Every potential interaction with a customer is important, particularly in the competitive online marketplace. That’s why swift and successful lead nurturing is crucial for directing prospects through the sales funnel to conversion. It’s a strategy essential to generating new customers consistently in the digital age.
And that’s true whether you’re a B2B company, like many who use marketing automation, or a B2C business, including those who sell high-dollar products, such as automobiles or real estate, which might require a longer sales cycle. Lead nurturing is even beneficial for businesses making quick sales, such as e-commerce transactions.
In this article, we’ll explore strategies for nurturing your leads to increase your business’s ROI and foster sustainable growth.
What is Lead Nurturing?
Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects, whether they’re making a purchase now or in three years. It is an integral component of inbound marketing and includes various online channels, such as content marketing and social media.
But not everyone you come in contact with will be ready to buy immediately. This is where lead nurturing comes in. It’s essential for staying top-of-mind and ensuring that prospects turn to you when they are ready to purchase. Forrester Research has found that companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.
How Does Lead Nurturing Work?
Effective lead nurturing accomplishes two objectives: It reminds would-be buyers about the product or service they want and tells an enterprise where it needs to improve its overall sales funnel. Conversion is obviously the primary objective.
Beyond simply converting leads, effective lead nurturing will show enterprises exactly where they need to fine-tune their online sales strategy to potentially smooth the way for future new leads. All of these could create significant growth opportunities for the enterprise in the future.
Let’s take a look at how lead nurturing works.
Lead Generation
Your business offers an incentive for the market to show interest in. This may come from various forms, such as downloading content, completing a form, or signing up for an offer. Once they opt-in, they’ll become a potential lead source. After that, you can acknowledge their response with a “Thank You” web page that a visitor sees after filling out a web form.
Validation
Not every response to a lead generation message means that a prospect is truly interested in what your company offers. Other people are looking for complimentary items or something else entirely, so the company needs to determine which is which.
Engagement
Once a lead is qualified, the company contacts them and tries to learn more about them. This could be a phone call, an online survey, or any other exchange of information that helps the company continue to get to know the lead and provide solutions to their problems. This way, a company can feature its products, too.
Conversion
The conversion phase is when the company has finally worn the prospect down and is ready to make a purchase. This can be initiated by the company during the interaction phase or at the prospect’s direction. Either way, a new sale, and customer are acquired when the deal is done.
Lead Nurturing Strategy
There are an endless number of lead nurturing tactics available, and they vary by organization. However, they may change over time. When earlier strategies become outdated, there is a need to change how prospects are engaged. The right CRM software can ease sales, marketing, and customer service processes.
Email Marketing
According to Campaign Monitor research, email marketing is considered the best digital marketing strategy for ROI by 55% of marketers. Email marketing is not only cheaper than advertising, but it also allows for personalization by data and user behavior.
Email segmentation, which divides subscribers into smaller groups based on set parameters, increases lead targeting. This allows targeting based on browsing behavior, content downloaded, sales funnel stage, email engagement, and other factors, accumulating more prospect data.
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