to learn moreabout customers intent, what their plans are, and what theintentions are of inuencers. (Figure 3)

To be most efective,

lead nurturingcampaigns need

to be multi-touch,

multi-channel, multi-

dimensional and

timed appropriately

to the buyers

journey.

Erik Matlick

Source: Madiso Logic.


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fire 3. The B2B 2.0 Buyer Journey.

Marketing automation holds the potential to pave the way for the next evolution of lead nurturing, whichMadison Logic sees as:

Lead urturig 1.0. This is the current spray and pray approach, multi-touch but not leveragingmultiple channels or knowledge about the B2B buyers reality.

Lead urturig 2.0. Customer intent data will be further utilized to segment leads and reach moredecision makers, representing a multi-dimensional approach.

Lead urturig 2.5. Marketers will exhibit an increased use of RTB exchanges not just to send e-mailsbut to serve display ads to prospects wherever they go online, immediately after their rst sign ofinterest. Madison Logic calls refers to this multi-channel approach as instant nurturing.

fire 4. Evolution of lead nurturing.




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Madison Logics use of automated marketing solutions for customers lead nurturing activities alreadyreects where lead nurturing is headed. Clients can layer on nurturing programs very cost eectively. Theseinclude:

Istat nurturigTM Nurture leads as soon as they express interest in your content.

Infuencer NurturingTM

Nurture the team that will eventually approve your product. Dataase nurturigTM Raise brand awareness for users that have interacted with you in the past.

Audiece Targetig. Nurture an ideal portfolio of buyer and company proles.

caSE STudy

To show the eectiveness of Instant NurturingTM, Madison Logic conducted an A/B test on webinarparticipants themselves.Registrants were split into two groups. Group A received only e-mailreminders; their attendance rate was 23%. Group B received e-mail reminders plus instant nurturingvia banner ads. Their attendance was 31%. Instant nurturing lifted attendance by 30%.

In conclusion, Madison Logic CEO Erik Matlick stressed the importance of turning insights into action plansby implementing these top ve research-driven action items geared towards increasing the eectiveness oflead nurturing:

Reach prospects wherever they are via multi-channel communications (e-mail, display, contextual ads,phone calls).

Create a program that includes multiple content oerings so that you can provide appropriate contentfor each stage of the buyers journey.

Implemet urturig programs from day oe, to capitalize when buyer interest is highest.

Utilize a smart lead-scorig program to maximize the eectiveness of marketing automation.

Egage prospects holistically to assist them in their decision-making process.

1Managing Sales Leads: Turning Cold Prospects into Hot Customers, James Obermayer. Thomson/Raycom Communications, 20072SLMA (Sales Lead Management Association)3Lead Nurturing: The Secret to Successful Lead Generation, Aberdeen Group, November 20084Lead Nurturing: The Secret to Successful Lead Generation, Aberdeen Group, November 20085 Raab Associates VEST Report, February 20136www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/4-strategies-to-boost-response
http://www.madisonlogic.com/http://www.bullseyeresources.com/http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/4-strategies-to-boost-responsehttp://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/4-strategies-to-boost-responsehttp://www.bullseyeresources.com/http://www.madisonlogic.com/

lead nurturing a multi touch journey exec summary

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