Lead Generation: Nurture vs. Nature

Today, popular psychology holds  that the personality of an individual human being is shaped not by genetics or by environment alone but by an uneasy collaboration of both.

We’ve found that similar collaboration applies in business-to-business selling. To be promising, sales leads first need the right pedigree. They must come from the market a company sells to and face the problems a company’s product or service can solve. They must have the DNA of prospects that become buyers.

That just seems to be good commonsense, right?  But if as a salesperson you’ve ever received “hot” leads passed on from advertising campaigns or other promotions, you know that good sense in lead generation doesn’t seem to be all that common. Salespeople can be understandably skeptical of lead generation programs because they find too many of those leads just aren’t buyers.

That’s where lead nurturing programs come in handy. They take up where lead generation leaves off.

Also known as “drip” marketing, lead nurturing keeps your company’s name in front of a potential buyer throughout the product research process or until the need becomes great enough for the buyer to take action. The amount of time required is always the amount of time the  buyer  believes is needed to research a product or service and become comfortable that it will be beneficial. Then, such a buyer is ready to buy and looks for the right vendor.

An effective lead nurturing program supports your sales team  because it leaves potential buyers with a positive impression of your company, not just through the typical sales approach of “staying in touch” only to see if prospects are ready to buy. They see right through that and don’t appreciate the time they waste with it. Instead, a nurture marketing program accelerates a buyer’s research process by delivering real value over time. You’ve built up a “trusted advisor” relationship based on delivering value without expectation of immediate return.

Buyers do appreciate that and might even call you when they’re ready to buy. Call us if you want to learn more about nurture marketing as well as other kinds of marketing.

Scott Pemberton  is a senior consultant at Productive Strategies, Inc., and can be reached at spemberton@productivestrategies.com or 847-446-0008.

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