1.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com
Nurture prospects and customers
to maximise lifetime value
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© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

2.
Nurturing
SALE
Nurture leads to build
relationships and create sales
ready opportunities to engage
Nurture customers to build
relationships and maximise
customer lifetime value
Nurturing done well can be the B2B marketer’s most effective weapon.
Let’s nurture for the sale, but also nurture for lasting, profitable customer relationships.
Part 1
Part 2
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

3.
Only 17% of
business to business
(B2B) leads are sales-
ready when first
generated.
Pardot
Our starting point: the issue
As marketers, we’re so keen to generate
engagement, often we’re not prepared to deal
with situations where the engagement doesn’t
equate to a sale. Right there and then.
Why wouldn’t they be ready to buy?
▪ Timing (budget availability, other vendors in play)
▪ Business not yet sold on the idea of change
▪ Not entirely sure what they’re look for
▪ Not sufficiently confident in our offering
or our ability to help.
What’s the answer? Nurture. That’s what.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

4.
Lead nurturing is the process of
developing relationships with buyers
at every stage of the sales funnel,
and through every step of the
buyer's journey.
It focuses marketing and
communication efforts on listening
to the needs of prospects, and
providing the information and
answers they need.
(Marketo)
OK, nurture. What’s that?
Unfortunately, nurture has become
yet another marketing buzz term.
That means everyone wants it.
Regardless if they have the resources,
insight and content
to do it right.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

5.
A drip marketing programme:
sends (drips) communications (email,
direct mail, etc.) following a timeline
set by the marketer. But, it does not
take into account their activity and
behaviour because it is static and
non-adaptive.
The difference between nurture and drip
A lead nurture programme:
takes into account that B2B buyers do
not want to be spoken to; instead,
they want to be listened to.
Nurturing leads is all about building
relationships with potential buyers,
helping to build trust and allowing
them to do their research when,
where and how they want to.
Are you dripping or nurturing?
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

6.
What does the buyer journey look like?
Changes over
time
Recognition of
needs
Committing to a
Solution
Problem
defined
Justifying the
Decision
On boarding
Changes over
time
Recognition of
needs
Problem
defined
Exploring
Solutions
Loosening of
the Status Quo
Committing to
Change
Defining the
problem
Early stage
awareness
Awareness and early
need identification
Ensure seamless
customer on-boarding –
minimise time to value
OUR
TASK
Influence how they
define their problem
and solution
Close the sale and
maximise the value
of the deal.
EDUCATION SOLUTION VENDOR SELECTION
Demonstrate we have the most
compelling proposition
Sees an
analyst blog
on trends
Downloads
vendor
solution guide
Attends
vendor
webinar
Visits a
supplier
website
Uses an ROI
calculator
Reviews some
competitive
analysis
Receives a
“welcome
pack”
Goes to
supplier
event
Downloads
analyst
whitepaper
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

7.
If we’re going to nurture through the buying journey, we need content.
If lead nurturing is the engine, content is the fuel that makes it run.
If we’re going to nurture, we need people.
We can’t nurture leads we don’t have. We still need to generate the initial
engagement and marketing leads.
Sending people a succession of marketing messages is not nurture.
That’s just spamming.
“83% of customers only want to hear from you if you are
able to be relevant and contextual.” (IDC and Salesforce, 2015)
Three home truths.
1
2
3
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

8.
8 | © DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com
What kind of content do we need?
1
Analyst research
(IDC, Gartner,
Forrester)2
Feature articles
about
technologies3
Technology news4
Product testing /
reviews / opinions1
Product
demo/product
literature2
Analyst research
(IDC, Gartner,
Forrester)3
How-to content /
information4
Product demo /
product literature1
Product testing /
reviews / opinions2
Case studies3
4
Analyst research
(IDC, Gartner,
Forrester)
1
Product testing /
reviews / opinions2
Product demo /
product literature3
4
Product testing /
reviews / opinions1
Case studies &
ROI tools &
Product demos2
Feature articles
about trends /
strategies3
4
ROI calculator or
other assessment
tools
1
Product demo /
product literature2
Vendor
directories3
4
Feature articles
about trends /
strategies
Loosening
status quo
Committing
to change
Exploring
solutions
Committing
to a solution
Justifying
the decision
Making the
selection
A well-thought out lead nurturing strategy is one way that you can connect more
effectively across all phases of the buyer journey.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

