So, your cold email outreach or digital campaign didn’t elicit a response. What next? This is a recurring predicament that many marketers face. They expect to close more sales leads, but often fall short. Why? Because, in practice, there exists a stark disparity between expectation and reality.
For every 100 leads, many marketers expect to close 50, with around 30 remaining available as opportunities and 20 as prospects that require additional interactive communication. This tendency to downplay lead nurturing, accompanied by obsolete marketing techniques, adversely impacts sales rate.
In practice, 80% or more of leads fail to convert, because not enough effort has been put into taking them through a graded process of engagement. What happens to the rest? They simply become a few opportunities and many prospects, which need more convincing to arrive at a purchase decision.
For instance, in the case of outbound marketing, sending a single email to all your leads is hardly an effective approach to influencing what are eventually distinct and individual decision makers. How reasonable is it to expect these leads to instantly familiarize themselves with your product or service, and respond back with interest?
Begin by setting realistic expectations, followed by a rational lead management approach that uses multi-pronged techniques and omni-channel strategies. The digital revolution has redefined the marketing avenues at your disposal. Along with cold emailing, social media, influencer marketing and PR can be interwoven to appeal to diverse preferences.
Contemporary data harnessing capabilities will exponentially empower your ability to merge inbound and outbound marketing and undertake targeted lead-nurturing campaigns. Marketing automation and AI-powered digital tools can not only accelerate brand familiarity, but also ensure relevant and personalized nurturing.
Businesses need to have a nurture path for leads, even if they don’t have an opportunity for immediate closure. The right approach would be to focus on staying top of mind with prospects, work on nurturing them and ultimately close a sale, at the appropriate opportunity.
With the right approach, techniques and tools, the digitally empowered marketer of today can enhance the rate at which they ‘close’, bridging the divide between high expectations and harsh reality.
In a nutshell:
- Expectations in lead management are often out of touch with reality.
- The journey from leads to sales is incomplete without lead nurturing.
- Unilateral, single-channel strategies are counterproductive to effective nurturing.
- Digital-led and omni-channel techniques, along with data-based integration of inbound and outbound marketing, will help align expectations with reality.