When in doubt, nurture!

Lead generation is expensive, and part of marketing's job, especially in this tough economy, is to maximize return on marketing spend. With that goal in mind, lead nurturing continues to be a hot topic.

I came across two informative posts about lead nurturing this week that I thought were worth sharing. Both have helpful tips for getting started with lead nurturing and taking your existing lead nurturing program to the next level.

The first, Lead nurturing: What is it? And why should I care?, by Barbra Gago, Inbound & Social Marketing Manager at Genuis.com, reviews what lead nurturing is and why you should nurture leads, and provides tips and tools to get started.

The second, Lead Nurturing Checklist for Marketing Automation, by LeadSloth's Jep Castelein, gets right to the heart of how to get started with an easy to follow checklist. Jeb suggests starting by addressing the following questions:

• Do you want to nurture new leads, existing leads or both?
• How do you to segment your audience?
• Do you want a linear drip campaign, or rule-driven dynamic campaign (flow chart)
• Which content is available for nurturing?
• What frequency of emails and duration of campaign do you prefer?
• When do you send leads to sales?
• Do you need to improve the quality of your lead data?

The entries complement each other nicely and reinforce the lead nurturing tips in my previous post, The basics of lead nurturing. Work with your sales team to define your ideal lead, put together valuable content and start nurturing your prospects!