The Importance of Lead Generation and Nurturing

Why is Lead Generation and Nurturing so Important?

One of the most challenging and most commonly misunderstood components of successful business-to-business marketing is Lead Generation and Nurturing (or ‘demand generation and management’).

Starting with how you generate inquiries through the challenging hand-off and follow-up by your sales force, and most importantly how you measure the results, this ”discipline” sees more wasted money, more missed opportunities, and more downright mistakes than any other area in business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales.

Now that some of the traditional direct mail disciplines (Multivariate testing, A/B splits) are being used on the Internet (web design, email marketing, search engine marketing, pay-per-click advertising, landing page optimization, social media, web 2.0), it has made Lead Generation and Nurturing (or Demand generation and Management)  process more complex to set up, but at the same time easier to manage than ever. 

Why Lead Generation and Nurturing is so important

Focusing on your lead generation and nurturing process is important for three reasons:

1. There is always room for improvement – And, the return on investment from improving your lead generation program is usually well worth the the time and effort. 
2. You can build a competitive advantage – in most industries your competition is probably managing their lead generation and nurturing process at the same level you are, or worse.  Your efforts can help you develop a competitive advantage and win market share from your competitors. 
3. You can make more effective use of your budget–when you measure your results, you can put your money where it’s working the best, and align your budget to achieve strategic objectives.

The purpose of this series of blog posts is to outline a solid process, and offer some tips and techniques that, when applied to your business’s sales and marketing process, it will turn your lead generation program from mediocre into a source of pride for your organization.

Pages related to Lead Generation and Nurturing:

• How to Get Great Leads

If you’d like help implementing a lead generation and nurturing program for your company, please contact me today.

3 Comments

• BizSugar.com August 19, 2010 at 9:51 am

  The Importance of Lead Generation and Nurturing…

  One of the most challenging and most commonly misunderstood components of successful business-to-business marketing is lead generation and nurturing (or ‘demand generation and management’)….

  Reply
• 
  Amber King September 26, 2011 at 12:20 am

  Great post Les. Lead generation and lead nurturing are important. It is not enough to just fill your pipeline with leads. Leads should be followed up and nurtured to turn it into a sale.

  Reply
  • 
    Les Proctor September 27, 2011 at 11:23 am

    Thanks Amber. To me the quality of the followup is important. With marketing automation systems sometimes all we do is automate messages no-one wants. If we’re going to err, I’d say err with a human touch.

    Reply