When marketers talk about "lead nurturing" I am shocked at how often that really just means sending out monthly, one-size-fits-all emails to their entire database of prospects with just different lead generating offers each month.
Lead nurturing is so much more than just automating "drip emails". Lead nurturing is about relationships. And relationships are about people, not emails. Relationships are about helping people solve problems, often with information. Relationships are about sharing and trust. Relationships are about conversations. Relationships are about social media.
To illustrate what I am talking about, here is a recent example of a true inbound marketing version of lead nurturing. This is the story of a woman who recently bought our product (HubSpot) for her company. Names and some details have been changed to protect the innocent. :)
- I "met" Kristen in an online marketing forum, where she asked a question about Internet marketing that I answered. She thanked me for the response.
- I took my answer to Kristen's question, expanded on it, and posted it to our blog. This article about How to Convince a CEO to use Internet Marketing is the resulting article.
- I emailed Kristen a link to the article, and established a more personal connection by giving some additional info I did not share in the forum answer.
- After a couple emails back and forth, I asked Kristen to be a friend on Facebook. She accepted.
- I then invited her to attend one of our free HubSpot webinars. Kristen registered for the webinar.
- After the webinar, one of our salespeople (Heidi) called her. Heidi talked with Kristen, and she said they were not ready to buy yet, they had not decided how important Internet marketing was going to be for them.
- I invited Kristen to attend an in person "SEO 101" class I was offering. She traveled some distance (about 45-60 minutes) to attend the free class.
- After the class Kristen came to talk to me and we spoke for a short time. I answered some more questions. I asked her if she might want to see how HubSpot could help with Internet marketing. She said yes.
- After a new call from Heidi, Kristen scheduled a demo of HubSpot.
- Kristen watched the demo with Heidi and then quickly bought our product.
Now, there is not a product that automates all of this process. Why? Its very personal. But there are tools you can use. In fact, we used a lot of tools. I used our HubSpot blog. I used email. I used Facebook. I used a webinar. Her information was in Salesforce.com. I even used an in person event. Heidi used the phone and GoToMeeting.
What non-traditional (non-email based) lead nurturing are you doing? How are you leveraging social media for lead nurturing? Leave a comment below.
UPDATE: Brian Carroll has written about this article and added some comments at his great blog - Start With a Lead
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Federico Muñoa 4:56 PM on February 13, 2008
I was really sorry because I coldn´t attend to this webinar, even if I have the basic knowledge about SEO its always good to remind the reason why we are doing it.
Till next time Mike
Carlos F Muñoa
Anonymous 5:10 PM on February 13, 2008
@Robin - Thanks! Glad you liked it. Tell all your friends! If you have hired and been burned by an SEO consultant before I would really encourage you to take a look at HubSpot. Its only $250/month and you get all the knowledge we have in our heads plus great tools to do SEO yourself. HubSpot is probably cheaper and better than the consultant you had before.
@Carlos - Thanks! If you registered you will get a link to the video recording.
Guy Cook 5:50 PM on February 13, 2008
I use the business card with my phone number, and if they're long distance they can contact me via Skype. I"m someone they can call when they need Internet Solutions.
mike ashworth 6:19 PM on February 13, 2008
What I love is that this is how business used to operate many years ago before technology got in the way and severed personal connections. Now we are seeing Technology used, as it should be, to assist in building personal relationships.
Mike Ashworth
Business Coaching and Consultancy
Brighton and Hove, Sussex, UK
Dan Elliott 12:45 AM on February 14, 2008
After the football post, I was really hoping for something with more substance this this post. This seems like common sense. I hope the future posts improve.
Anonymous 1:45 AM on February 14, 2008
@Dan Elliott - After the horrible Patriots loss, I would think you would expect me to stick to Internet marketing :)
Daniel Elliott 1:55 AM on February 14, 2008
Hah! That was a great loss Mike. Get you head screwed back on! ;)Seriously, I have really enjoyed some of your blogs, and I am looking forward to something a little meatier in the future.
