“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” – John F. Kennedy
Lead nurturing works and every company has a unique approach towards it. However, there are several myths associated with lead management and nurturing that you need to put behind you. Let’s take a look at six such B2B lead nurturing myths and expose them using statistical proofs.
1. Each lead is a good lead
A lead is not a lead until it is qualified. According to Marketing Sherpa’s research, 79% of leads provided by marketing departments never convert into sales. Therefore considering each lead as a quality lead can create a lot of chaos in your sales funnel.
2. Give priority to only sales-ready leads
These stats by Marketing Sherpa suggest that only 21% of your marketing leads are sales-ready. But you simply can’t overlook the remaining 79%. Based on the lead score you should develop a lead management process to pursue all leads. Some leads need immediate aggressive response while others take longer to mature.
3. Why bother? Sales team can do the lead management and qualification
It’s true that your sales team can better evaluate your leads, probably even better than your automation software. But we can’t ignore the fact that lead management and nurturing are extremely time consuming. Marketing and Sales should team up to better optimize the lead management process.
4. B2B Lead nurturing is an extravagance
According to Forrester Research via HubSpot, proficiency in lead nurturing results in a 50% increase in sales-ready leads, along with a 33% reduction in its cost. Hence B2B lead nurturing is a must and not a luxury.
5. Marketing Automation Solutions = Lead Management = Lead Nurturing
If you are among those companies who think marketing automation software will automatically fix your lead management process, then probably you need to research harder. Lead management is a business process that can be empowered by better technology (automation software). Setting a robust lead management process is most important. Also, lead nurturing is not equal to lead management. Lead management is a very broad term (comprises of varied components) and lead scoring and nurturing are subsets of it.
6. Every lead can be nurtured the same way
Not all your leads are at the same phase of the buying cycle. Also your leads fall into different categories by personas, geography, industry etc. You simply can’t use the same messaging or content to nurture your lead.
Conclusion: In this B2B competitive market we just can’t afford to abandon leads just because they are not sales-ready. Every lead is unique and so should be the approach. Aligning the lead management process and nurturing such leads will help companies better engage with their prospects.
