{"id":14019,"date":"2017-04-03T08:39:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T12:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/?p=14019"},"modified":"2017-04-01T16:40:32","modified_gmt":"2017-04-01T20:40:32","slug":"b2b-lead-nurturing-monday-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/b2b-lead-nurturing-monday-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"B2B Monday Myth: Once the Lead Is Generated, My Job Is Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"b2b<\/a><\/h3>\n

Myth: Once a Lead Is Generated, My Job Is Done.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Truth:\u00a0Lead Nurturing Is Necessary to Drive\u00a0Prospects Towards a Purchase Decision.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Your B2B sales funnel has multiple steps: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. As marketers, we spend a lot of time trying to generate leads and get prospects into the top of the sales funnel by promoting awareness. Once we have the lead, it’s\u00a0time to pass the contact onto Sales, where they can try to work their magic on convincing the prospect to make a purchase, right? Not quite.<\/p>\n

Before the prospect is ready to make a decision, they spend some time in the Interest portion of the funnel. This is the opportunity to nurture the relationship, and move\u00a0the buyer along in the decision-making process. Here are a few tips to get you started:<\/p>\n

Develop the Right Media Mix<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The\u00a0different steps of the sales funnel require different strategies\u00a0in terms of media mix<\/a>. So if you are targeting those who have shown some interest, attempt to settle their skepticism with targeted, informational media. This could include paid social media posts on topics in the industry, webinars with trade publications, sponsored e-blasts, or paid search. Take this step to foster interest. As a result, prospects will be engaged and ready to make a move toward decision-making.<\/p>\n

Know How the Lead Was Generated<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The way you nurture a lead will depend a lot on how you garnered the prospect’s awareness in the first place. They took some palpable step to give you their information, whether it was filling out a form on your website or giving you their business card at a trade show. How you go about nurturing one lead will differ from the others. The channels you use and the content you share will depend on many factors. For instance, if a prospect watched one of your webinars, send an email thanking them and asking for feedback. Then invite them to the next one.\u00a0Automated B2B lead nurturing<\/a> can help you get the right messages out to prospects based on their behavior. And it can raise conversion rates significantly.<\/p>\n

Segment Your Prospects Into Personas<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Creating\u00a0a fictional character who represents a buyer in one of your audience segments\u00a0<\/em>will more easily allow you to share relevant content that the prospect actually cares about. Your target segments have different needs, preferences, motivators, challenges, media preferences, and belong to different verticals. Don’t ignore the power of personalization. Start here by checking out our guide to persona creation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Be Authentic<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Nothing will\u00a0turn a prospect off more than trying to pitch to them every time you’re in contact. Your purpose for lead nurturing is to maintain relationships with your prospects, and convince them of you authority in the industry. This can be done without sending out weekly promotional product emails<\/a>. Distributing relevant content will position you as a\u00a0trustworthy\u00a0company with integrity. And talking to your prospects\u00a0like they are actual\u00a0human beings<\/em> can only benefit you. While promotions should be tastefully added, content should be your\u00a0primary focus.<\/p>\n

Marketing\u00a0and sales teams should\u00a0work together to master the lead process. Resist the urge to pass your contact along for a sales pitch without first increasing\u00a0their interest. And remember — it often takes 7-10 touchpoints to have a qualified, interested lead for the sales team to close. If you beef up your lead nurturing program,\u00a0you’ll enable your business to do a lot more closing. And the marketing team, the sales team, and the CEO will all be very, very happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myth: Once a Lead Is Generated, My Job Is Done. The Truth:\u00a0Lead Nurturing Is Necessary to Drive\u00a0Prospects Towards a Purchase Decision. Your B2B sales funnel has multiple steps: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. As marketers, we spend a lot of time trying to generate leads and get prospects into the top of the sales funnel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[507,388],"tags":[670,677,118,557,558],"class_list":["post-14019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b2b-monday-myth","category-lead-generation-nurturing","tag-automated-email","tag-b2b-lead-nurturing","tag-lead-generation","tag-media-mix","tag-sales-funnel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14019"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14027,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14019\/revisions\/14027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}