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Lead Nurturing is a fundamental must-have for successful inbound marketing. Statistics show that only 56% of B2B organizations verify valid business leads before they are passed to Sales. (MarketingSherpa)

In the sales and marketing world, there are few issues that get more attention than at what point a lead becomes 'sales ready' and therefore be passed on to sales and when a lead should stay with marketing and be nurtured.

Gleanster Research estimates that 50% of leads who are qualified to buy are not ready to purchase immediately. If you call these leads up to try and hurry them along the buying process you will most likely lose them.  So what to do with those that are not ready to purchase immediately?  

Lead nurturing is all about understanding the nuances of your leads’ needs and providing them with relevant content at the right time. Getting these details right and being more scientific with your lead nurturing will help you to align your sales and marketing teams, make your sales teams happier as they receive better quality leads and improve ROI from your marketing efforts.

Take a look at some common lead nurturing mistakes to avoid:

How well do you know your customers? What are their greatest business challenges? What drives them? What challenges do they face on a daily basis?

If you do not know the answers to these questions, it is time you did some research.

The buyer personas you use as the foundation of your marketing efforts – i.e. the fictionalised representations of your ideal customers – should answer all of these questions, and you should know your customer inside out before they have even initiated contact with you.

When I was on territory selling big ticket ERP, Retail, and Supply Chain software solutions, I spent the best part of a 9 month sales cycle digging deep into a prospect's organisation, understanding the motivations, politics and pain points of the various buyers, decision makers, recommenders, and evaluation teams.

As a sales team, we worked to tried and tested sales methodologies, trying to find the ‘fox’ and nurturing all the players with different valuable information to meet their specific needs, countering competitive threats and answering objections.

It was a Solution Sale. It required patience, delivery of information at the right time, a game plan that all the sales and marketing team bought into, and a process to move them towards a decision.

Is it the sales, engineering, purchasing, production or services department that is the engine that drives a company’s growth?

WHILE EVERY ONE OF THESE PLAYS A ROLE IN THE OPERATION OF A COMPANY, NONE OF THEM CAN MAKE IT WORK WITHOUT MARKETING

Marketing is the beginning of the process that is going to help drive your business growth. It is a continuous multi-channel process not a single event that requires constant adjustments and refinements, and today a majority of the effort is going to be online. 

It therefore stands to reason that a solid marketing strategy, processes, execution and measurement should be the most important aspect of any business. Your company’s image, reputation, sales goals, growth plans, and customer service requirements are all driven by marketing. So, why do companies pay such little attention to this essential function?