Respond.

Yep that’s it. When an inbound lead comes in, respond (and faster).

In the March issue of Harvard Business Review, an article, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, practically stunned me. Written by two graduate business professors and the CEO of InsideSales,com, it speaks to the glaring gap in the response time of businesses to leads generated online.

A survey that audited 2, 241 U.S. companies revealed the following data when measuring response times to a web generated test lead:

• 37% responded to their lead within an hour,
• 16% responded within one to 24 hours,
• 24% took more than 24 hours—
• and 23% of the companies never responded at all.

The average response time, among companies that responded within 30 days, was 42 hours.

Further data from a separate study cited in the article offered the following:

U.S. Firms that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead (which we defined as having a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker) as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later—and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer.

You are no doubt spending a significant portion of your budget to drive people to your site (paid media), attract people to your site (owned media), and influence people to your site (earned media) … all that effort goes to waste if you don’t respond.

What should you do to make sure you are not in the 23%? At a minimum consider the following:

1. Set a standard response time
   Everything starts with having a timeframe upon which sales and marketing have agreed. Further, your decision should be a customer centric one … i.e. you should determine the answer to the following question, “When someone completes a web based contact form, how quickly would they like me to respond?”
2. Assess Your Current Lead Capture Processes
   What information are you asking for? Where does that information go? To a person, a database, an email address? Is all the data being captured?
3. Test Current Internal Lead Workflow
   What happens once a lead is received? Where does it go? Who is responsible for it? Has that person’s duties changed? (say to social media?). Establish regular real-life testing of all your incoming lead AND contact forms on your website, landing pages, blog etc to protect yourself. If you not testing it, you have no idea whether or not it is working properly.
4. Adopt a Real Time Enterprise mentality.
   From a technology standpoint, the notion of the Real Time Enterprise is possible today. Yes, it requires significant changes in business processes and a customer centric approach to sales and service delivery. Yes, it different than how you are most likely conducting business today. That said, if you can increase your ability to qualify leads by seven times, it sort of make sense to at least be thinking about it, no?
5. Marketing Automation Is No Longer A Nice To Have
   While part of item number three, in a world of doing more with less and prioritizing how sales teams are most effectively deployed, it almost goes without saying that marketing automation is now a must.

Respond. That’s all I am asking. Start the conversation with those interested in doing so.

Being too big, understaffed, dealing with distributors, proper field assignment etc, are all poor excuses and clear indicators that you are being “company centric” and not “customer centric.”

This week’s #B2BChat was yet another fast-paced exchange of insightful input as our participants tackled the ins and outs of lead nurturing. The chat zoned in on hot questions that dealt with the various lead nurturing strategies that would work, the kinds of content that would have the most impact and success, the significance of lead scoring, the tools that can be used, etc.

This is a summary adapted from the complete transcript and if you want to read the full version then you can just drop by here.

What strategies work for lead nurturing, what doesn’t, and what could be improved upon?

@asuthosh: Nurturing implies constant and strategic engagement and that’s the fundamental basis of nurturing

@fearlesscomp: Story telling process – problem to solution works. Random messaging does not work. To improve, develop deep buyer personas.

@paige_oneill: thought leadership and best practices work well in my experience

@utollwi: Understand the buyers cycle and stage – test the message and call to action – optimize and repeat.

@shelleyryan: Most marketers think of webinars as lead GENERATION events, but they work for lead NURTURING, too.

@andrewspoeth: also, build your lead nurturing strategy around customer trust. High trust = low risk.

@kseniacoffman: Research & understanding the customer – always better than throwing darts in the dark :-)

What content works well for lead nurturing? How can it be effectively marketed?

@NathanRKing: Content needs to be new and relevant to your target audience.

@fearlesscomp: Tough question. Good content appeals to the recipient and is in the media they like. That’s why insights so critical.

@robbtrost: Provide solutions for the participants. Intriguing content w/ brevity will keep ‘em coming back

@paige_oneill: our best performing pieces by far are all “top 10 steps” “best practices” Everyone hungry for how-tos.

@asuthosh: Content that customers can use, not blatant marketing collateral. Content that helps solve their problems. Trust follows

@andrewspoeth: Use different content for different stages of the purchase cycle in lead nurturing

@utollwi: Good educational content pertinent to the buyer persona and the stage they are in. ROI examples, 3rd party expert info etc.

@chadhorenfeldt: we’ve found from benchmark data that not only content is important but the timing. If it’s timed well, response increases

@ExoPoirier: educating with content on marketing operations basics, helping prospects build their marketing dept, works well for my targets

@kimgeralds: Monitor the conversations to determine what customers are discussing. LinkedIn groups r great. Use content to respond.

What and how significant a role can lead scoring play when nurturing leads?

@fearlesscomp: IMHO Scoring is critical. Cannot know status of nurturing unless we can watch for the “hand raise”

@AGB2BPro: Lead scoring helps determine how far they go along the nurturing path/how much content they receive

@joezuc: Scoring is critical – after all, the nurturing is all about “grooming” the lead for submission to Sales.

@fearlesscomp: Lead nurturing and lead scoring need to be married. Work best used together.

