What is the definition of lead nurturing?
Lead nurturing is a process used in sales that engages prospective buyers by informing them of relevant content throughout the sales conversion funnel. Taking the lead nurturing approach requires establishing relationships with new customers before they sign on the dotted line.
A successful sales team incorporates lead nurturing into their B2B lead generation campaigns to reinforce their business as the best choice a prospective client can make. This branch of the sales process acts as a support system.
The sales team will focus on improving communication efforts by answering any questions presented by the prospective customer. Lead nurturing also includes:
- Building trust with prospects
- Increasing brand awareness
- Maintaining regular communication until they are ready to funnel through the sales process
A sales team will address the specific needs of a new customer during the lead nurturing process, depending on their industry and business. While most prospects need to know how a B2B partnership will increase their ROI, not everyone requires the same steady flow of communication.
For example, prospective clients in Big Data and SaaS industries gravitate to teams that use a data-focused sales approach. Marketing and digital advertising companies care about boosting their client’s online exposure.
Nine times out of ten, creating a lead nurturing campaign that addresses these concerns with a thoughtful, creative approach will outrank the thousands of other partners trying to gain your prospect’s attention.
Engage your sales prospects with Launch Leads’ lead nurturing services. Learn more about B2B lead generation by requesting a Free Needs Assessment today.
What is a Lead Nurturing Campaign?
A lead nurturing campaign is a personalized sales process developed for a prospective customer to ensure sales and conversions. Sales teams creating a lead nurturing campaign will strategize a communication process that engages and develops the relationship between seller and buyer.
While there are many possible lead nurturing strategies to use when establishing a partnership, a few of the most successful ways to develop a winning lead nurturing campaign include:
Developing Buyer Personas
The first step to creating any lead nurturing campaign is knowing your market. If you don’t understand the type of people you are selling to, you will fail to meet their needs. Researching who your clients are and what they care about will help guide product development and develop impactful lead nurturing strategies.
Personalizing Communication Strategies
Along with having a broad overview of your customer base, you should also discover ways to personalize communication so that prospects feel seen and heard. Personalization will vary from customer to customer based on their market, the scope of work, and business goals. As a result, your salespeople will attract high-value leads to your business who you are more likely to become life-long customers.
Meeting Where Prospective Customers Are At In The Sales Funnel
Every prospect is at a different stage in the buyer’s journey. If you fail to meet their needs at each particular stage, you risk losing them along the way. Determine where each of your prospects is in the sales funnel and develop lead nurturing strategies to move them further down the road.
Targeting Your Key Audience
You can spend all day engaging new leads, but you will waste time on unworthy prospects who will fail to move the needle in your favor. Rather than nurturing leads across a broad range of industries, develop a plan that targets your ideal clients. It might take longer for these leads to complete the buyer’s journey but will do more for your business long-term than the majority of your short-lived clients.
Re-Engaging Forgotten Prospects
Another key to a successful lead nurturing campaign is re-engagement. Bringing exhausted prospects back from the dead will ensure a full pipeline and an empty trash can. Develop lead nurturing strategies that focus on revival services to optimize all of your sales opportunities.
Generating Authentic Content
Businesses in today’s climate require more from their partners. Forget spamming your clients with generic content—use relevant information at every stage of the sales journey. Be thoughtful about which content you send to new prospects. For instance, send content that includes the following traits in emails, phone calls, and in-person meetings:
- Job Title
- Age
- Location
- Interests
You should also address any pain points or questions brought up in your last conversation. These details will spark prospects’ interests more than any standard communication ever could.
How to Nurture Cold Leads
Every business has thousands of marketing leads who left the buyer’s journey in the early stages. Outbound sales campaigns should capitalize on these leads by re-engaging cold lead prospects with targeted lead nurturing strategies.
On average, newly signed clients received ten marketing touches from when they entered the sales funnel until they closed. Cold lead nurturing provides the fuel sales teams need to move prospective customers forward.
You can nurture cold leads by focusing on content marketing, timely responses, and leveraging advanced proprietary software. Here are a few lead nurturing strategies to use while cold lead nurturing:
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Create Valuable Content
- Prospects won’t continue accepting your phone calls, reading your emails, and ultimately, give you their business without getting something in return. If you expect to pique a cold lead’s interest, you must give them something of value. Optimize your cold lead nurturing strategy by offering webinars, e-books, white papers, in-depth blog posts, and more. Metaphorically, you must take your lead on a date before you propose.
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Respond Quickly
- Interest drops off dramatically the more time it takes for you to return a prospect’s call. Seize your window of opportunity by contacting a cold lead within five minutes of receiving an inbound phone call, email, or newsletter sign-up. By focusing on this lead nurturing tactic, you will take your lead from cold to close.
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Leverage Advanced Proprietary Software
- One tactic that a successful lead nurturing company does well is using proprietary software to its advantage. You can spend thousands of dollars to acquire licensing for these software platforms or partner with a lead nurturing expert. Choose from a personalized lead nurturing campaign or a complete B2B lead generation overhaul.
- Outsourcing lead generation and sales not only maximizes sales opportunities but saves money over time. Through a multi-channel approach, Launch Leads utilizes the best lead nurturing technology available to find unparalleled marketing opportunities that deliver leads that match your target criteria.
What Is Lead Nurturing Strategy?
Lead nurturing strategy refers to tactics businesses use to develop relationships with prospective customers that motivate them to close the deal. Some of the most effective lead nurturing tactics include:
Email Nurturing
Regularly scheduled email communication is one of the most efficient forms of lead nurturing. Develop an automated email nurturing process that focuses on providing leads with quality content once or twice a week. Three you can use to improve your email nurturing strategy include:
- Leverage data, for instance, regularly check click rates to discover which emails perform best
- Don’t stick to one template; instead, include a variety of content like video, how-to guides, statistics, white papers, Q&As, and more.
- Segment your email list based on industry
Retargeting
Stay top-of-mind by retargeting your prospects through a multi-channel approach. If a lead wasn’t interested in an email, re-package your message into an engaging social media post or push a free demo through an online ad.
Remember—the more your prospect engages with your business, the better your conversion rate will be. It will pay off to invest in a thorough retargeting campaign.
Personalized Content
Templated content doesn’t go the distance. Do better by customizing your content with as many details as possible. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as you might think, either. For example, as you plan your automated email marketing campaign, create a series of templates to use.
Then, add a few unique details you know about the prospect. This lead nurturing tactic will help build and establish relationships based on mutual respect and trust.
Trade Show Marketing
The most effective lead nurturing strategies can be separated into two categories: in-person and absent communication. Most lead nurturing campaigns focus on absent communication strategies like emails, phone calls, and social media. However, it is crucial that you also find ways to meet with prospects face-to-face.
In-person interactions will increase your sales success rate exponentially. One effective way to get face-time with your leads is in-person events like trade shows. Our lead generation experts recommend signing up for any trade shows that fall within your industry. It would help if you also created a detailed lead generation strategy to market your presence at the trade show.
To get the most out of your next trade show event, partner with our B2B trade show experts. Launch Leads trade show services to help generate buzz before, during, and after the event. We will also set appointments with interested decision-makers to optimize your time during the event and drive business to your booth.
Our goal in trade show lead nurturing is increasing interest in your business. Then, you can push the leads you met with further down the sales funnel by enlisting in our other lead generation services.
Learn more about Launch Leads by signing up for a free needs assessment.
