Most marketing
organizations build
a lead scoring
system based on
how the prospect
has engaged and
the frequency of
engagement.
High Performance Lead
Nurturing and Lead Scoring:
The Step-by-Step Guide
Getting to the Sales Ready Lead
High performance marketers recognize that getting to the sales ready lead is the ultimate goal. While often viewed as a B2B challenge, B2C marketers that work with sales teams or indirect channels share the same goal – sales ready leads that optimize revenue through shortened sales cycles and the right kind of buyer.
The sales ready lead has different criteria from one organization to the next, but the best practices of high performance marketers involve driving effective lead nurturing and lead scoring. Throughout this guide, we’ll use that terminology whether you are a B2B or B2C marketer. Our assumption though is that your marketing organization produces buying opportunities for a sales channel. As a result, the best practices and principles remain the same.
Step 1: Apply Customer Intelligence to
Lead Nurturing and Scoring
The setting up of
your nurture paths
should also be fully
aligned with your
segmentation.
Lead scoring also becomes very powerful when combined with customer intelligence. Most marketing organizations build a lead scoring system based on how the prospect has engaged and the frequency of engagement. Why not increase the prospect’s score based on the attributes that define your best prospects?
Step 2: Segmenting for Lead Nurturing
or Don’t Batch and Blast Nurturing
Campaigns
Most
market-ers don’t make
it a discipline
to ask the right
questions in a
systematic way
that focuses on
previous
inter-action history
that can create
new forms of
customer
intel-ligence as a
basis for further
segmentation.
Step 3: Combine Progressive Profiling
with Customer Intelligence and
Segmentation
Most marketers understand the concept of progressive profiling – continuing to ask your existing prospects for more information to yield a more complete profile. However, most marketers don’t make it a discipline to ask the right questions in a systematic way that focuses on previous interaction history that can create new forms of customer intelligence as a basis for further segmentation. Bear in mind that when we say a systematic way, we mean that the nature of your questions will also be tied to the stage of the relationship that you have with the prospect, which is most often exemplified by your lead scoring of that prospect. To do so otherwise introduces risk of jeopardizing the relationship you’ve created with the prospect.
Here are some examples of progressive profiling questions that tie directly into the customer intelligence you are looking to acquire to drive more sophisticated segmentation for lead nurturing:
• Which of the following pieces of information are you missing right now that address your most urgent need?
• Which of the following represents your most critical need? • What are you using today as a solution?
• What additional benefits are you trying to achieve over your existing solution?
In drip or trigger-based campaigns the information
gathered from progressive profiling can drive the
necessary triggers that make an offer at the right time in
the customer lifecycle.
Step 4: Consider Segmentation when
Determining the Type of Campaign
Many marketers are not aware of the different types of lead nurturing campaigns, and if they are, they are often confused by which ones they should use. Again, go back to your customer intelligence and segmentation strategy to demystify what type of lead nurturing campaign you should run. Some of the more commonly used lead nurturing campaigns include the following:
• Dormant – re-engage prospects
• Purchased list – engage unqualified leads for telemarketing
• Drip or trigger – multi-stage, multi-touch, multi-channel over specified times
• Stay in touch – keep prospects engaged • Dynamic – triggered by prospect responses
The default for many marketers is drip or trigger-based campaigns, which are very powerful when leveraged with more sophisticated segmentation strategies. One of the advantages of this type of campaign is that it can be used for various levels of prospects in your lead scoring system.
Passing along
sales
intel-ligence is an
overlooked
benefit of
ef-fective lead
nurturing and
lead scoring.
The use of progressive profiling lends itself very well to several types of lead nurturing campaigns. For example, in drip or trigger-based campaigns the information gathered from progressive profiling can drive the necessary triggers that make an offer at the right time in the customer lifecycle. Dynamic campaigns are triggered by prospect response, a perfect way to continually make use of progressive profiling information.
Step 5: Map the Content and Offers
Your content and offers do not simply apply to lead generation. They’re an even more critical component in lead nurturing. At this stage in the customer buying cycle, your segmentation and profiling information provides far more insight into the type of content and offers that are required to move a prospect to the next stage. Use customer intelligence and segmentation information to not only map the content but create message progression, carefully nurturing the prospect to sales ready lead status. And use the responses to certain types of offers to elevate the lead score.
Step 6: Sales Intelligence from Lead
Nurturing
Step 7: Get there faster with
an action plan
This guide is an introduction to creating a roadmap toward more sophisticated lead nurturing and lead scoring to drive sales ready leads. Effective lead nurturing, and the use of lead scoring, requires a specific plan toward realizing the use of customer intelligence to drive segmentation strategies that increase revenue performance. Following our guide will create an action plan for the entire marketing organization to begin thinking and behaving as high performance marketers fueled by using customer intelligence and segmentation strategies to drive sales ready leads through lead nurturing.
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