EnthWave Media 6:00 AM on February 14, 2008
Wonderful article. I always said that that technology should be used to enhance the process of
building leads. You can't expect to just blast your prospects with a monthly email and expect some magical connection to "just happen"
I've seen a lot of frustration and money lost when people bank on these magical conversion rates from hard selling a bunch of people that have know idea who your are and believe me, don't care.
Bravo!
Sean Giorgianni 2:59 PM on February 14, 2008
I found your blog by reading another blogger (because I recently launched my own blog). I spent my entire Valentine's morning reading every post ... you guys are that good! Keep up the great work. And thank you for your wonderful - and free - site analysis tool. Be sure to look me up if I can ever return the favor.
Bryan Blaylock 4:19 PM on February 14, 2008
In respose to Raza (I liked Boycottsweatshops.com, btw) one way to get your multitude of salesperson to effectively interact with a lead/client is through the disciplined use of a CRM or SFA system. If they note the gist of all conversations, are asking the right questions then they should be able to set a follow up with the full knowledge of what was discussed/of interest and maybe even prepare appropriate materials and responses before calling/emailing. As a CEO I'm sure your clever enough to keep all that info in your head, ;) but a mere salesperson needs to be religious in logging and noting all communications. SEO gets em to raise their hand, your saleteam (like Heidi who does a great job, BTW) are the ones ultimately responsible for establishing and nurturing that client. BTW I am not a CRM/SFA sales guy, just a mere Bus Dev Mgr. You guys at Hub-Spot do a brilliant job! Keep it up!
Anonymous 4:24 PM on February 14, 2008
@Raza - You ask in more detail the natural questions that evolve from this article. I am not sure a good answer exists yet. If I were a salesrep at CDW as you mention, I would manage my pipeline in SalesForce.com. I would want to keep in touch with people that were enegaged in buying or evaluating something. I think marketing should be responsible for lead nurturing. So, if I were that sales rep I would want a way to move leads back to marketing, and marketing should be smart about offering them webinars, making friends with them on Facebook, letting them read your blog, etc. And then when they indicated a higher level of interests, promote them to a lead again. I don't know if it is possible to really do this in the way that we would want. The platforms/communities you should use are nto easy to connect.
Raza Imam 5:36 PM on February 14, 2008
Mike and Bryan,
Thanks for your insight. I don't use a CRM so that's why I didn't think of it... your comments really make sense. I also like the idea of marketing nurturing leads.
Mike's story is the picture perfect scenario and mimics my own interactions with clients. I just couldn't figure out how to scale it up. Everyone's talking about web 2.0 and participation in social media, and interaction on blogs, but I couldn't figure out you could do this on a grander scale.
Mike, I also appreciate the maturity and sophistication of thought when you said it may not be possible to solve this problem exactly how we want. There's not always a perfect solution to everything and it takes a lot of maturity to admit it.
And for the record, I may be the CEO, but I'm definitely not the sharpest pencil in the box ;-)
Bryan Blaylock 7:13 PM on February 14, 2008
This conversation has inspired me to post a blog, my first (I'm blushing) discussing Bus Dev and SFA and CRM's. I agree with Mike, the SalesForce solution is one of the best.. and it does take some time to get familiarized, but the effort is far far outweighed by the benefits. If interested my blog is at http://busdevil.blogspot.com/
Best of luck!
Anonymous 8:33 PM on March 10, 2008
@John Parker - that type of lead intelligence is cool and useful... I hear there is a cool product called "HubSpot" that does some cool stuff just like that :)
Anonymous 10:53 PM on March 11, 2008
@John - HubSpot does reveal company names in aggregate based on website visitors, it also tells you the company name for an individual even if someone fills out a form using a yahoo or gmail address (all of this technology is limited by the limitations of IP address lookups, like most similar solutions)
mohinder 2:47 PM on March 19, 2008
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