marketing automation: nurturing, prioritizing, and recycling leads to convert more leads into...
DESCRIPTION
Nurturing, Prioritizing, and Recycling Leads to Convert More Leads into Revenue Improved lead management will create more demand for our products: Leads get better follow-up through automated lead nurturing Leads will better understand the benefits of our products Our sales team can focus on selling to the highest quality leadsTRANSCRIPT
Lead Management and Marketing Automation
Nurturing, Prioritizing, and Recycling Leads to Convert More Leads into
Revenue
Why Lead Management?
The B2B Buyer has changed: need to pro-actively engage around educational topicsLeads need to be nurtured until they are sales-readySales & Marketing need to be aligned more closely, creating a seamless buying processThere is an opportunity to turn marketing into a revenue driver rather than a cost centerLead management provides a dramatic ROI: many benefits, low risk, modest investment
“Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20 percent increase in sales opportunities versus leads that are not nurtured.”
The Changing B2B Buyer
Highlights from Enquiro’s BuyerSphere Project:Almost 50% of B2B buyers starts their buying process with online researchTalking to vendors of often only the 4th step
Order of Things – High Consideration
50%
37.5%
25%
12.5%
0%
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Online Research Talk to Users Talk to Vendors
The Changing B2B Buyer
Buyers are seeking and finding more information on their own—they’re in control
Search engines and vendor Web sites are top information sources in the buying process
To drive revenue, marketers must become more adept at identifying sales-ready leads and nurturing the remainder
Vendors need to interact with prospects before the sales conversation, by providing relevant information that is relevant in the earlier stages of the buying process
Convert More Leads Into Customers
• Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring, Lead Routing and Lead Monitoring close the gap in the middle of the funnel
• Improve the dynamics of your revenue cycle to convert more potential customers into customers
Current marketing focus Current sales focusThe B2B leadDevelopment gap
Issue 1: Marketing hands offLeads too early. Unqualified
Leads waste sales’ time.
Issue 2: Sales cherry picks leads, lettinglonger-time-frame leads leak out.Issue 3: Marketing spends
More to recapture lost leads.
Reach Interest Desire Convert Enrich Retain
Warm leads leak out
Lead Management Closes the Gap in The Middle of the Funnel
Source: October 2006, Best Practices “Improving B2B Lead Management”
Increase Productivity With Automation
Run more campaigns without expanding the marketing team
Create more consistent email follow-up
Example: automate Webinar campaigns, including invitations, reminders, follow-up and reporting
More Qualified Leads with Lead Nurturing
• Companies are able to use existing staff for nurturing campaigns, increasing the number of sales-ready leads by 50% with little to no incremental investment ¹
• Nurtured leads delivered 47% higher average order values than non-nurtured leads²
Goal: Increase the number of sales opportunities & deal size and reduce cost per qualified lead
“Companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead.”
Increase Sales Effectiveness
• Prioritize leads based on quality and urgency
• Let sales send leads back to marketing for further nurturing, preventing leads that just "sit" somewhere
• Provide comprehensive lead activity history for sales
Priority #2:
Increase Sales Effectiveness
Improved Lead Quality = Increased Sales Productivity
Turn Marketing Into a Revenue Driver
• Optimize ROI
• Improve marketing's accountability by proving marketing’s impact on revenue
• Improve Revenue Performance: Conversion rates Time in a particular stage (velocity)
Show that marketing is a revenue driver, not a cost center.
“Only 20% of companies believe they excel at measuring the performance of marketing initiatives.”
Marketing Automation + Lead Management
Marketing Automation technology combined with Lead management processes provide the framework to:
• Convert more leads into revenue• Run more campaigns• Nurture leads automatically• Make sales more productive• Measure progress and results
Realize the benefits of lead management with new technology and improved processes
The Value of Lead Nurturing
Lead Nurturing helps turn more inquiries into qualified leads and decreases cost per qualified lead
Conversion: Inquiry to Qualified Lead
Cost perInquiry
Cost per Qualified Lead
Without Nurturing 27% $50 $185
WithNurturing 40% $50 $125
Source: actual data from software vendor50% increase
The Value of Lead Scoring
With good info on lead prioritization, more reps meet quota and revenue goals are more likely to be achieved
% Revenue Plan Achieved % Reps Meeting/Beating Quota0%
25%
50%
75%
100%97%
72%79%
50%EasyHard
How Easy Is it To Get Access to Information About Prioritizing Sales Efforts?
The Value of Lead ManagementSiriusDecision' Waterfall Model gives benchmark numbers for conversion rates between the
different stages in the funnel. With improved lead management, conversion rates will be higher.
Example: Moving from Benchmark to Best Practice• For each 1,000 leads, best-in-class companies create 46 more MQLs than
benchmark companies (97 instead of 51). They create almost 10 additional deals (14.3 instead of 4.6 deals, a 300% increase).
SiriusDecisions Inquiries MQLs SALs SQLs SQL-to-close
Benchmark N/A 5.1% 61% 56% 26.5%
Best Practice N/A 9.7% 82% 62% 29%
MQL = Marketing Qualified Lead SAL = Sales Accepted Lead SQL = Sales Qualified Lead (i.e. sales opportunity identified)
Improving Lead NurturingIn Place: • Monthly Email Newsletter• Generic content (whitepapers, webinars,
blog posts)
To Implement:• Drip email campaigns• Content based on buyer profile and buying
stage• Automation of marketing campaigns
(including Trigger-based nurturing)• Integration of lead nurturing with CRM data
and CRM activity• A/B Testing
Steps to Take to Improve Lead Nurturing
Improving Sales Productivity
In Place: • Automatically assign new leads to sales
people
To Implement:• Lead Scoring based on profile and
activity• Prioritized lead list for sales• Lead Activity Monitoring with real-time
alerts• Lead activity history in CRM system
(email clicks, web visits, registrations)
Steps to Take to Improve Sales Productivity
Improving Sales & Marketing Analytics
In Place: • Reporting on lead volume
To Implement:• Lead conversion rates• Pipeline velocity (how fast leads
flow through the funnel)• Percentage of the pipeline that is
Marketing-sourced• Percentage of the pipeline that is
Marketing-influenced
Steps to Take to Improve Insight into Sales and
Marketing Effectiveness
Getting Started / Next Steps
Advanced Assessment and Continued Development• Identify “hits” and “misses”• Develop additional content
resources for lead generation• Test and optimize emails and
landing pages for various segments
• Create advanced, automated, trigger-based campaigns for more segments
Marketing Automation Strategy Development• Select and implement
marketing automation solution
• Develop preliminary lead scoring strategy
• Define high-value segments in database
• Create standard set of automated, trigger-based campaigns for key segments
Lead Nurturing/Scoring Initial Assessment• Identify current successes
and areas for improvement• Begin evaluating marketing
automation software• Begin developing list of
feature requirements
STAGE 1 STAGE 2 STAGE 3
Summary
Solution• Institute proven Lead
management processes• Adopt Marketing automation
technology
ROI • Large potential benefits• Little incremental investment
in resources
BenefitsIncrease ConversionIncrease Marketing ProductivityImprove Lead NurturingIncrease Sales effectivenessTurn Marketing into a revenue driver