Lead Generation Strategies That Start With “I”

Today we look at Incubation, also known as Lead Nurturing or Lead Harvesting. The challenge for most marketers, is what happens to the leads after the pass them off to sales. Many times, these leads fall into the abyss, never to be heard from again. Worse is when the marketing team spends more money and campaign resources to reacquire the same lead again and again.

Incubation takes leads that are not ready for sales and keeps them warm with a series of marketing messages over a period of time. Then, when the lead exhibits signs of buying behavior, marketing can move the lead back over to sales. Incubation can consist simply of a series of emails or phone calls over a fixed period of time. More experienced marketers use multiple channels such as direct mail and personalized landing pages to vary the pace and content of the incubation period. You will need a marketing automation platform to accomplish this on any type of scale. Companies such as Eloqua, Vtrenz, Pardot and Loopfuse all have technology that can deliver the goods to varying degree. Incubation ensures that all leads get followed up on and your conversion rates will be higher down the line.

Stay tuned for the letter “J”