@b2bento: Lead Scoring is the bridge between Marketing and Sales silos too. It’ V.V. Important!

@utollwi: It can be important if honest lead scoring is done recorded Helps set budget for each segment of leads

@joezuc: Lead nurturing w/o scoring serves the firm no purpose. It must always be about moving the ball to the goal (conversion/sales)

@joezuc: and scoring tells the marketer whether to keep nurturing the lead ( to get to sales eventually) or to dump it.

What lead nurturing tools are you using/considering to use? What have the results been to date?

@mcbru: We use intelligent dialogs that survey customers about whether *they* think they’re a hot lead.

@ExoPoirier: hubspot and Sugar CRM tightly integrated

@andrewspoeth: I’ve mostly used Marketo. Very easy to build lead nurturing campaigns and track results. Q4

@fearlesscomp: Marketo is great, but pricey, which is why we use Genoo.

@paige_oneill: That’s what we do (@aprimo) (www.aprimo.com) so I’m lucky to use it. Challenge is adapting people to processes. myself included.

@sharonmostyn: I attended @Eloqua (www.eloqua.com) conference in ’08 & was impressed w/them-I’m sure they’ve made even bigger strides but new emplyr can’t afford

How do you want to see lead nurturing evolve? What’s your wish list?

@joezuc: I want to see lead nurtuing truly become personalized w/content that is individually tailored to a buyer rather than impersonal

@cuferg: More integration of tools, combine offline and online analytics.

@fearlesscomp: My hope is that B2B companies will finally go beyond the bare minimum and craft highly personalized campaigns.

@utollwi: better reports in the tools and always better training for all teams sales & marketing…make them believers

@joezuc: I hope that mktrs consider variable data publishing to include personalized direct mail also during a drip marketing effort.

@sharonmostyn: Lead nurturing wish list: inexpensive automation that easily delivers personalized msgs to the right person at the optimal time.

@ExoPoirier: Lead nurturing OUTSOURCED to specialists like us! Client B2B sales team concentrating on hottest leads. Tried it and it works

@jeremyvictor: Let’s make it “customer nurturing”. We are starting the relationship wrong by calling human beings “leads”

@jeremyvictor: Let’s make it about them not us …

As expected, it was an insightful session indeed. Many thanks to all who participated. Join us for next week’s #B2Bchat, Thursday, August 19, at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific, 8am Aug 20 in Singapore). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.

---

About the B2Bblogger:Anol Bhattacharya (@B2Bento) is CEO of GetIT Comms, a marketing and communications consultancy for hi-tech and telco’s, where he helps clients (Cisco Systems Inc, IBM, IDC Asia Pacific, HP, Datacraft etc) in the field of B2B marketing, demand generation, lead nurturing, social media strategy & implementation, interactive digital media for marketing initiatives and user experience design.

Anol is one of the key contributors at B2Bento.com and has had his articles published in various media in the region.

---

Craig Rosenberg, @thefunnelholic, in preparation for the Focus Virtual Summit on Mastering Lead Management, Tuesday, June 29th, asked Focus Expert speakers and sponsors to supply him with 4-6 tips on Lead Management for an article on his blog titled: Lead Management: 67 Tips From The Biggest Experts In The Field.

The list of experts included some of the most well respected people in the industry, (some I knew and others I didn’t), including David Raab, Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems, Howard Sewell, Spear Marketing, Maria Pergolino, Marketo, Ardath Albee, Marketing Interactions, Carlos Hidalgo, Annuitas Group, Brian Solis, Future-works,  Mac McIntosh, Sales Lead Experts, Mike Damphousse, Green Leads, Anthony Carraturo, Merit Direct, Adam Needles, Silverpop, Mark Feldman, Netprospex, Craig Stouffer, Pinpointe On-Demand, and Parker Trewin, Genius.

I thought I would join in the fun and continue his list of 67 lead management tips with six more.

Six Lead Management Tips

68. Be extremely careful that your automated lead nurturing messages are for *someone* not *everyone* – (it’s not one size fits all – use your buyer personas and give your messages a personal tone).
69. Just because you are saving time with marketing automation, doesn’t mean the human beings you are sending the messages to can’t tell the messages are automated. Make your content helpful and useful or risk the dreaded unsubscribe and or even worse – a failed relationship.
70. Be sure your messages are timeless. Mistakes like this are dead giveaways that a machine emailed your content and not a person.
71. Don’t believe that your lead management process and marketing automation system will accelerate / hasten your buyers to move faster through the buying process. Only your remarkable content is capable of that.
72. Listen. Listen to your buyers, listen to your metrics, and listen to your sales team. Don’t forget the important role listening plays in improving processes, communications, and relationships.
73. Today’s B2B buyers are busy. Your marketing and products are not the center of their universe. Keep your messages concise, meaningful, and addressed at their needs not yours.

I urge you to read the first 67 lead management tips as the experts provide really good food for thought on lead management, marketing automation, and building relationships with today’s B2B buyers.

To close I’ll quote Craig,

The main thing is that lead management is absolutely essential to ROI-conscious marketing departments.  If you don’t have a lead management process, get one.  If you do have a lead management process, you should always be optimizing.

Visit Craig’s blog, The Funnelholic, (and read it regularly) to stay informed on B2B demand generation, lead management, and online media. He is a B2Bblogger shaping the future of B2B marketing and one that you should be paying attention to, I am.

What are your tips for lead management? Can we get to 100 tips? As B2B marketers, we can use all the lead management tips we can get, no?

Summary of June 17, 2010 #B2Bchat Session

Webinars are an important part of the B2B demand generation toolkit. What advice do marketers have when it comes to producing, promoting, and following up on webinars? We put this question to our #B2Bchat audience in our latest session. Here is what the experts had to say:

Q. What are innovative ideas of promoting webinars?

• Schedule the webinar on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. 9am Pacific (noon Eastern) was cited as a preferred time. An alternate strategy would be to schedule webinars when others aren’t being held, e.g. Fridays, to avoid competition.
• Send a voicemail service reminder to registrants the day before.
• Use social media to promote via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Place reminders on your corporate site and banners on industry publications.
• To increase attendance, send email reminders 7 days, 3 days and 1 day prior.
• Offer a short video preview.
• Offer a prize draw for attendees.
• Average webinar attendance ranges from 30% to 70% depending on industry and qualifications of registrants.
• Many people actually prefer viewing on demand, after hours; it allows for fast-forwarding, pausing and skimming.
• When offering an Outlook calendar invite, make sure to set the reminder. Many default to “no reminder.”

Q. How can marketers leverage Twitter with webinars?

• Tweet before, during and after the webinar.
• For sharing the tweet transcript post-event, www.wthashtag.com is GREAT. Just make sure you register & describe the tag beforehand. www.wthashtag.com will summarize tweets and also illustrate via bar chart who your top tweeters were, so you know who to thank.
• Prepare a few canned tweets based on content ahead of time to get the conversation going.
• Have designated Twitterer, and expert to answer questions.
• Don’t forget the twitter hashtag. Have it on all slides for latecomers. And the host should determine, create and promote the hashtag far in advance, or someone else might.

Q. What are some of the biggest mistakes that marketers make when producing webinars?

• Not sufficiently promoting the event in advance
• Not sharing the content afterwards
• Droning on about “company capabilities” esp. if at the beginning
• Saying “on this slide”
• Not following up with attendees
• Not inviting people to submit questions in advance
• Not leaving enough time for Q&A. 1/3 of the total webinar time should be alloted for this.

Q. What is the best way to follow up after a webinar?

• Send a short email to attendees referencing the highlights from the webinar and Q&A, plus link to the recording.
• Follow up on survey results. If someone provides very interesting comments, write back personally.
• Send info on the next webinar.
• Whatever follow-up activity, the presenter should set the expectation. If a rep. is going to call, tell them so in advance.

Q. What will webinars look like in 5 years?

• Webinars will be more interactive, include things like instant polls, widgets, integrated payments and social media capabilities.
• There will be less PowerPoint and more video.
• Audiences may be smaller, but more specialized.
• Mobile devices will play a bigger role.

Join us again this week for #B2Bchat – Thursday, June 24 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Pacific). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.

---

About the B2Bblogger: Andrew Spoeth is an independent marketing consultant who specializes in B2B demand generation. He most recently worked as the marketing director at Enquiro, one of North America’s leading search marketing agencies. You’ll also find Andrew speaking at industry events, co-moderating the weekly #B2Bchat series on Twitter, and blogging at MarketingFinger.com. You can follow him on Twitter at@andrewspoeth.

---

Editor’s Note: In our ongoing efforts to provide you with relevant, helpful information, I am pleased to inform you of a new relationship we have formed with BrightTALK.

First Event: How To Build A Demand Generation Machine With Online Events

WHEN: Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 11:00pm PDT / 2:00pm EDT / 7:00pm BST

Every marketer responsible for lead generation and nurturing knows the power of online events. However, most still find it challenging to build a demand generation machine that turns out audience and fuels their sales department with quality leads. Join David Pitta with BrightTALK’s Online Events Academy as he lays out the steps needed to build your own event machine this quarter.

PRESENTER: David Pitta, Evangelist, BrightTALK

Register And Learn How To Build A Demand Generation Machine With Online Events

TOPICS COVERED:

• Building a scalable content strategy
• Scoring leads and assigning them to your team
• Designing your drip email campaigns
• Nurturing leads with on-demand assets
• Measuring the success of your events and leads

View this webcast from the Online Events Academy live to submit real-time questions to the presenter and vote in audience polls or on demand at your convenience any time following the recording: http://academy.brighttalk.com/events

ABOUT THE PRESENTER:

David Pitta has 15 years of technology sales and marketing experience including over a decade in the online events industry. He now serves as BrightTALK’s Demand Generation Marketing Manager and Evangelist and has helped thousands of marketing professionals use online events to meet lead generation, awareness and community building objectives. He has also deployed webcasting solutions for NYU, USC, California Pizza Kitchen, DoubleClick (Google), and hundreds of other small to enterprise-sized organizations.