9.
That seems like a lot of content.
When can we get off the content creation
hamster wheel?
We say no more content for content’s sake.
Once we know our personas and understand the buyer journey,
we can identify the content we need and the content we don’t.
Start with a content audit:
1. Create an inventory of existing content
2. Map it to the buyer journey
3. Fill the gaps
Content, content and more content
“Many companies find
themselves grossly
underprepared for
marketing automation
from a content
perspective.”
Pardot, 2016
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

10.
Content audit example: Business Centric Data Centre
Education Solution Vendor selection
Loosening the status
quo
Committing to
change
Defining the problem
exploring possible
solutions
Committing to a
solution
Justifying the
decision
On-boardingA great deal of “solution stage” content – focusing
primarily on product and technical specifications.
▪ This content is useful once the prospect has
understood their challenges and explored the
marketplace for potential solutions.
▪ Here they become aware of the Fujitsu offerings, and
investigate specific capability.
Very little content to support the early “education
phase of the buyer journey
▪ Here the prospect is self educating about new ways
of solving business problems, leveraging new
technology or creating competitive advantage by
being innovative.
Very little content to support the “on boarding”
phase of the buyer journey
▪ This content is about maximising the benefit the
customer derives from buying a Fujitsu solution.
A
B
C
AB C
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

11.
What stages of the buyer
journey are covered off
with your current content?
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

12.
You need marketing automation.
Why?
Because you’ll need to track the interactions you’re generating, and
monitor their behaviour, using that insight to drive the relevance
and personalisation buyers are looking for.
Automated actions
Personalising a comms journey for each individual would
be too time consuming.
Lead scoring
You’ll need to recognise when a lead engages to the right point
for them to be passed to sales.
Automated integration
Sales ready leads can be passed automatically into CRM systems.
How do I do it though, physically?
Businesses with one to
two early-stage nurturing
campaigns configured in
marketing automation
estimate the volume of
quarterly qualified leads
increased an average
of 120%
Gleanster, 2015
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

13.
Companies that excel at nurturing generate
50% more sales-ready leads
at 33% lower cost per lead
Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases
than non-nurtured leads
[Forrester Research]

14.
Sorry! You Can’t Automate Marketing You Don’t Have.
Data to
personalise
the
experience
Audience
specific
content
and info
Email
and
campaign
assets
Lead
definitions
and
processes
So many organisations are sold on
the conceptual ideals behind
marketing automation and think it
will be marketing’s panacea.
▪ The reality is, marketing automation
systems are just that – automation
systems.
▪ They can replace a great deal of manual
effort, but only if you’re currently
engaging in the type of marketing the
platforms handle.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

15.
What are your experiences
with marketing automation?
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

16.
Designed as a content fuelled campaign to drive sales-ready leads in 5 countries.
We identified four messaging themes within the topic of mobility:
1. SECURITY: Securing your mobile data, devices and applications
2. BYOD: Enabling personal choice within the constraints of your corporate IT
3. PRODUCTIVITY: Driving productivity gain through mobility
4. NETWORKING: How the network and security are crucial to mobility
Using existing content, we created a short nurture cycle for each of these themes, promoting
content to our audience which moves them along the buyer journey:
Integrated campaign case study: Citrix
Education Solution Product
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

17.
Example content flow: Security
Education Solution Product
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

18.
Campaign schematic
Email
marketing
Paid and
organic social
Targeted
advertising
3rd party
content
promotion
Automation Qualified Lead
Inside sales qualification
Opportunity / revenue
pipeline
Marketing interactions
(Lead scoring)
1. Inbound and outbound marketing
tactics used to generate top-of-funnel
prospects
2. Marketing automation programmes
allow on-going nurture and self-
serving of content
3. Lead scoring used to identify
Automation qualified Lead
4. Inside sales resource follows up on
these warmer, nurtured leads
5. BANT criteria assessed and pipeline
figure attributed as appropriate.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

