Its amazing when you find credible writers or peers who have been in the b2b lead generation game for a long-time, you find that you really do have common experiences and pains. I am reading a website I stumbled upon called Mac McIntosh, the Sales-Leads-Experts. With all due respect, I find it amazing how sales and marketing trainers have amazing names ala Zig Ziglar. Now there is a chance that these are “stage names”.

Anyway, I digress in a big way here. An article Mac wrote really resonated with me: Are you dropping out of the lead nurturing race too soon? This is a great topic. Let’s attack.

Mac’s open paragraph is perfect:

“While salespeople race to close sales from the most promising and qualified short-term prospects that come from B2B leads, nearly three-quarters of the B2B leads that convert into sales are ignored. Why? Because salespeople are measured and paid for winning the race for short-term sales, usually causing them to focus on the easy sales opportunities while ignoring the longer-term B2B leads. And because there is usually no process in place, the job of nurturing, managing and tracking those longer-term sales opportunities falls by the wayside. ”

Nothing is more true. You send ten leads to the sales team, they will only love and deal with the prospects who will close fast. It can be amazing, I have dealt with sales teams that complain about or stop working a deal with a GE or Proctor and Gamble type deal because it will take so long. This is true, but because it is so extreme (and absurd), I don’t want it to take away from my point. The reality is, if there are enough deals with shorter sales cycles for the sales team to work on, they are going to let those other leads fall off and as mentioned above, will sometimes complain about the leads if they don’t get enough quick turnover leads. The problem is a ton of revenue is left on the table:

“Industry experts estimate that only one-quarter of those who are going to buy do so in the first six months. Yet, roughly another quarter buy within a 7-to-12-month period, another quarter buy within a 13-to-18-month period and the final quarter buy sometime after 18 months.”

A quarter of the deals are left on the table! Do the math.

What to do:

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As part of your Marketing plan, you have to include a DRIP (In case you are wondering: DRIP -comes from the agriculture and gardening phrase “drip irrigation.” which is the process of watering plants or crops using small amounts of water over long periods of time) or Lead Nurturing program. So, you are not only driving leads (immediate gratification) but you have a plan for what to do with those that will take a long(er) period of time.

Here are some recommendations:

1. Take the leads back from Sales. So Sales, makes the calls (or doesn’t depending on “you know what”) and they determine they are not going to currently work the lead. (timeframe, customer ended up blowing him off)

2. Put these leads into your drip campaigns. Invite them to webinars, send them whitepapers (third party are better than others), other events, send them a blog entry from the CEO, email newsletters.

3. Have a plan. Understand who you want to target and plan accordingly. Example: you may want to send different materials to executive decision makers than recommenders or influencers.

4. Keep the plan diversified. You send them the same thing, your doing it wrong. A DRIP plan is intended to be something different everytime you “communicate” with the customer.

I like Mac’s article, please read it for yourself.
Here are Mac’s questions to ask when designing B2B lead nurturing programs:

• How do we best deliver messages to the people who will influence or make the final buying decisions?
• How do we stay with them as they move through their consideration and buying processes?
• How can we communicate in a way that addresses the prospects’ issues and reduces the perceived risk of buying from your company?
• What can we offer that will cause the prospects to engage when they are ready to move forward with their buying processes?

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter