Breeding leads is an inexpensive and trouble-free concept today owing to social media promotions and landing pages. While aiming at the right market is critical in lead generation, targeting those quality prospects to rake in the profits is still a baby step, albeit in the right direction.

The latest marketing trend broadcasts the importance of practicing something we call: lead nurturing.

So, what exactly does this term mean? Is it just another Salesforce jargon to be brushed aside?

Lead Nurturing – “The role of Lead Nurturing in B2B business”

73% of all B2B leads are not ready for sale conversion. Converting leads to customers is a top priority; however, the study above shows that while you can generate leads, you can’t convince them to buy.

How to bridge the gap between quality lead generation and sales you ask?

It is merely by implementing a system that can yield flexible prospect behaviour. Every savvy marketer knows that developing an exciting purchase journey for the prospect is more important than staying wedged on the final goal.

Lead nurturing advocates active client engagement – remind them of your existence, how you can solve their problems, and that you are better than the best.

The aim of the business should be to provide value that helps them grow. Gaining their trust gently and guiding them along their purchase path is the lesser traveled route that results in maximum sales conversions.

‍

Simplifying the strategy of Lead Nurturing in 3 simple steps

Implementing a lead nurturing tactic that is effective should be designed around the contentment of the customer is the need of the hour.

Only a small share of the inward leads convert into an instant purchase, leaving an overhead of 90% marketing leads in the platter.

The pressing need of this article is for you to understand that the lion’s share of your company sales or purchases feeds off from an effective strategy of lead nurturing.

Regardless of the boons that lead nurturing provides, the report by MarketingSherpa reveals that the marketers who vigorously foster their sales requirements account to only 36%!

It implies that there is an enormous scope to excel over the competition with a crisp and targeted lead nurturing method.

‍

Practising the method of lead nurturing can be a feather in your cap for a successful business, however, the “why” and “how” of this inward marketing strategy is bleak.

Here are a few ways on how you can manoeuvre this marketing gem to your advantage. If we break down the stages in this lead nurturing funnel we arrive at three key stages, and they are:

IDEA STAGE

• Purposeful content: A Demand Gen report from 2016 reviewed on hubpost suggest that 47% of B2B buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. A carefully designed and targeted content strategy in lead nurturing has ultimate rewards. It is vital to comprehend the uniqueness of each buyer’s psyche and devise a batch of specific content to cultivate it. This is done based on the fascinations, aspirations and marketing actuates that can aid you to detect, fragment and cater to their respective unique psyches.
• Cross-media lead nurturing: A lead nurturing campaign must see past the traditional email drip campaigns. Pay attention to set up campaigns which can be an amalgamation of email marketing, nurturing leads via LinkedIn, retargeting schemes etc.

LEARNING STAGE

• A manifold of a point of interactions: A research suggests that 49% marketers include less than five touches in their lead nurturing programs. In case if your company’s lead nurturing campaign can relate to this, it is time to revamp. Introducing a variety of platforms to interact and be of assistance to your prospects will automatically increase your touch points.
• Punctual follow-ups: Even though regular follow-up calls and emails are good practice to convert leads into qualifies sales, automated lead nurturing will expand your reach of prospects.

MANIFESTING STAGE

• Customized emails: Set an automated response scheme as part of your lead nurturing campaign and target triggered emails to your prospects. This can be done depending on the level of engagement on the website, downloaded content if any, clicks on links from your emails etc.

• Balance marketing and sales: The crucial and concluding stage of the sales funnel to recognise the right window of opportunity to transition the prospect from sales to marketing.

Lead Nurturing – Important things to remember while Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing for sales suggests a way for you to advance an affiliation with the leads in a timely and an efficient manner. The core of lead nurturing is to feed your prospects with a taste of the product or service. Consider it as illustrating outcomes in advance. So how can you transform yours into a lead nurturing company and how do you know which lead to cultivate?

20% increase in sales comes from leads that are nurtured via specific content, and 63% of companies using marketing automation are way ahead in the race.

For example, creating an email series, scheduled to run automatically. A crucial lead nurturing campaign includes sequential emails. These emails aim to nurture the prospect down the sales funnel with successive content during buying. This way your email campaign takes charge of a potential salesperson, candid and far from being intrusive.

E.g. Send an email attached to a related blog post, the day after your prospect downloads content. Three days later, send an email with an educative video addressing the original offer. Next, deliver an email with a quiz or a self-assessment. Eventually, a week or so after the prospect first showed continued interest; you send a final email containing consultation or purchase request.

‍

‍

However, you must understand and know that automating emails alone does not bring value to nurturing a lead. There should be a proper structure and goal to it. The emails should be sent based on personalised experience for the lead into a broader spectrum based on what you want to achieve as a result, e.g., do you want the lead to attend your event/seminar, look at your case study, download your guide, start a free trial etc. The way you approach each lead and how you write your emails is of utmost importance.

Here are a few rules to practice lead nurturing

• Establish contact only with a clear objective.
• Begin with the customer, not with your product/service.
• Rekindle the interactions from where it was left.
• Avoid repetitive dialogues with the prospect.
• Indulge in personal and customised communication.
• Reflect your insights of their needs and desires in all deliverables.
• Take time to learn about the prospects in fragments to know them intact.

Conclusion

Let us bring you to understand the variations in lead generation and lead nurturing through a natural inference. You cannot prepare and serve a lemonade (purchase) without lemons (leads) and water (nurturing). Only with each element complementing the other is how we relish a fresh glass of lemonade or an actual purchase in a figure of speech here. Remember, your sales strategy will come a full circle, in balancing the journey between lead generation and lead nurturing. Create a dependable nurture strategy by measuring your lead generation company facts and aspirations, and you will identify what works for you.

Key Takeaways:

• Lead nurturing converts your inbound traffic into actual sales
• Structure a dependable nurture strategy by “taking care of your sales cues.”
• Implement a system that focuses more on the purchase journey rather than a process that wedges on the final goal
• Content strategy will always hold a crucial role in the successful conversion of leads. Understanding your buyers’ psyche and planning your content will take you a long way in nurturing your prospect.
• As the line between sales and marketing is blurring, know when the perfect time is to convert your leads into sales.
• The road to a successful sales strategy can only be made by maintaining a balance between lead generation and lead nurturing.

‍