Lead Nurturing and the Marketing Funnel

A strong CRM strategy will help you nurture your qualified leads over time so that when ready, they will buy from you. An example of a CRM in action is as follows.

• Sally makes contact through the website
• Company ABC calls Sally and makes note that she is qualified but not yet ready to buy. This is noted in the CRM
• CRM then moves Sally into an automated marketing workflow
• Over the next 6 months, Sally receives a combination of value adding educational emails
• During month 4, Sally engages actively with one of the emails
• CRM notifies the assigned salesperson about Sally’s activity
• The salesperson calls Sally, books an appointment and converts the purchase

The above could not happen without lead nurturing through the CRM. Some businesses try managing leads through multiple spreadsheets and diaries but this method is extremely inefficient and risky.