06 Aug Your target market: The short vs. the long term approach 

When it comes to working through a pipeline, all too often it can mean asking the prospect, are you interested? Yes or no? The problem is, studies have shown that only about 3% of your target market are in a place to buy what you offer right away. 7% in the near term. About 30% will be ready in the next year. The other 60%, will take longer than that or will just never hire you regardless. 

Most companies incentivize their sales teams to focus on the 3%. Sales departments are not incentivized to nurture. If you’re only focusing on prospects who are ready to buy, you’re missing out on 37% of your target market, assuming you’ve identified the right people in your target market to begin with. The interesting thing about these numbers is who’s in those cohorts changes every month. 

Nurturing prospects who will turn into short term wins a few months down the line is essential. Even if the prospect isn’t willing to buy right away, if you can share a view of a compelling future and educate them on the benefits in a way that’s strategic it’s easy to exponentially grow your opportunities.

Nurture campaigns, which drip feed prospects your stories and content will have a big impact on your future short term leads. 

We developed a nurture campaign for a household name in the corporate governance space, using our email platform. We shared carefully curated knowledge, genuinely valuable at the executive level to build their brand and make sure that when prospects in their target market were ready our client would be front of mind. 

The nurture campaign added around 20-30 prospects to their pipeline every month