5 Metrics to Track When Building Your Lead Nurture Strategy
Whether you’re a small business struggling to connect with the social networking junkies of the 21st century, or an industry leader eager to maintain momentum in the digital space, it’s imperative to recognize the power online communities can have on your lead nurture strategy.
Survival of the “digitally fittest” proves that today’s most successful marketers not only call for a strong presence on social media, but a best-in-class strategy to measure their lead nurture success. According to Salesforce[i], social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. So despite your company’s valiant cold calling and telemarketing efforts, the data proves that the Zuckerbergs of the world have created the black pearl of lead nurture tools. Organizations that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost[ii], proving that a consistent lead nurture strategy is the bread and butter of converting prospects to sales-ready leads. If you have hunch that your sales team is struggling to connect with potential customers, start tracking these interactions to help you optimize your lead nurture strategy. Here are the essential metrics you should be looking at:
5 Essential Lead Nurturing Metrics to Track
1. Click-Through Rates: The click-through rate has proved its worth to marketers time and time again, but what’s important to address is how it’s maintained the reputation of being a staple metric for marketing and sales professionals. It’s as simple as this: With high click-through rates, come high quality scores. With high quality scores, your organization is able to improve their advertising positions for a lower cost[iii]. Start monitoring your click-through rates, and begin the quest to save advertising dollars.
2. Conversion Rates: Reaching potential leads through SEO tactics has been seen as a black art for marketing and sales professionals. It seems impossible to master Google’s ever-evolving search engine algorithms and quantify success through predictive marketing schemes. What will never change however, are the valuable insights conversion rates can provide to your business. As Sara Helmy, CEO at Tribu claims, “Conversion rate is by far the biggest indicator of whether or not our efforts as a marketing agency are successful. Every other metric we examine (page flows, bounce rate, traffic source) is simply a number that supplies helpful hints on where we are succeeding or not succeeding in increasing the conversion rate[iv].”
3. Time-to-Customer Conversion: The phrase “time is money” couldn’t ring more true to this metric. When considering B2B benchmarks, if it is taking your organization longer than 18 days to convert an opportunity to a deal[v], your sales team should consider taking another approach. Keep in mind that online community-based tools such as websites and social media are ranked to have an above average conversion rate, and have the shortest time-to-close rate along with referral-based leads[vi].
4. Cost of Customer Acquisition: Everyone can empathize with how painful and costly it can be to acquire a new customer, but not everyone takes the time to discover just how effective their marketing tactics are. If you are spending more acquiring a customer than the amount that the customer will net the company in return[v], that customer clearly isn’t worth your company’s value. Take the leap and begin to treat the cost of each customer as if it was coming out of your own wallet.
5. Customer Lifetime Value: Every business should be living and breathing this metric. This is a KPI that ought to be at the core of every business strategy, and was a metric that transformed the way companies like Starbucks looked at their ROI data[vi]. Customer Lifetime Value is arguably the most influential metric of all because it not only shows marketers how much a customer is worth, but how much money they should invest in acquiring new customers.
Granted that every company will have a distinct approach to lead nurture, it is crucial to consider these 5 metrics when seeking to continuously improve your lead nurture performance.
- Gauge how you connect with your stakeholders.
- Track the results of your digital footprint effectively and efficiently.
- Discover if your organization needs to invest in alternative solutions to convert leads.
By staying true to these metrics, you can transform the way you interact with lead nurture data and harness the power of digital engagement.
References
[i] Salesforce – http://mashable.com/2013/11/21/conversions-metrics
[ii] Forrester Research – http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/26-stats-prove-content-marketing-increases-lead-generation-sales-roi-0922091
[iii] Word Stream – http://www.wordstream.com/click-through-rate
[iv] Mashable – http://mashable.com/2013/11/21/conversions-metrics/
[v] Tech Target – http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/definition/customer-acquisition-cost
[vi] Kiss Metrics – https://blog.kissmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/calculating-ltv.pdf