19.
The power of self serving
B2B buyers are going through their buying
journey at their own speed.
They’re hungry for information, self educating and
actively looking for content.
Linear campaign journeys are simple to execute and
avoid distractions, but are out of kilter with the buying
process.
We need to support this by allowing prospects to self
serve content on our landing pages
– allowing them access to what they need.
Our experience has
showed that
prospects visiting
campaign landing
pages only once have
achieved a lead score
of over 100.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

20.
3rd Party content syndication: 695 manager-level
content downloads, contacts entered the nurture
programme.
Data-driven advertising: 650,000 impressions
delivered with a click through of 0.18%
Twitter: 800,000 impressions with average 0.85%
engagement
LinkedIn: 250,000 impressions with average 0.21%
engagement rate
Email nurturing: healthy open rates across the UK,
resulted in 167 contacts reaching the 40 point MQL
threshold
Results – so far... (we’re only 50% into the campaign)
Headline Results
Budget: $140K
Results: 167 AQLs resulting in
$4.4million of opportunities
registered in SFDC (195% of
target for whole campaign)
ROI: 32:1 on opportunities
generated
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

21.
It’s an old adage, but it’s true.
As tech marketers, our focus is on ‘demand generation’
– it’s all about getting more customers. Why so?
49% say that, pound for pound, they achieve better ROI by investing
in relationship marketing over acquisition marketing.
Why aren’t we focusing on customers?
▪ Lack of resources
▪ Lack of customer data (single view of customer)
▪ No clear ownership of the customer
▪ No clearly defined customer strategy
Do we focus too much on acquisition?
70% of companies
say it’s cheaper to
retain a customer
than acquire one
eConsultancy 2015
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

22.
Especially relevant in a new sales model...
Traditional software
and hardware
Cloud model
Revenue
Revenue recognition
Typical up-front deal
Typical sales cycle
Billing approach
Sales approach
One time
Up-front
Larger than first-year cloud
Longer than cloud agreements
Get the deal, move on to next
One-time licence
Recurring
Over time
Smaller than traditional deals
Shorter than software agreements
Get the deal, keep the customer
Subscription, or usage based
IDC: Partner of the future, 2015
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

23.
Managing the customer – beyond getting the transaction
Think: TRAINING, ADOPTION and USAGE
Some organisations are splitting out the
functions of hunters and farmers.
Who owns “customers” in your organisation?
How well are customers looked after?
“Solution providers must
be set up in the future to
take care of their
customers not just at the
point of transaction, but
for the life of the
customer”
IDC, 2015
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

24.
What about the post-sale customer journey?
On-boarding
Ensure seamless customer
on-boarding – minimise
time to value
OUR
TASK
POST PURCHASEVENDOR SELECTION
Expand and enrich
Leverage service, support and
sales to deepen engagement
and create opportunities
SERVICE & RENEWAL ADVOCACY
Renew and re-sell Embed and create
ability to reference
Ensure customer continues
consumption and renews
Create lasting embedded
relationship and use to
build future value
Receives a
“welcome
pack”
Receives
call from
account
manager
Is sent
“getting the
most from
guide”
Receives
“driving user
adoption” guide
Attends meeting
around solution
roadmap
Takes part in
NPS
assessment
Asked to
create
customer
case study
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

25.
How do we maximise customer lifetime value?
The key to optimising
customer lifetime value is
to alter the slope of the
revenue line.
How good is your organisation
at finding ways to deliver
increasing value, and hence
support increasing revenues?
ServiceSource, 2015
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

26.
The same nurturing approach can work for customers
Let’s call it ‘customer relationship nurturing’
It starts just after the sale is closed and continues until a contact
is no longer a customer (and sometimes after that if we try to
win them back!)
What we’re trying to do:
▪ Ensure the customer gets the value we promised them in our
marketing and sales process
▪ Develop relationships with various contacts inside the
organisation
▪ Ensure we remain top of mind and can respond to
opportunities or issues
We should ensure we
don’t turn our nurture
into a stream of selling
messages. This
approach just trains
customers to ignore
our messages.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

