At CDI, we've been preaching the virtues of lead nurturing (we call it "Lead Recycling") for years, since we first wrote a white paper on the topic back in 2002 (see here). A well-crafted lead nurturing strategy serves to maximize the ROI from all demand generation activity by cultivating - and recycling - existing prospects...

Still, the idea of lead nurturing is intimidating to some marketers because they're not sure where to start. It's important to recognize that an effective lead nurturing program doesn't have to mean investing many tens of thousands of dollars in an enterprise-class marketing automation system (much as those companies would have you believe otherwise.) In its simplest form, an e-mail newsletter (like the one you're reading now) is a lead nurturing program.

Here are some tips to consider if lead nurturing is on your "to do" list for 2007:

1. Be realistic.

If you're generating only a few hundred leads a month, the fixed cost associated with building a robust lead nurturing program may not generate the kind of ROI you're looking for. It might make better sense to send your prospects an e-mail newsletter every couple of months and leave it at that. On the other hand, if you're generating thousands of raw inquiries every quarter, and most get dumped into a database to die a lonely death, then lead nurturing could reap very real, measurable rewards.

2. Decide on an objective.

Is it to qualify raw inquiries and uncover short-term opportunities that are otherwise missed by the channel or the field? Is it to advance prospects along the sales cycle? Or is it to simply "keep in front" of prospects over an extended period of time so that when they do have a need they'll call you and not your competitors? Every one of these objectives demands a variation in approach when it comes to the number of touches, the duration of the program, and the offers that you put in front of the prospects.

3. Start small.

The biggest mistake many companies make is to overdesign the program. It's possible using today's e-marketing technology to develop very personalized, dynamic workflows that deliver custom e-mail content to individual prospects based on when they responded, what they responded to, whether they responded to the last communication, and so on. But if you're designing the program simply to maximize the functionality of your e-marketing platform, you'll kill yourself.

Start small, test and measure to see what works best, and then expand the program over time. Don't build a series of 13 e-mails only to discover upon launch that response plummets after e-mail #3.

4. Don't oversell.

Avoid a continuous tone of "Are you ready to buy yet?" and focus on informational offers - white papers, case studies, Webinars, podcasts, benchmark reports - that serve to educate the reader, provide content of value, position your company as a thought leader, and give the prospect the opportunity to raise his/her hand when ready to take the next step.

5. Segment your list.

Code or otherwise identify each contact by campaign, age of record, product interest, and any other demographic criteria (ex: job category, industry). Then evaluate the effectiveness of your nurturing campaign not just on cumulative response, but by which subgroups are performing, and which aren't. You may find that certain segments require more customization and a specific message, or that others (perhaps legacy records that haven't been touched in some time) just aren't worth the ongoing investment.