Friday Rant – The Importance of Nurturing
Last week, I wrote about the importance of Marketing and Sales working together as a team. I probably used more sports metaphors and analogies then you’re used to as well.
More specifically, I emphasized the usefulness of drip marketing and nurturing leads that aren’t sales-ready. Dale Underwood over at The Confident Marketer recently wrote a piece arguing that drip marketing doesn’t do much for salespeople. I respectfully disagree, and here’s why:
Leads that aren’t ready to buy don’t want to talk to salespeople. That’s the simple truth. And that’s why drip marketing is such a powerful tool. In my view, there are plenty of sales opportunities out there that can take months to develop. Rather than having the sales team jump all over every sales opportunity, marketing should be in charge of slowly but surely nurturing leads until they are actually ready to buy. Today’s commercial software is often complex and requires the potential client to do a lot of research before being ready to buy. Drip marketing is a great way to do this: marketers can customize the information that the lead receives, and make sure that a prospect is receiving information at regular intervals. In no way am I saying that drip marketing should be doing all the work, rather it should be a tool that assists Sales along the way.
The other great advantage of drip marketing is that it requires minimum involvement. Trying to sell to leads too early in sales cycle is risky and often unproductive. No one wants to feel like they’re being pushed to buy. On the other hand, having the sales team manually nurture leads is a waste of time. Salespeople should be able to spend their time doing what they do best: selling the product to leads that know that the product is about, and showing these leads why your product is better. Drip marketing lets the Sales team concentrate on what it needs to be doing, and ensure that Marketing is creating high-quality leads, instead of handing-off poor prospects that will be counter-productive and a waste of the sales teams’ time.
This kind of teamwork is critical to creating a seamless sales cycle that begins with carefully designed marketing campaigns (including automated drip marketing) and ends with a salesperson that closes the deal. Drip marketing doesn’t make a sale on its own, but it sure helps.
With regards to new web leads, research is pointing towards immediate responses by sales or marketing by phone. There are some cases where you won’t want to call immediately but for the most part, if your first impression is in line with your prospects interest, you need to call them immmediately. Contact rates and even qualification rates drop dramatically in both b2b and b2c if they are not called, according to a recent study by MIT and Kellog.
Darin Dixon
December 31, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Darin, thanks for the comment. You are absolutely right. After 24 hours forget it — close rates drop dramatically. The faster the follow-up the better in any kind of sale.
Derek Grant
December 31, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Derek,
Great write up. The closer your sales is to your marketing, the more effective you can be with marketing automation to best support the sales team…and ultimately acheive greater lead success. We provide a sales and marketing automation solution in the Franchise Industry and drive the same points across to our prospects / clients. Maximize user adoption, track the progress (or lack of progress and why) with leads, and allow your sales team to focus on hot prospects using marketing automation to keep a targeted spotlight on other areas of the funnel.
Good stuff – thanks.
Josh Miller
Josh Miller
June 12, 2009 at 7:42 pm