Lead nurturing

At every stage of the sales funnel, you should develop mutually beneficial relationships between the company and customers and provide them with all the answers they need to become one step closer to a purchase. 

In other words, as soon as you’ve generated leads, you should closely cooperate with them using a clever lead nurturing strategy. But what is the definition of lead nurturing? Let’s clarify first.

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is building and maintaining relationships with the leads that are not yet ready to buy to usher them through the buyer’s journey toward purchasing your product. 

Lead nurturing boils down to a variety of forms of engagement with leads: 

• Publishing and sharing relevant, valuable content.
• Sending targeted email campaigns based on the prospects’ needs and interests.
• Making calls based on their behavior.
• Answering prospects’ possible questions and educating them on the topics relevant to their needs and connected with your product.
• Helping prospects grow as an individual or a company.

Why is lead nurturing important?

If you’re operating in B2B, you know that people who visit your website or product landing page will not necessarily buy your solution. Instead, they gather information, learn more about your business, and try to find out how your product can help resolve their pain points.

They are not ready to buy now but show interest; they may be ready to buy your solution in the future, right? Numbers prove it: about 48% of businesses say their leads require a long-cycle nurturing with many influencers. But the result deserves the effort. 

According to the comprehensive analysis performed by Marketo, nurtured leads bring about 47% larger sales than non-nurtured ones. Lead nurturing strategies can convert nearly 50% of the not-ready-to-buy customers into willing clients who order services and purchase goods without any issues. 

Lead nurturing and marketing funnel

A marketing funnel is often explained as a journey of a buyer. This process mainly aims to turn a cold lead into a paying purchaser. It promotes progress at each conversion funnel stage, from top to bottom.

To turn your leads into ready-for-purchase buyers, it’s necessary to nurture them at each stage of the funnel:

• TOF (top of the funnel) – at this stage, lead nurturing concerns the call-to-action content created for brand awareness and effective traffic generation. For instance, you can develop lead magnets to attract more targeted visitors.
• MOF (middle of the funnel) – the primary purpose of lead nurturing at this stage is to achieve customer engagement. It’s possible to do that with credibility-oriented data (tripwires, communication with the warm audience using newsletters, mail-out actions, and more).
• BOF (bottom of the funnel) – lead nurturing at this last stage should focus on converting potential buyers into real purchasers. For instance, you can invite your customers to webinars, offer discounts, or share testimonials that would convince them it’s worth doing business with your company.

The main lead nurturing tactics

When marketers put effective lead nurturing tactics into work, the total quantity of paying clients increases. Here are 4 strategies that will help you nurture leads efficiently:

Create a map of your buyer personas

As a rule, businesses have multiple buyer personas. You should create a so-called map of your buyer personas that would contain the main parameters of each persona, showing their growth limits and the solutions they seek.

In addition, your map should contain a nurturing plan, where you’ll state what content your buyer personas are interested in, what email chains you’ll send them, how often you’ll contact them, etc. With mapping a detailed lead nurturing plan, you’ll be able to approach every persona in a different, more effective way.

Use multiple channels

There are a variety of ways to nurture your leads nowadays. Although one of the most effective channels is email marketing, your outreach will be more efficient if you combine it with other means like calling, social media, paid retargeting, and whatnot. 

Walk the path with your leads to see what communication channels they prefer. You have many buyer personas, remember? Use this knowledge to segment your audience and adjust your lead nurturing channels to various needs. 

Follow up timely

Lead nurturing is impossible without timely follow-ups with potential buyers. All email responses and calls should be instant. Therefore, it’s reasonable to automate your communication with leads to ensure they are accounted for and contacted at the right time.

For instance, with tools like Snov.io cold email software, you can automate lead nurturing email sequences without losing a personalized approach to every lead. 

Personalize

A personalized approach is key to effective lead nurturing. Personalization in email marketing campaigns helps convert leads into real buyers much faster. Why? Because 72% of leads will only engage with you if you provide personalized messaging. 

Ensure the nurturing content you share with your leads and the emails you send them are relevant to their problems and questions. Give your leads what they expect, and they’ll allow you to move them further down the sales funnel. 

Email marketing and lead nurturing

As mentioned before, many successful lead nurturing tactics rely on email marketing.

There is a range of practical tips on organizing lead nurturing more productively via email campaigns. Besides personalized email letters and targeted content sending, marketers can implement other hot-topic ideas, test them, and create their own strategy to nurture leads:

✔️ To-the-point letters – it’s possible to help visitors return to the company’s website with the help of a special command line. This way, marketers can add a “Return to the cart” or “Revisit the website” button to their newsletter to make potential buyers check out the site and continue their journey down the funnel.

✔️ Visual email letters – visitors pay more attention to emails with pictures, videos, GIFs, promo videos, etc. Carefully done visualization can bring more warm leads that will be easier to convert to the next stage.

✔️ Triggered email messages – these letters are sent once a certain trigger has been activated; for example, a lead has visited the pricing page or clicked an ad. 

✔️ Special offer emails – these messages are aimed at nurturing leads through special offers such as a limited range of goods, free downloadable content, short-run discounts, or free meeting invitations.

✔️ User-centered content – your email messages can contain a little bit of everything your leads might be interested in. For example, one newsletter can include a hot promotion, meme, industry-related news, or educational elements.

✔️ Trial promotions – most visitors might not know about a company’s free trial. Such emails can help intrigue your leads and make them think about trying your product or service more seriously.

✔️ Timely announcements – it’s essential to send promotions beforehand. Potential buyers need time to weigh the advantages and disadvantages before purchasing. This also concerns training invitations, webinars, and other events. Send emails in advance to give people time to ruminate over decisions.

Wrapping up

Lead nurturing is a highly detailed process, which you can’t avoid if you want to grow your sales. Think of a clever lead nurturing strategy, create a map of your buyer personas, engage with your leads using multiple channels, make your lead nurturing content and messages relevant to their problems and questions, and don’t forget that email marketing is one of the most effective ways of nurturing your leads. 

And if you need a tool to automate your lead nurturing email campaign and check email lists, Snov.io’s cold email tool is always here to help!