Do you use a software for lead nurturing?

Hi Mary-

I have two comments in respose to your question:

1) A big AMEN to everything Howard wrote (I wish I could click "thumbs up" more than once). And I would even amplify his last comments about developing plans and strategies prior to buying any software solution. I would go further and suggest that a solid "first release" lead nurturing strategy (for most companies) can be described in 10 PPT slides or less and 2-3 Visio flow charts. If version 1 of your nurturing effort gets more complicated than that, something is not right.

2) Once you've defined your game plan, you might consider identifying vendors who can operate your nurturing program "as a service" but with no software to purchase and implement on your side. Some of these companies can add value that software can't, such as integrating phone calls, content creation, and lead scoring expertise. Most of these companies leverage one of the market-leading software platforms, so you get the benefit of the features without the exposure to "learning curve effects." The "service bureau" approach is yet another way to mitigate many of the risks Howard identified in his reply.

Good luck!

Tom

Mary,
Good question, and I would agree with Howard's comment. Lead nurturing is all about the overall strategy for engaging your customers, and that includes great content, a relevant reason to be in touch, and of course technology to get the job done.

Lots of good technology options out there (I'm with Eloqua - http://www.eloqua.com which is one option). If evaluating technology platforms for nurturing look at:

- Email Deliverabilty; being able to keep your emails out of the spam folder is key to good nurturing

- Rich Content Personalization Options; you'll use a lot of dynamic content based on demographics or activity

- Web Activity Tracking; you'll need to be able to target and time your content based on a person's web behaviour more than anything else.

Good luck,
Steve

Hi,

The best software to use depends on your needs. For larger companies, I would recommend aprimo or MarketBright, for mid to large size companies - Marketo (which is what we use at Adchemy), for smaller size companies - Genoo or Act-on.

Also with something like Marketo or Act-on you would get the full marketing automation - not only nurturing functionality. You can create html emails, landing pages, full blown marketing campaigns all in one place.

If you want to do just email campaigns - something like Silverpop could be a good bet for you.

Maria

Mary: Howard is right about nurturing not necessarily being about the software, but about the strategy. I would encourage you however to think of nurturing in the large context of the overall Lead Management Framework(TM). So when it comes to nurturing, it will be hard to determine what to nurture if you do not have your lead qualification process (including lead scoring) in place. You will also have a difficult time developing successful lead nurturing programs if you have not developed and documented your lead routing processes. While lead nurturing is an important process for any company and should be adapted, it should not be done in a siloed approach, but should be considered in the large context of lead management process.

As for the software that should be used to enable your nurturing process and strategy, we recommend Silverpop to our clients as well as use it ourselves internally. With their new release of Engage 8 announced in April we find that the stability of the platform, highest marks in deliverability, ease of use and flexibility to make it mold to the process (not the other way around), is rare to find in other solutions.

Carlos Hidalgo
President
The Annuitas Group
chidalgo@annuitasgroup.com

We use SalesNexus at SalesNexus.com. They have great nurturing programs available and a free 30 day trial to get your feet wet.

Mary,
Yes, we use software. However, my advice is to start small. Firstly, simply consider what you want to achieve with a nurturing program. Those that tell you that nurturing will dramatically improve lead generation; you need to treat with some care. It’s true it will help, but over some time. Generally, nurturing is great for just improving the contact points you have with potential customers and just people in your market.

To make it reasonably short: Think big, but operate small to start with.
My suggestion is that you use software that can take a number of (for example) web vistors who provided their contact details and then just send them a scheduled number of emails. Each email should be useful for them in finding out more about your services or products. Perhaps start with a CASE STUDY, then a SURVEY report, and then your Whitepaper. Any reliable software in this market should be able to schedule this for you, and show you how the people you are nurturing are responding (did they open the email? did they read the Whitepaper?).
Over time we have found this to be a good way of improving our market visibility and even our leads…. but give it some time.

Hi May,

As Tom Scearce said, Howard's comments are spot on. Although marketing automation software will greatly help in the execution of marketing initiatives, you first need to develop the marketing plan to in order to get the most out of the software. Also, it is a good idea to start off with smaller sized campaigns and build up as you go as you garner insight into what is working well and what is not within the campaign (marketing automation software should be a big help here). Lead nurturing programs and scoring rules often take some refining over time before they are really honed in.

Since it sounds like you are just getting started with marketing automation, I suggest you look for vendors that have a "try before you buy" offering. Although sales presentations and demos can look great, seeing how the product works first hand is the best way to determine if it will work well for you before making the purchase commitment.

Topseos.com just published a list of the "Top 10 Marketing Automation Software" companies at http://www.topseos.com/rankings-of-best-marketing-automation-software which might of use as well.

Best of luck,

Tom Elrod
CTO, Co-founder
LoopFuse
http://www.loopfuse.com

We used to do our nurturing via Vertical Response which means we did bulk nurturing. It was still quite effective but mostly because we had a strategy for how we wanted to nurture which is that we wanted to make it informal and newsy so we tried to tie our messaging to current events whenever possible.

We recently switched over to Marketo and are in the process of automating nurturing workflows. We'll continue the same approach but Marketo (as compared to Vertical Response) will enable us to send more customized nurturing threads based on industry or specific interest.

But, to Howard's point, you have to have a strategy, be consistent and make them unique/interesting. If you do it right, you can get 5% or better response rates. If you do it wrong, you'll get a LOT of unsubscribes.

Last suggestion: we find it works better if they come from a specific individual rather than the company. Most email marketing systems will allow you to do that.

Kevin Payne
Senior Director of Marketing
i365, A Seagate Company

We are currently using Pardot and paying very close attention to the functionality in development over at Hubspot. The reason behind Hubspot may be my best contribution in addition to the really great feedback you have already received. First let me echo the importance of process as it relates to lead and opportunity nurturing. Make sure you clearly define the flow and pay particularly close attention to persona and how you want to score your leads based on digital body language and specifics in terms of titles, company size, etc.

Now for Hubspot. I am a big believer in a closed loop system. Essentially, the ability to measure the process end-to-end (all the way to revenue!) along with the impact of all related changes (e-mail content, website content, blog postings, etc.). This may be well down the path for you at this point but at some stage this requirement should become key. Ask yourself this question, is your goal to show better results for marketing in terms of qualified and ultimately "sales accepted" leads or to grow revenue? You will be surprised at how many people have not thought about their answer.

I am hopeful that Hubspot can meet and exceed this requirement based on the work that is currently being done around e-mail marketing and lead nurturing that will extend what is already an excellent inbound marketing solution.

All the best!

I would recommend that you take a look at Aprimo, recently identified by Gartner as a market leader for integrated B2B & B2C marketing software automation. They have many modules, including a comprehensive suite of Campaign Management and Lead Management modules. Check out www.aprimo.com They typically play with mid-tier- large corporates, but recently launched a SaaS based solution for SME's.

Hi Mary,
You can opt for various softwares available in the market, however you can also employ a company that actually helps you nurture needs, does Pre Qualification of your leads and then sets up appointments for you Sales team. Incase you are interested how we can help you feel free to drop me a line and ill be happy to call you right back and answer any questions that you may have.

Sukrut
sukrut.trivedi@salebuild.com