ALIGN SALES

& MARKETING
WITH LEAD
NURTURING

HOW-TO GUIDE
 Align Sales & Marketing with Lead Nurturing
HOW-TO GUIDE

If you already have a deep understanding of lean nurturing, this guide isn’t for you. Instead, we
recommend that you conduct a benchmarking exercise so that you can create a game plan for improving
your lead nurturing capabilities. To learn more, read our Revenue Marketing Transformation Guide.

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead nurturing is about building solid relationships through consistent and meaningful conversation
with the right people, regardless of their timing to buy. The intent is to raise a the company’s profile,
making it more likely that a prospect will select your product/service over your competitor’s when it
is time to buy. The technology used in lead nurturing encourages organizational alignment because
it facilitates the pre-qualification of early stage leads before they are handed over to the sales team.

What are the Benefits of Lead Nurturing?

Reduction of Missed Opportunities — Although many sales reps give up on an opportunity after
one unsuccessful sales attempt, the stats show that people who take a vendor demo usually end
up buying inside of 18 months.

Better Allocation of Resources — By plugging your longer-term opportunities into a lead nurturing
program, you can automate a ‘drip-style’ email marketing campaign that provides useful informa-
tion, webcasts, or other valuable material that will help your prospect make a decision. This is more
cost effective than having a sales rep call every 2 months to ‘check-in’.

Sales and Marketing Alignment — Working together to establish a lead scoring and nurturing
system will better qualify opportunities, set proper expectations, and avoid the syndrome of fighting
about how ineffective the other side is being. Assess the level of alignment between both functions
by using our Sales & Marketing Alignment Tool.

Bottom Line
Avoid the common rift between sales and marketing by taking a collaborative approach to
lead nurturing.

2 ALIGN SALES & MARKETING WITH LEAD NURTURING HOW-TO GUIDE

 Action Plan
STEP 1 - Start Scoring Leads

Score Leads and Identify

1 Start Scoring
Leads Your Best Prospects

Use Demand Metric’s Lead

Evaluate Scoring Template to help you
2 Nurturing Tools analyze leads and identify
strong prospects. The best
possible score for a lead is 100,
which is based on 6 criteria
for evaluating explicit and
Create a Drip implicit need for your product
3 Campaign or service.

Be sure to engage a leader in

the sales department for this
alignment- building project,
Measure the and also consider using our
4 Results Qualified Lead Definition Tool.

Lead Scoring Template

VIEW RESOURCE

3 ALIGN SALES & MARKETING WITH LEAD NURTURING HOW-TO GUIDE

 Action Plan
STEP 2 - Evaluate Nurturing Tools

Start Scoring Build Your Marketing

1 Leads Automation System

Use Demand Metric’s Marketing

Evaluate
2 Nurturing
Tools
Automation Solution Study
content area for help selecting
and implementing a marketing
automation system, and to
figure out how you can create
leads for your sales team.
Create a Drip
3 Campaign A few popular templates from
this section include:

Vendors Matrix
Business Case
ROI Calculator
Measure the
4 Results Vendor Evaluation

MARKETING
AUTOMATION
Solution Study

Insights, Landscape, & Vendor Analysis

Marketing Automation Solution Study

VIEW RESOURCE

4 ALIGN SALES & MARKETING WITH LEAD NURTURING HOW-TO GUIDE

 Action Plan
STEP 3 - Create a Drip Campaign

Start Scoring Connect to Your Prospects

1 Leads with Drip Campaigns

Use Demand Metric’s Lead

Evaluate Acquisition Model to outline
2 Nurturing Tools and communicate your lead
generation and nurturing
process. Create your first
drip campaign by writing
a series of emails that will

3 Create a Drip
Campaign
be sent to prospects on an
on-going basis.

Measure the
4 Results

Lead Acquisition Model

VIEW RESOURCE

5 ALIGN SALES & MARKETING WITH LEAD NURTURING HOW-TO GUIDE

 Action Plan
STEP 4 - Measure the Results

Start Scoring Develop A Lead Nurturing

1 Leads and Tracking Program

Measure the results of your

Evaluate first drip campaign and adjust
2 Nurturing Tools your strategy accordingly.

The goal is to create a sophis-

ticated lead nurturing program
that includes multiple tracks
Create a Drip for different buyer personas
3 Campaign and buying stages.

For more information, read our

Demand Generation Metrics
Dashboard.

4 Measure the
Results

Demand Generation Metrics Dashboard

VIEW RESOURCE

6 ALIGN SALES & MARKETING WITH LEAD NURTURING HOW-TO GUIDE

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