Brian Carroll Brian Carroll is founder and CEO of InTouch, a B2B marketing firm and one of the first companies to provide lead generation services for the complex sale. Brian is a recognized expert in lead generation and author of the popular book, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale (McGraw Hill, 2006).  Brian's been profiled and regularly quoted in numerous publications and he speaks to thousands of people a year on improving sales effectiveness, marketing and lead generation strategies. His acclaimed, B2B Lead Generation blog , was named the Best B-to-B Marketing Blog by MarketingSherpa readers and is read by thousands each week. Follow Brian Carroll via Twitter

Lead nurturing and scoring are definitely two useful tools during an economic downturn. According to Sybase’s Director of Marketing, Joyce Rossi-Woodruff, “It’s all about building relationships, and those relationships become all more important when times are tough.” 

Rossi-Woodruff’s insight is included in a MarketingSherpa article “What Boosts Lead Scores Now: 7 Tips for Surviving an Economic Downturn. ” You have to be a member to view the article, but it gives marketers such great advice that I wanted to share it with you and add my thoughts. This article includes tips for identifying best prospects and target industries and tweaking lead-scoring methodology to make the most of nurturing efforts. 

And, yes, even marketers out there currently managing quality nurturing and scoring programs still need to adapt to economic conditions. Here’s an overview of the article’s seven lead-scoring and nurturing tactics:

Tactic #1. Emphasize quality, not quantity in your lead database

The quality of the leads in your database is more important than the quantity. A bloated, poorly managed database will give you a false sense of security and drive up the costs associated with sending out emails and mailers because you don’t know who they are going to or if your message is resonating.

To overcome this, MarketingSherpa suggests you scrub your lists to find the most qualified prospects. One expert they spoke with decided to make new rules for entering new prospects into his lead-nurturing system and created  an “inclusion list” that targeted prospects from a list of the company’s strategically targeted accounts. New inquiries that didn’t pass the test were placed into a “holding tank” to be later analyzed.

Other ideas include: create new qualifying questions or online tools to segment inquiries and start looking beyond initial conversations to determine lead quality. Instead of relying on basic conversion rates, try analyzing what actually happens to the leads you generate by tracking conversion from lead to opportunity, cost per opportunity and cost per deal.

Tactic #2. Create a behavioral model based on recent activity

If you have a well-refined lead scoring system you may be able to adapt your scoring methodology to highlight certain prospects that seem more likely to invest during a recession. MarketingSherpa spoke with several experts that suggested that your marketing analytics team can use a algorithm to analyze recent sales proposal activity looking for variables that will help predict whether a deal is likely to close or not. Look at a recent sample (from the past three months) and establish a set of variables based on: company size, industry, geography, prospect’s job description, size of the buying committee, information from BANT criteria and type of sale or renewal. Then use an algorithm to decide whether any of these conditions within these variables influenced their likelihood of a deal being closed. Base your lead-scoring changes on the trends you uncover. Proposals in certain geographic areas may increase the score of a prospect from those regions, for example.

Tactic 3. Validate your hypotheses with third-party data

When analyzing trends in your customer database, validate them against broader, external data. It’s possible that the sample size in your database is overly concentrated in a particular segment of the industry. You can also include:

• Broad economic data, such as the Federal Reserve Bank’s Beige Book which gives analysis of current economic activity published eight times a year. It highlights key factors for the 12 Federal Reserve Districts including: consumer spending, business spending, manufacturing, banking and finance, prices and wages.
• Specific industry reports:  If you have a large concentration of prospects in certain industries, you should look for third-party reports on the economic activity within those industries.

Tactic #4. Emphasize recent activity in your lead scoring

Things go downhill fast in this economy, so be sure you are looking at the most current data. Be wary of activity recorded six months or more ago. Here are a few tips from the experts MarketingSherpa spoke with:

• Focus on activity within the past three months
• The same activities that took place six months ago receive a lower score if your prospect hasn’t engaged in more marketing activities since. Focus on prospects with recent marketing campaigns.
• Maintain older leads, however keep those lower-scoring prospects in the nurturing program until activity increases again,

You can also create what one expert calls a “fast track” for prospects that showed a high level of activity in a short period of time. For example, a prospect downloads a particular white paper more than five times in a short period of time. Take that lead and pass it directly to sales for an immediate follow phone call to ask them about the flurry of activity. You’ll get a better handle of their situation by simply taking the time to speak with them instead of using email.

Tactic #5. Reassess value proposition for your core audiences

Don’t ever think that you have or can find a “recession-proof” market.  People get caught trying to do something brand new when what they should be doing is thinking along the lines of refining their existing efforts. Instead of looking for new markets, spend time researching your value proposition with your existing customers. Make sure the messages you use with that audience still resonate.

Here’s some tips I included in my book,  “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale.”

• Query your existing customers for honest information about current trends. Questions to ask:
  • What external factors are affecting your business?
  • How are those external factors affecting job roles?
  • What are their anticipated needs and pain points?
• Also, ask why they chose to do business with you:
  • How has your company helped their business?
  • Can they quantify that value?
  • What are the intangible benefits?
  • What differentiates your company from competitors?
  • How can we continue to serve you?
• Finally, ask how your products and services have helped the company:
  • Have you helped them increase revenue?
  • Lower costs?
  • Improve profitability?
  • Improve quality?

This research will help determine if the value proposition in your marketing messages is right for the current economic conditions.

Tactic #6. Adapt content strategies to your lead-nurturing program

During a recession, sales cycles lengthen. This is the time to keep going with your lead nurturing. You may just have to look at it a little differently.  According to the experts in MarketingSherpa’s article, maybe instead of creating events that focus on bringing in new folks you should create events that will cater to existing highly qualified prospects.

For an upcoming product launch road show, for instance, Rossi-Woodruff of Sybase, encouraged marketers from other product groups to invite their prospects to events being held nationwide. She wanted to boost registration at events and give other product marketing teams an opportunity to introduce their prospects to additional product lines. Her team called prospects that received the email invitation but didn’t open or register for the event.

Tactic #7. Use telemarketing to get best insight into prospects’ needs

Still, in the end, the best way to nurture  a lead comes down to live conversations. Tips for calling:

• Use the data from your lead nurturing and lead scoring systems to create a relevant, real reason for calling.
• Ask questions that will fulfill your BANT criteria.
• Ask questions that show you understand their industry’s challenges. Show how your company can help.
• Don’t ignore companies in industries that you think are suffering in this economy. What it comes down to is that, regardless of the economy, companies continually make decisions based on priorities. Find out what their current priorities are.

Strong lead nurturing and lead scoring programs that have adapted to the economy is the most important asset you have. Folks are thinking harder about every dollar spent and your personal contacts and relationships with prospects can make you or break those deals.