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Chapter 37—Lead Nurturing Systems
(Marketing Automation)

A major innovation in B2B marketing over the last five years
has been the move towards lead nurturing. Lead nurturing
is the idea that B2B prospects may engage with a company
at various stages of the purchase process. They may be
researching and a long way from purchasing, or they may be
ready to make a purchase in the next week. Lead nurturing,
also called marketing automation, is a process that allows
the marketing team to nurture leads that aren’t yet ready
for an interaction with the sales team. The objective of lead
nurturing is to build the prospect’s knowledge of and trust in
your company, so that when they’re ready to buy, they buy
from you.

Lead nurturing systems allow companies to nurture leads in
a consistent, well-structured, and cost effective way. When
well implemented and managed, they are more reliable and
effective than nurturing left to the sales team.

The first step in lead nurturing is to identify who you are
nurturing and what messages you want to convey. If you’ve
completed the marketing strategy process in Part One,
you already have this information—you know your target
market(s), your value proposition, and your messaging.

The next step is to design your nurturing process. How do you
want to communicate to your leads, with what content, and
when? The core of lead nurturing is a solid plan. Lead nurturing
systems allow you to program a set of email communications to
go out to prospects at set intervals or on a particular calendar.

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© 2012 Lisa Shepherd