This has been the year of lead generation for many technology companies and rightly so. Marketing departments and their related activities are under scrutiny for true ROI and properly measuring leads will tell your story. But with the focus on generating leads whether on line or off line, many organizations are not planning the follow up activities. And many can argue that this is where marketing can add the greatest value.
Selling cycles for technology solutions are longer than most B2B sales and require a smart nurturing strategy to move those opt ins and response calls towards a true sales conversion. Ardath Albee writes in her Marketing Interactions blog that:
78% of marketers say they need to improve the quality of leads they send to sales (Aberdeen), she also quotes a recent 2009 Sales Performance Optimization Study by CSO Insights and found that, “59% of companies with sales cycles longer than 4 months said their ability to qualify and prioritize which leads to pursue needed improvement.”
These numbers identify the need for a smart nurturing program as tech buyers are extending their decisions and investigating potential solutions more in-depth. Since most time lines for a decision are controlled by the buyers, tech marketers need to use the window of time between signs of initial interest (opt ins, response phone calls, even initial presentations) and final decisions to build and deliver relevant communications to those in the pipeline.
As Ardath points out, your content needs to be refreshed at bare minimum three times. That means you should plan your message strategy for follow up and pitch the value your solutions will bring to the buyer using different selling point, while communication the overall point of difference. Your message should be written to address their business issues and not necessarily yours!
The point is that generating leads is where marketing starts and marketing should start with planning its nurturing efforts.
