Every year, B2B and medtech companies spend millions of dollars to generate qualified sales leads. Yet once they have these valuable leads in hand, many fail to nurture them into full-fledged opportunities and closed sales. That amounts to wasted effort and wasted budget.
It’s a drain on efficiency and profitability that’s common—yet relatively easy to fix.
Avoid these common business risks
An effective lead nurturing program ensures every qualified prospect receives optimal attention across the sales pipeline. Proactive and consistent outreach through email marketing and outbound calling gives every lead the opportunity to flourish. It also provides your company with maximum return on your lead generation investment.
Failure to nurture leads can create significant business risks:
- Difficulty forecasting
- Lengthy and unpredictable sales cycles
- Missed sales and revenue goals
- Unnecessary spending on lead generation
- Brand reputation issues in the market
Six questions to assess your lead nurturing
Is your organization nurturing leads as effectively as possible?
Too often, medtech and B2B companies lose sight of qualified leads and cooler account opportunities once they’re in the sales pipeline. With limited internal resources, more immediate deals typically take priority. As a result, the company ends up jeopardizing the sales pipeline and leaving revenue on the table.
Consider these questions and assess your lead nurturing effectiveness:
- Does timely follow-up occur in the first 48 hours after you receive a lead?
- Are sales and marketing actively ranking, sorting and prioritizing leads for appropriate follow-up?
- Are you making periodic outbound calls to active leads that are more than 3 months old?
- Does your sales team have capacity for 5 or more call attempts before moving on to the next prospect?
- Are you regularly collecting new intelligence on the prospects in your sales funnel?
- During busy periods or when resources are thin, are you still making time to connect with existing leads?
If you answered “No” to any of these items, there’s room for improvement in your lead nurturing program.
How outbound calling and marketing automation can work together
Outbound calling and email campaigns from a marketing automation system typically form the backbone of medtech and B2B lead nurturing campaigns. Using these two formats together multiples your results.
Marketing automation is great for:
- Educating prospects
- Sharing helpful resources
- Positioning your company as a domain expert
- Communicating with prospects in a set sequence
Outbound calling is ideal for:
- Identifying decision-makers, influencers and others involved in complex sales
- Understanding a prospect’s needs and challenges
- Gathering relevant details, such as budgets and buying timelines
- Building rapport and establishing trust
Each option has advantages. When used together, the information gathered in each channel can feed and improve results in the other.
For example:
- A marketing automation system can ensure every new lead receives a personalized follow-up email within 24 hours of an inquiry.
- An outbound call a few days later can dig into the prospect’s role, key pain points and preferred next steps. It also puts a friendly face to your organization’s brand.
- The marketing team can then use that information to customize the next marketing automation campaign in the prospect’s journey.
- If the lead hasn’t advanced within a few weeks, another outbound call can build the relationship, answer questions and help move the opportunity forward.
Ongoing follow-up is key to successful lead nurturing
Whichever methods you use for lead nurturing, consistency is key. Because every prospect advances along the buying journey at their own speed, it’s critical to stay top-of-mind. That means regular communication and engagement so you’re ready to help when the time is right.
Working with an outsourced professional call center like Volkart May provides trained and talented resources who are ideal for B2B and medtech lead nurturing campaigns. Outsourcing gives you capacity and scalability, without the pressure of hiring, training, managing staff or investing in technology and infrastructure.
Improve your lead nurturing. Learn more about our lead generation and lead nurturing services, then contact us to discuss your lead nurturing needs.