Lead Nurturing - The Southeast Asia Perspective [Spotlight: Philippines]

Lead nurturing is a marketing technique practised by many B2B marketers which helps them attract, engage and qualify leads across multiple channels.

It's a useful approach for ensuring that people who show interest in a company are courted gently in the early stage of the buying journey and then given everything they need as the relationship progresses.

While it sounds perfect for our current challenging crisis, it's unclear whether lead nurturing has been adopted in Southeast Asia - and, if so, to what extent.

To find out, ClickInsights, in association with Marketo Engage, recently surveyed over 800 lead nurturing marketers across Southeast Asia (SEA) and published the results in a free research paper: Lead Nurturing - The Southeast Asia Perspective.

Responses from across the region are available in the paper and we are publishing country-specific data from all six SEA countries in this post series.

We have recently covered highlights of responses from Indonesia and Malaysia - and below you can find a summary of responses from B2B marketers based in the Philippines.

For those seeking region-wide data, please download the full report here: Lead Nurturing - The Southeast Asia Perspective.

1) Marketers in the Philippines are relatively new to lead nurturing

Survey participants were first asked how long they had been working with lead nurturing.

Respondents from the Philippines indicated that they were more likely to have started within the last 2 years that their SEA counterparts, 41% Philippines (PH) vs. 25% SEA. Moreover, they were significantly less likely to have a long-running programme with only 16% using lead nurturing for more than 5 years, as compared with 21% of marketers in other SEA countries.

These results mean that companies based in the Philippines are relative newcomers to lead nurturing in the region.

2) Marketing is most likely to be driving lead nurturing in the Philippines

Being new to lead nurturing was not the only difference between Filipino marketers and those in other SEA countries.

Respondents based in the Philippines also revealed that lead nurturing programmes were far more likely to be run by marketing than in other SEA countries (55% PH vs. 39% SEA) and much less likely to be driven by the C-level (31% PH vs. 49% SEA).

These differences could be influenced by the fact that companies in the Philippines are relatively new to lead nurturing and so the technology and the skill to run the programme have become much more widely available. C-level support may no longer be necessary to get the programmes started.

3) Filipino marketers find social media is the best channel for lead nurturing

Lead nurturing programmes in the Philippines are typically run by marketing, but what channels do these marketers find most useful?

When asked to state the one channel which delivers the best ROI, marketers in the Philippines differed sharply from their SEA counterparts. Whereas respondents from other SEA countries felt that the company website was the best channel for lead nurturing, marketers based in the Philippines said it was 'social media' (39% PH vs. 24% SEA).

This difference in the platform of choice may be because lead nurturing programmes are relatively new in the Philippines and so marketers are more likely to experiment with platforms which have become available more recently.

Marketers who rely heavily on their website for lead nurturing are advised to follow the lead of marketers in the Philippines and try social media sites such as LinkedIn for engaging prospects.

4) Marketers in the Philippines struggle with getting leads through sales

Not all the differences between lead nurturing programmes in the Philippines and SEA companies should be admired and emulated elsewhere though.

When asked what percentage of leads which had completed their nurturing programme had been passed back to sales, nearly 1 in 7 (14%) respondents from the Philippines said it was more than 1 in 3 (33%). This is far higher than in other countries in the region, where fewer than 1 in 10 (9%) in SEA reported the same figure.

While this might be because lead nurturing programmes in the Philippines are less mature than others in the region, it could also be linked that they are more likely to be marketing-led and so have less buy-in from the top.

Regardless, marketers should reflect on this result and realize that lead nurturing requires cooperation and coordination across different departments to be effective.

5) Lead nurturing is more likely to grow in the Philippines than in SEA as a whole

Yet while marketers in the Philippines are facing obstacles with sales, they are more positive about the prospect of lead nurturing than marketers in other SEA countries.

When asked about their company's plans for lead nurturing in the coming year, nearly half (48%) of respondents from the Philippines said that they will do more lead nurturing, significantly more than in other SEA countries (30%, on average).

Furthermore, only 1 in 10 (10%) of Filipino respondents said that they will do less lead nurturing next year, far fewer than marketers elsewhere in SEA (23%).

This means that in spite of being new, run by marketing and struggling with getting leads signed off, companies in the Philippines are pushing ahead with lead nurturing programmes. This is surely an enthusiastic endorsement of a new marketing approach in the current business climate.

For more on lead nurturing including responses from all SEA countries to many more questions on the topic, please download the full report: Lead Nurturing - The Southeast Asia Perspective.