In the age of fast-paced multi-touch campaigns that can be executed with the touch of button, we sometimes forget that we have a massive amount of potential prospecting data sitting our marketing databases. Prospects and potentially customers that have not been touched in years by us.
In the networked age of communications, and the power of word of mouth, we need to remember to think of nurture marketing as well. I know that many companies have a nurture-marketing program and I bet that most of them are the monthly newsletter. While there is nothing wrong with a monthly newsletter, as long as it provides relevant value added content, we also need to think of multi-touch nurturing campaigns as well.
Why Should We Nurture?
Here some interesting statistics from the Nurture Institute:
· According to a US Government study 70% of customer defections are due to nothing ore than a general feeling of indifference from their supplier
· An internal employee will drop a prospect after 2 contacts when 13 or more may be required.
· 90% of leads are discarded without contact
· 19% of leads are ready to buy within 90 days
· 21% of leads are ready to buy within 12 months
· 14% of leads are ready to buy 12 – 24 months post-contract (up-sell)
· 25% of leads are ready to buy 24 months or more of post-contracts
Why not nurture, should be the real question. A Nurture program can expand your brand, and position your company as trusted experts in your field if you provide truly valuable content. You can attain a position of leadership through education in a well-rounded nurturing program. A solid multi-touch nurturing program can improve your overall conversion rates as part of your campaign. For example:
From a post in the Marketo Blog and referencing a study by Rain Today, we find that only 10-20% of a marketing campaign’s sales “leads” (I assume BANTS Qualified here) are ready to be passed to sales. Upwards of 50% of the leads generated require further nurturing, and about 25% of all leads are not qualified in a given campaign.
This means that half or more of all potential leads that generate in our marketing campaigns require further nurturing.
The ROI of Nurturing
If 50% of all leads need additional nurturing than I think the ROI potential is clear. Let’s take a look at the nurturing tactic of newsletters and how one company, HP, took it to the next level and impacts over $100M in revenue according to the Forrester B2B Email Marketing Best Practices Study. What makes the HP newsletter program unique is that it is developed from a deep understanding of their prospects, and customers and is highly customized and has been optimized through rigorous testing over the years. Some interesting facts:
n HP tailors content to user interest with 54 different versions of the newsletter each month;
n HP focuses on segmentation and serving up dynamic content based on user profiles.
n HP delivers real value to their audience by focusing on tips for improving usage of the products versus cross-sell upsell promotions.
So its just good marketing and good business to get a programmatic nurtur marketing program started. Speaking of that I need to go bust some heads as I’m still waiting for mine to start. Nuff Said….