Five Pitfalls of Lead Nurturing

When it comes to the relationship between sales and marketing, one of the most important issues involves knowing when a lead is ready to be handed over to the sales department. After all, a lead that is handed over too soon or too late is likely to be a wasted lead.

Unfortunately, many B2B organizations fail to verify that a lead has been properly nurtured before handing it over to the sales department. And when salespeople get leads that aren’t warm enough, you can count on a sales team that is not happy.

To make sure your leads are properly qualified, make sure you avoid the following pitfalls:

  1. Failure to qualify leads. By monitoring patterns of behavior over time you will be better able to tell where a lead is in the buying cycle. Monitor behaviors such as what a lead is downloading, what they are opening and what they are clicking on.
  2. Poor segmentation. It is crucial that you always segment your lead nurturing campaigns based on intelligence that you have gathered. If you send the same email to every lead who fills out one of your surveys, for example, you can be sure that email is too generic and is unlikely to speak to any of those leads.
  3. Overwhelming prospects. The first sign of interest does not a qualified lead make. Just because a prospect expressed interest in what you are selling, it doesn’t mean they are anywhere near ready to buy. Make sure you don’t seem too eager. If you do, you will seem at best annoying and at worst desperate.
  4. Forgetting that content really is king. Content is a great way to nurture leads just where they are in the sales funnel. In the early stages of lead nurturing, your content can be relatively general. Once you learn more about a particular lead you can tailor content toward a lead’s unique needs.
  5. Lack of communication. Don’t hand over a lead to your sales team without letting them know exactly how that lead has been nurtured. A salesperson doesn’t want to repeat things the lead has already learned through nurturing nor does that salesperson want to be surprised by something they should know about that lead.

Lead nurturing is essential to the success of your sales team. Make sure you avoid the pitfalls that can mean the loss of a sale and the alienation of your sales team.