Lead nurturing has been proven to be instrumental in producing qualified sales opportunities for B2B organizations—when done well. The goal, of course, is for your content strategy to produce momentum during the buying process that consistently produces that outcome.
But I'd like to challenge you to go farther.
You've got to harness the returns on YES to help your prospects take each and every consecutive step with your company.
Every time a prospect responds to you is not a YES.
Here's what I mean. If YES is defined as not only getting your prospect to open the email, click through to the content and then click to read the next related piece of content in your storyline, they have to do all three to give you a YES.
If they only make it as far as open, that's a "maybe."
If they make it past open and follow the link to your content, that's an "okay."
But, until they click on that next link, you don't have YES.
You see, the email send is only an initial invitation. In a considered sale, your prospect has so much to learn that if he's only reading that one piece of content you send out attached to your nurturing email each month—well, it will take forever to get to YES.
Eventually, as you help your buyer traverse the steps of learning all they need to know to be willing to engage in a sales conversation, the definition of YES will become that sales conversation.
YES is progressive. YES is based on credibility and value perception by your prospects.
YES takes patience, consistency and relevance.
YES requires that you show your prospects the next steps.
YES means you're continually assessing your prospects' online behavior and increasing your personalized responsiveness. (think tighter segmentation based on behavior)
Without a continuous string of YES in response to your nurturing programs, how far do you think you'll get?
That's why you need a content strategy. It's not just about "what do we send next?" Nurturing is about knowing and planning for how we respond when we get a YES. Interactive marketing means your nurturing program is a two-way street.
If your response doesn't acknowledge their YES, you're not likely to keep getting that level of engagement.
How are you incorporating YES into your nurturing programs? Better yet, how are you leveraging the return when you get YES? Something to think about.
