The document discusses six metaphors used to describe lead nurturing: 1) a seedling, comparing nurturing leads to nurturing a plant, 2) a romantic relationship, comparing it to courting a prospect, 3) a conversation, emphasizing the back-and-forth interaction, 4) a teaching moment, where marketers educate prospects on their needs, 5) a mediocre baseball player, noting many lead nurturing programs only achieve a 20% response rate, and 6) a 3-martini lunch, referring to how salespeople used to build relationships with prospects over meals. It also provides statistics on the benefits of lead nurturing programs.

1. ... a Seedling
This metaphor, which compares a
prospect to a seedling, equates the
process of lead nurturing to the skills
needed to grow plants. Nurturing, in
this metaphor, is the watering, sunlight,
and perhaps even the talking to a
seedling. Nurturing provides everything
required to make it grow into a thriving
plant— ideally, one that will deliver the
sweet fruit of recurring revenue quarter
after quarter, year after year.
... a Romantic Relationship
In this metaphor, lead nurturing is compared to a courtship, with the marketer as
the wooer and the prospect as the wooed. This metaphor emphasizes using the
appropriate message at the appropriate time. For instance, just as a gentleman
caller wouldn’t ask a woman to marry him on the first date, neither would a
marketer ask for the sale the minute a prospect expresses any interest at all in
the marketer’s product or service. Patience, marketers, patience.
... a Conversation
This analogy stresses the back and forth between the prospect and
the marketer. In this metaphor, as a prospect exposes his digital body
language as he, for instance, visits different parts of a website; the
marketer keeps the conversation going by directing the prospect to
various pieces of content that appear to interest him. This analogy of the
lead nurturing process places a premium on the marketer’s ability to not
simply talk to a prospect—but to stop and listen every once in a while.
... a Teaching Moment
Some view lead nurturing as an
advisor-student relationship. This way of
thinking aligns with the main theme of
“The Challenger Sale,” a book that made
the case that the most effective salespeople
tell prospective customers something
they don’t know. They, in effect, teach
them. They instruct them on how a pain
point—maybe even one the prospects
didn’t even know they had—can be made
far less painful with the vendor’s product
or service.
... a Mediocre
Baseball Player
A poor baseball player hits about .200, which means he gets
a hit one out of every five times at bat. Batting around .200
used to be called the Mendoza Line after a weak-hitting
shortstop named Mario Mendoza from the 1970s.
Many savvy marketers are beginning to address this inherent deficiency in email-based nurturing
programs with multi-channel lead nurturing tools such as LinkedIn Lead Accelerator, which adds
targeted display and social advertising to the nurturing mix.
Many lead nurturing programs are like bad hitters, because
the prospects in the marketer’s database only open about
20 percent of the marketer’s emails. (This problem is even
worse than it seems, because only about 5 percent of
website visitors even share their email address).
The concept of lead nurturing is fairly simple. It’s the process of building relationships with
prospects who aren’t yet ready to buy your product or service. Because up to 90 percent of the
purchase process may be complete before a prospect reaches out to sales, marketers are more
responsible for lead nurturing than ever. And lead nurturing delivers results.
Forrester Research said
companies that excel at lead
nurturing generate 50 percent
more sales ready leads—at a
33 percent lower cost.
Leads that are nurtured
tend to be more valuable,
with nurtured leads
making 47 percent larger
purchases than leads
that were not nurtured.
For many marketers, lead nurturing has become synonymous with marketing automation, and the
concept of lead nurturing can sometimes get obscured by all the new technology. So marketing
automation vendors got pretty good at explaining lead nurturing with metaphors. Here are six of
our favorites, especially the one you can have garnished with olives..
6 Favorite
Metaphors for
Lead Nurturing
LEAD NURTURING IS LIKE...
50% 47%
... a 3-Martini Lunch
Before the rise of the Internet, the
sales team controlled lead nurturing.
Salespeople built relationships with
prospects—that is they nurtured leads,
because not everybody is ready to buy
right now—by demonstrating their
industry knowledge, by showing their
humorous or entertaining side, and,
ultimately by explaining why a prospect
should buy the salesperson’s product or
service. Often, the salespeople did their
lead nurturing over lunch—occasionally
over the mythical, Don Draper-style
three-martini lunch.
Learn more about how you can nurture leads to drive more
conversions with LinkedIn Lead Accelerator by visiting
business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions