Lead nurturing is defined as the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel. While relatively simple to describe, lead nurturing can be complex and every implementation is different.
To find out more about how companies in Southeast Asia (SEA) are approaching lead nurturing, ClickInsights in association Marketo Engage recently surveyed more than 800 B2B marketers in the region who have a lead nurturing program.
Previously, we looked at the Indonesian approach to lead nurturing which included such insights such as
Lead nurturing in Indonesia is more likely to be driven by the c-level, and
B2B marketers in Indonesia say that for lead nurturing their company website delivers the best ROI
Now we shift our focus to Malaysia and below you can find several insights about how marketers in the country are approaching lead nurturing. For more details about lead nurturing across the SEA region, you can download the full report here: Lead Nurturing - The Southeast Asia Perspective.
1) Marketers in Malaysia are more likely to collaborate with sales on their lead nurturing programme
When asked how they measured the effectiveness of their lead nurturing programme, marketers in Malaysia were most likely to say that it was judged by the number of marketing qualified leads (MQL), similar to marketers in other SEA countries.
They were, however, more likely than their regional counterparts to also measure success by the number of sales qualified leads (SQL) with 2 in 3 (66%) indicating that this was the case vs. 56% region-wide.
Additionally, nearly half (47%) of Malaysian respondents indicated that they order value size, a key sales metric, to judge success significantly more than other SEA respondents (36%).
2) Lead nurturing helps Malaysian marketers learn more about their customers
Survey takers were also asked what they found were the biggest benefits of lead nurturing.
Respondents from Malaysia agreed on most points with their regional peers but were more enthusiastic about using the marketing approach to learn about their customers.
Nearly 2 in 3 (65%) said that lead nurturing helped them with "understanding customer needs/pain points" whereas only around half (54%) in other SEA countries felt the same. Furthermore, more Malaysian respondents indicated that 'finding new customer segments' was a benefit than other regional marketers (58% Malaysia vs. 45% SEA).
While lead nurturing can serve a variety of purposes, it is interesting to note that marketers in Malaysia use the approach to learn about customer issues and improve their market segmentation as well using it to boost business.
3) Malaysian marketers struggle more with content and technology than others in the region
Finally, another notable difference between Malaysian lead nurturers and others in the SEA region is that those in Malaysia face slightly different obstacles when implementing their programme.
When asked to list the greatest challenges they face with lead nurturing, nearly 2 in 3 (64%) Malaysians listed 'producing enough content' as opposed to 56% region-wide.
Marketers in the country also struggle a bit more with lead nurturing technology than others in the region. 'Finding the right technology solution' was listed as a challenge by 57% of marketers in Malaysia and fewer than half (47%) in the rest of SEA.
Many marketers elsewhere also struggle to overcome these hurdles - and so the full report contains guidance on how marketers should prepare themselves to launch a lead nurturing programme. Moreover, the report covers the technology used by marketers for lead nurturing and provides several helpful links.
Those seeking more information on how to get started with lead nurturing or want to gauge the progress in the region on this topic, please download the full report here: Lead Nurturing - The Southeast Asia Perspective.