Leads are the lifeblood of any B2B business. Some businesses are extremely talented in generating sales leads, others have expertise in different areas so may outsource this to Business Development companies such as us at Air. Whichever method you use to generate these vital leads, what happens if they aren’t ready to engage with your product or service?

According to Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, up to 95% of qualified prospects on your website are there to research and are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep. Unfortunately, when many companies get a lead that is not ready to buy right away, the lead then tends to get forgotten about, this results in the 70% who would eventually buy from you finding their solution through one of your competitors.

It has become apparent that many marketers are wasting their lead generation efforts by failing to nurture leads which aren’t ready to purchase straight away. This is something that doesn’t make sense, as a marketer you are wasting resource in both time and money doing this.

Today, successful B2B marketers excel by implementing a lead nurturing strategy which grows and retains their business. This strategy is making it harder for your competitors to land the leads that you have worked so hard to generate. The reason behind lead nurturing is that you can’t force a prospect to buy on their first touchpoint, in fact, stats suggest 10 touchpoints are necessary before conversion, as you also can’t afford to lose your prospect from your funnel. Lead nurturing is an investment strategy in which you build a relationship with the leads you’ve generated – this is achieved through the creation of relevant and personalised communication which adds value to your lead.

Lead nurturing may sound like a long game, but the reward is worth the investment…

According to Forrester, CSO Insights, Marketo and many other big players:

• Lead nurturing generates 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead
• Reducing the percent of marketing-generated leads being ignored by sales (from as high as 80% to as low as 25%)
• Raises closings on marketing-generated leads (7% points higher) and reduce “no decisions” (6% points lower).
• Allows more sales representatives to make their quota (9% higher) and decrease (by 10%) the ramp-up time for new reps

Have you tried lead nurturing for your business? If you like the sound of what this process could bring to your business, but you don’t have the capacity to fulfil the process in-house – talk to us!

We work with companies all over the UK and further afield to make the most of every single opportunity that is available to your business. From lead generation, lead nurturing, follow-up calls and inside sales closing calls – we can look after a section of the process or the whole process for you.

Get in touch today to find out how we can help your business – we look forward to speaking to you.