Marketing Client Services Specialist
The primary goal of most marketers is to generate leads for the sales team. This is also the biggest challenge for marketers. How do you generate leads?
Although there are many different ways to generate leads, Web seminars are one of the most cost-effective methods as you can reach a large audience at one
time with focused content. In addition, Web seminars help establish thought leadership and align your company with industry experts.
After careful consideration, you've decided to host a Web seminar. You've selected the topic and speakers. You've created the marketing materials to
promote the Web seminar. Now you're done, right? Wrong. What is your post-event strategy? Are you going to send the leads immediately to sales for follow
up? While that's an option, that might not be the best strategy. How many times have you sent leads to sales, only to find out that they didn't follow up?
Too often. It's not that the sales team couldn't use the leads, they weren't interested because (in their opinion, the leads weren't quality leads.
That's where lead nurturing comes in. It helps create and build relationships with leads, while establishing credibility for the company - ultimately
creating better sales-ready leads. According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads
at 33% lower cost-per-lead.
Lead Touch Program Extends the Conversation
How do you go about nurturing the Web seminar leads? A three-step Lead Touch program following the Web seminar will keep leads engaged while continuing the
conversation.
Step 1:
The first step of the Lead Touch nurturing program is to send out a "thank you" email within 48 hours post-event. The messaging should be based on
engagement - attended or not attended.
Step 2:
The next step is to send out an email two weeks post-event. Once again, the messaging should be based on engagement and encourage registrants to view the
recorded Web seminar and share the link to the recorded Web seminar with a colleague.
Step 3:
The last step occurs at four weeks post-event. In this email, a relevant asset is offered to all registrants. One suggestion is to transcribe the Web
seminar into a high-level executive summary providing presentation highlights. Not only does this piece serve as a great reference tool, it offers
registrants that didn't attend, and may never view the presentation, access to key messages. Plus, the executive summary can be used as a lead generating
tool after the program ends.
This additional four week engagement after the Web seminar moves the leads to the next level, improving their sales-readiness. Now you can send the Web
seminar leads to the sales team based on engagement level - such as those that attended the Web seminar or watched the recorded Web seminar AND downloaded
the executive summary. The more actions taken by a lead, the higher the interest level − thus a higher quality lead. You and your sales team will now
be happy.
In summary, now that you've generated those leads, best practices show that continuing the conversation through nurturing means that the leads you do send
to sales will be of higher quality. MarketingSherpa concluded that "79% of marketing leads never convert to sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common
cause of poor performance."
Penton Marketing Services' Lead Touch program provides a great way to keep those leads from going cold. Average results from our Lead Touch program:
-
30% open rate
- 5% click-thru rate
- 15-20% increase in recorded web seminar views
Follow this link for more information on Penton Marketing Services lead nurturing programs.
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