Nurturing Cool Leads into Hot Prospects

This ITAC roundtable was held at the MaRS Centre, Toronto, Ontario. Bob Becker, Principal of SMA moderated the discussion.

Many firms are struggling to integrate and connect marketing, sales and delivery
Creating credible and relevant content is critical
Consistency is key – developing a common message is vital so that everyone represents your organization in the same way
Social media is an important lead nurturing element, yet many organizations lack in-house expertise
Face-to-face interaction remains a highly effective way to reach out to prospects

Nurturing is a direct line from lead generation to ROI, where you own the process through thought leadership and bring the customer back to you
Nurturing is an ecosystem that includes developing relevant content, gaining trust, intelligence and insight into where prospects are in the buying process, and continuously engaging those who are not yet engaged
Nurturing means to be impactful by targeting your audience with information and research that is credible, and tangible evidence to build the best case
Nurturing means managing long-term relationships rather than managing the market
Nurturing is turning the process from inside/out to outside/in: seeing the buying journey from the prospect’s perspective, controlling what information cool leads find and how they find it, and making it relevant

Be aware of a significant change: buyers have access to all the information they need, and vendors are no longer the educators. Re-examine the question “how do we sell?”
Know prospect’s psychological needs and build that into communications
Use social media to get your brand out there. Embrace “tweeting”
Control the message. Social media promotes transparency – it magnifies what you say versus what you do. Internal and external communications have to align in order to send a clear message about your corporate character
Blog and tweet content that goes deeper and includes some controversy to initiate dialogue
Increase credibility and control the message by having the best experts in the community. Encourage junior employees to contribute, then recognize their contribution by calling on them as a resource
Recognize the power inherent in the general public consensus – if you tweet about a customer satisfaction problem, you’ll get a better response than from a phone call
Listening is vital. What is being said? What do we want to change?
Build customer references and use them in a public way

Database challenges: the time it takes to procure one, then cleanse the data is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – as soon as you’re finished you have to start again
Content for the nurturing process has high value but can be costly to create
Organizational philosophy and structure has to change. The process can get disrupted when leads are passed over to partners
Conversation has moved online and word of mouth vehicles have changed drastically. Corporate philosophy has to shift to embrace these new formats
Need to understand the roles of all involved in the decision making process and see it not just as one individual, but as a collection

Define the process. Create as much self-selection for the prospect as possible – content and contact. It’s easy to say, but hard to do
Progressive profiling allows you to drive credibility with customized communication
Look – who are they as customers? Listen – what do they want? Who do they trust? Communication from a trusted source has higher impact
Content that’s independent of the vendor has greater credibility
Use social media to get engagement

All businesses struggle with measuring ROI as it involves multiple complex factors
Can use fixed percentage of investment
You can prove out ROI for investment based on a bunch of assumptions, but by the time results are received in the next quarter, everyone has moved on
ROI is complex and involves many factors. By measuring a campaign’s reach, value, conversion, velocity and return, you may be able to identify gaps in the model and invest in appropriate areas
Make delineation between market creation and market assistance. The first drives new product; the second helps it progress through to the close
Go to upfront ROI with a mixed model to drive awareness, progress and wins
Use advanced analytics to optimize how to spend against demographics and generation
Handshake with sales has to be part of it
Everyone is in sales. ROI is an investment of time. Make time count. Shift philosophy. Engage credible experts in the front line to sell within the time constraints of their jobs

Have one common view of the pipeline across sales and marketing, including the same sales report to reflect this unified vision. A team from the CEO down needs to drive alignment
Get sales on board. Include them in the upfront design of the marketing plan
Street level knowledge (from sales) is more current and key to success. Need an internal collaborative strategy
Go back to simple tactics. Engage current customers with prospects, or longstanding customers with new customers
Need a benchmark across all clients. Of B2B, what share of the pie is social traffic driven? With B2C 86% is Facebook and Twitter. For B2B, 14% is LinkedIn and 75% is Facebook and Twitter
All businesses are struggling with B2B social media. Businesses are not talking to communities – really, it’s individuals with credibility talking to like-minded individuals. Need to identify, collect and talk to them in an appropriate way

Grant Sojnocki, Marketing and Business Development Manager, Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) Canada
Steven Woods, Chief Technology Officer, Eloqua
Andrew Berthoff, Senior Vice-President, Environics Communications
Bob Humphreys, Country Leader, Demand Programs and Digital Strategy, IBM Canada
James Nicholson, Senior Manager, Windows, Microsoft Canada

Posted By: SMA

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