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Hello Bob,
I hope you're doing well.
I have an announcement to make, but I'll get
to that in a minute. This issue is about lead nurturing, or 'drip'
marketing. Lead nurturing is the process of having a consistent and
meaningful dialogue with prospects who aren't ready to buy now. It's keeping
in touch with qualified targets on a regular basis with information that is
highly readable and of value to the prospect. What it is not
is a salesperson calling every now and then to 'touch base' and ask,
"Are you ready to buy yet?"
The American Marketing Association, Forrester Research, and
Marketing Sherpa have all done recent studies to determine the percentage
of leads lost by long sales cycle B2B companies. They found that between 70
and 80% of qualified leads are thrown away because they aren't ready to buy
within the next month or two.
Most B2B companies aren't generating enough
new business to meet their growth goals. Why not? They can't find, hire,
train and retain enough winning salespeople. Those scarce resources are
rightfully focused on the prospects most likely to buy soon. And, if
there's any time left over, they're forging relationships with the next
tier of prospects in the sales funnel.
Successful companies with complex products
and services nurture qualified propspects. Large corporations have the
resources to formalize and systematize the process. What about smaller
firms?
Now it's time for my announcement:
Bolen Communications has entered into a
partnership with Gentle Rain Marketing, an Atlanta-based consultancy that
designs and implements total business development solutions. Until now,
Bolen has delivered sales tools and marketing communications. The
partnership with Gentle Rain adds a whole new class of service, where we
can automate the process of lead nurturing and build systematic campaigns.
Mark Satterfield,
owner of Gentle Rain, said, "We're delighted to be partnering with
Bolen. Bob Leonard has significant expertise in B2B marketing and in the
nurturing process for long sales cycle products and services. This
partnership extends our reach and gives us account support on the ground in
Florida."
Successful nurturing campaigns require three
components:
- significant knowledge of
the product/service being sold, and of the target market's related
needs,
- concise, highly readable
content developed to deliver value to specific audiences,
- infrastructure that
automates the process.
The first component comes from you. You know
your product inside and out. You know who you're selling to and the pains
that your product relieves.
The second component is where I come in. A
professional copywriter can craft a persuasive story for all kinds of
products - in all kinds of media - and move the reader through the funnel
toward a purchase. How do you know when you've found a good copywriter?
Read a few lines. Do complex ideas come across clearly? Are you entertained
as you're informed? Do you want to keep reading? Bingo!
And the third component is what Gentle Rain
does. The nurturing process looks straightforward and simple, but it's
difficult to execute properly. Gentle Rain automates the process. Content
in various media resides in a library. The system, following rules that we
set up together, automatically personalizes the content and delivers it to
the appropriate prospects at pre-determined intervals. Responses (usually
designed to be sent to your salespeople) are solicited with each
communication, so we know how the prospect is progressing through the
funnel, and when it's time for a sales person to engage him or her.
To learn more about the Gentle Rain Process,
click here and download our free
report.
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