Sales Nurturing Statistics That Matter

Sales nurturing is an important tool in revenue generation. This collection of sales nurturing statistics that matter highlights the benefits.

What is sales nurturing?

Just 56% of B2B organizations verify valid business leads before they are passed to sales. — Marketing Sherpa

You can bet those 56% B2B organizations aren’t sales nurturing, and likely don’t have a strong sales and marketing alignment. Sales nurturing employs content marketing, lead scoring, marketing automation and more to identify, differentiate, interact and customize lead generation and lead nurturing. Sales nurturing is a dynamic approach to communicating with leads that drives conversions at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Sales nurturing is not new. Forty two percent of companies surveyed in Demand Gen’s Lead Nurturing Benchmark Study had been developing lead nurturing campaigns for more than two years.

Sales nurturing statistics and trends

87% of best-in-class lead nurturing companies employed a Marketing Automation Platform. — Aberdeen

The most important strategic goals of a marketing automation strategy are increasing lead generation (61%), lead nurturing (57%) and sales revenue (47%). – Ascend2.

Sales nurturing sees marketing contributing more to the sales-forecasted pipeline — 30% vs 22%. — Aberdeen

Those who measure their campaigns see a 20 - 30% better response rate to nurture campaigns compared to non-nurtures. — Demand Gen

Aligning content to specific stages in the buyer’s journey yields an average of 73% higher conversion rates vs content that isn’t aligned. — Aberdeen

51% of Best-in-Class have nurture campaigns that adjust dynamically to prospect/content behavior, vs 27% of all others. — Aberdeen

Leads nurtured with targeted content produce an increase in sales opportunities of more than 20%. — HubSpot

Developing targeted content by buyer stage was the greatest challenge of lead nurture campaigns for 71% of respondents. — Demand Gen

Leads from a long sales cycle with numerous influencers require significantly more nurturing (48%) than leads addressed in a direct sale (35%). — Ascend2

The most useful measure of marketing automation performance is conversion rate for 70% of very successful system users. — Ascend2 & Marketo

Lead nurturing (57%) and analytics and reporting (52%) were the top two most valuable features of marketing automation systems. — Ascend2 & Marketo

Generating sales-ready leads was a key nurturing objective for 69%, with 45% citing greater acceptance of leads from the sales team as a top benefit. — Demand Gen

81% have early-stage lead nurturing to target new leads. 42% do advanced-stage nurturing. Only 29% have current client nurturing. — Demand Gen

“It’s a huge mistake to create only one nurture message and assume that every member of the buying committee will respond to it.” Jason Stewart, VP of Content Strategy for Annuitas tells Demand Gen. To see nurturing success follow sales nurturing best practices and optimize for different personas with different pain points.

Sources:
Ascend2. (2016). 2016 State of Lead Generation Survey Summary Report. https://ascend2.com/home/wp-content/uploads/Ascend2-2016-State-of-Lead-Generation-Survey-Summary-Report-160808.pdf
Ascend2 & Marketo (2015, April). Marking Automation: Strategies for Sustaining Success. https://www.marketo.com/ebooks/marketing-automation-strategies-for-sustaining-success-ascend2/
Demand Gen. (2016). Top B2B Marketers Measure Lead Nurturing Effectiveness to Boost Performance. https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/reports/top-b2b-marketers-measure-lead-nurturing-effectiveness-to-boost-performance
Demand Gen. (2015, July). 2015 Lead Nurturing Benchmark Study. https://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/reports/2015-lead-nurturing-benchmark-study-aligning-nurture-programs-to-the-buyer-s-journey
Moravick, A. (2014, December). The nature of lead nurturing: 4 Pillars of Effective Programs. https://www.aberdeen.com/research/10044/10044-KB-Effective-Lead-Nurturing.aspx/content.aspx.aspx