27.
Three customer relationship nurtures to try...
On boarding campaign
Automate some of the more
repetitive tasks involved in on
boarding:
• training resources
• next steps after purchase
• timelines for product kick-offs
• frequently asked questions
Upsell nurture
Capitalise on your existing clients to
drive more revenue:
• Focus message on benefits
• Adopt a friendly tone of voice
• Steer clear of customer
experiencing any issues
Renewal Campaign
Remind your existing customers
that it is time to renew contracts:
• Start early, warning the right
people
• Continue to drip until renewal
date
• Liaise with account team
on non-responders
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

28.
OK, that’s all very well, but...
What about the dreaded sales guys?
By lead scoring throughout our nurture process we can hand
more, better qualified and ‘sales ready’ leads to sales.
By customer relationship nurturing we can build relationships
and open up opportunities for sales and account management
teams.
Both require close collaboration with sales teams:
▪ We don’t want to tread on toes
▪ We need to set expectations
▪ We need to manage roles and responsibilities
▪ We’re trying to help...
... And let’s face it we do have a common goal.
Companies with
aligned sales and
marketing
generated 208%
more revenue from
marketing
(MarketingProfs)
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

29.
Let’s be adults about this, have a conversation where we sort out a few
key things that will guide our actions and behaviours:
We need a marketing and sales SLA
▪ What does a ‘lead’ look like?
▪ How many leads marketing will create?
▪ What does marketing expect sales to do
with a lead?
▪ What time frame they should do it in?
▪ What happens to a lead that doesn’t
convert?
▪ How can we align marketing activity to
sales outcomes?
SALEDemand (lead) nurture Customer relationship nurture
▪ Who ‘owns’ a customer?
▪ What are the objectives for customers?
▪ How do we avoid communicating with the
wrong people at the wrong time?
▪ What are the specific marketing actions for
certain types of customers?
▪ How can marketing support on-boarding?
▪ How can marketing support sales in
achieving their goals?
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

30.
About DirectionGroup
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

31.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com
DirectionGroup quick overview
Dedicated to the IT & Technology
marketing space for over 35 years
We’re 55 people strong
Working at Global, Regional and Local levels
Top 50 UK B2B Marketing Agency
#6 in The Drum’s Independent Agencies
ELITE agency listing in the UK
#8 in the Top 100 Digital Agencies
League Table (2017, Wirehive)
Client Satisfaction score of 81% in 2017
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

32.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com
Inspired thinking: leads to revenue
DirectionGroup
The best marketing lives at the intersection of art
and science – and it falls short without input
from both.
At DirectionGroup, we blend the art and science
of modern marketing to drive connection, action
and revenue for organisations.
We bring together the distributed elements
of B2B & B2C marketing into a single,
integrated offering
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

33.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

34.
Integrated lead-to-revenue approach
MAP CRM
Web
site
Lead scoring
Data + insight
Audience +
market
insight
GTM
planning +
value
proposition
Creative
and content
development
optimisation
Inside sales
Nurture
Sales
enablement
Plan and concept Activate and amplify Pipeline management Sales engagement
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

35.
What we do
Digital
AccountBased
Marketing
Sales
Enablement
5 business capability areas:
1. Planning & strategy
2. Creative & design
3. Marketing Technology
4. Digital production
5. Print & Production
Our Planning, MarTech and digital
capability is underpinned by data services
6 services…
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

36.
DirectionGroup Services
Content
marketing
Content that
helps,
not hypes.
Inbound &
Outbound
Right message,
right audience,
right place, right
time.
Sales
enablement
Aligning
marketing and
sales to optimise
experience.
Channel
marketing
Engage, equip
and incentivise
channel
partners
ABM
Meaningful
communications
to an audience
of one (or few)
Shopper
marketing
“Sofa-to-sale”
programmes
to reach, engage
and convert.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com

37.
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com
Thank You
www.directiongroup.com
info@directiongroup.com
Share the love:
#DGedge @Direction_grp
© DirectionGroup 2015 | directiongroup.com