Did you know that 91% of marketers consider lead generation their most important goal?
Leads are valuable, so it’s not unusual for businesses to spend half their marketing budget acquiring high-quality prospects. For better or worse, lead generation directly translates to sales and retention – the better the leads, the faster the customer conversions.
In between these two touchpoints, lead nurturing removes all friction.
Lead nurturing is an excellent aid to B2C companies, where it helps nudge the prospect closer to conversion.
In B2B, lead nurturing plays the role of convincing target companies to commit. Though somewhat underappreciated and marginalized, lead nurturing is always necessary.
Here’s how to enhance your lead nurturing efforts with five expert tips.
1. To nurture leads, you must first understand them.
A lot depends on how well you know and understand your potential customers. Without this crucial knowledge, you can’t hope to offer them the right solutions for their needs and problems. If you fail to give them what they want first, they will go to your competitors.
That is especially true for prospects who are still researching their options.
Nurturing requires a subtle touch. At this sensitive stage of the buyer’s journey, when a prospect can leave abruptly and often with no apparent reason, marketers must find a way to connect with leads, pull them closer, and earn their trust. They won’t convert until they’re ready.
To predict conversion likelihood and determine the right approach to lead nurturing, B2Cs must start analyzing past customer behavior. That helps identify ideal buyer personas with great detail and then choose the most effective nurturing device accordingly.
On the other hand, B2Cs can inform their nurturing decisions with firmographic data.
2. Use rich datasets for target market segmentation.
Target market segmentation refers to dividing your potential customers into groups based on various factors. Naturally, segmentation requires large quantities of information about your leads and diverse knowledge about their buying behavior.
There are four types of data in target market segmentation:
● Demographic;
● Contextual;
● Behavioral;
● Firmographic.
Data acquisition methods are vastly different, varying from one company to another. How you collect and analyze customer data depends on whether you’re selling to individuals or companies and how extensive your customer base is. Resources are also a critical factor.
Whatever the case, target market segmentation can help you better allocate your lead nurturing budget.
An email with an engaging CTA is all it takes for some leads. To convince others, you need viral content, e-books, or discounts. Data should tell you the right approach for each segment.
3. Personalize each touchpoint leading to conversion.
Lead scoring and target market segmentation can help you personalize nurturing at every touchpoint leading to conversion. You can personalize your lead nurturing email campaigns and how you engage your leads with your website content, social media, and ads.
Creating personalized content for each phase of the buyer’s journey is also effective.
Both segmentation and personalization save time and money, leading to faster conversions. They enable you to determine and then automate the best possible course of action for every type of lead at every decisive moment before and while they’re in the funnel.
You should distribute personalized nurturing content throughout the buyer’s journey:
● At the awareness stage – Leads need how-to articles, buying guides, and videos to get familiar with your brand.
● Deeper down the funnel – Leads need case studies, user-generated content, and e-books to convince them that you are the best and most reliable option they have.
● Moments before they convert – Leads need assistance in their buyer’s journey with intuitive CTAs, FAQs, and demos.
4. Use a multi-channel approach to increase your reach.
Like elsewhere in the buyer’s journey, personalization in lead nurturing touches more than just content.
Different types of leads, divided into segments based on who they are and their buying habits, respond differently to lead nurturing tactics depending on what channel you use.
A businessman in their 40s, for example, is usually more likely to convert after a lead nurturing email with an explainer video and an easy-to-follow CTA.
On the other hand, a 20-year-old student is more likely to buy a product if they frequently see it on Instagram and Facebook.
That is a gross generalization, but it shows the importance of choosing the right channel. However, a single channel doesn’t suffice in some cases.
One way or another, lead nurturing requires marketers to juggle multiple channels simultaneously, including more than just email and social media. There’s also paid retargeting, customized website content, and a direct sales outreach if all else fails to deliver.
5. Take nurturing to the next level with automation tools.
Try as you might; you can’t escape the complexity of lead nurturing.
Compared to customer retention, which employs a more straightforward approach, lead nurturing is often all over the place. There are too many leads to make sense of and too many ways to approach them.
That is the primary reason lead nurturing automation is an inevitable part of today’s marketing and sales.
Luckily, modern-day companies have various nurture software solutions at their disposal.
Some tools help you create personalized content, while others give you the tools to create entire campaigns. Some solutions facilitate multi-channeling, and some rely on AI to deliver better lead scoring and target market segmentation. The choices are endless.
Of course, lead nurturing automation also comes in all-in-one software solutions.
Conclusion
Lead nurturing can make or break whatever conversion strategies you have in place. Traditionally, lead intentions are fickle and hard to predict, but data removes a high level of uncertainty. It improves segmentation, which allows for deeper personalization and better reach.
Lead nurturing automation on top of all that guarantees success.
