Lead nurturing is an inbound marketing technique that accompanies the prospect from the beginning of the buying process until the closing (or even after, when they have already become a customer). How? By sending them valuable content that contributes to their learning and growth, in exchange for data that the company uses to continue nurturing the lead.
What are the keys to a successful lead nurturing strategy? What should you take into account to put it into action? Based on my experience designing nurturing flows for long sales cycles, I share with you the basic steps.
Step by step: how to ensure the success of your lead nurturing strategy
a) Know your audience
The key to success is knowing who you are targeting. Fully understanding your leads will give you a great advantage in both marketing and sales.
The famous buyer personas (representation of your ideal customer, designed based on market research and real data about your current customers) will be a great ally. A good nurturing strategy needs to know who you are talking to in order to make sure you meet their needs.
b) Enriches the profiles progressively
You have valuable information in your hands and you don’t even know it; never before has it been so easy to gather data about those who visit your website and download your content.
Enriching these profiles with the necessary data collection about your leads will allow you to have a much more focused and personalized message, to increase interactions and with them the rates of qualified leads.
How to set up an automated lead nurturing flow inConcert Marketing
c) Create valuable content
Don’t forget that the most important thing is to give your users a good experience and this starts when they find you on search engines. Content marketing will help you to strengthen your relationship with leads, so the content must be relevant, attractive, timely, incite conversation, and above all, of interest to them.
Exchanging content for data is another great win-win marketing strategy. Offer ebooks, webinars, infographics, guides and any content that contributes to their training and growth in the topics they are most interested in, so that it is much easier for them to give you their information.
d) Establish clear objectives
The first thing you should do before starting a lead nurturing campaign, and any type of campaign in general, is to define your objectives. If you don’t have a clear goal, you will never know if you are on the right track or not.
With a good lead nurturing strategy you will be able to identify which contacts in your database are ready to make a purchase. And at the same time, make sure that those who are not ready to buy receive valuable and timely information that will help them in their decision, regardless of the objectives with which you decide to measure effectiveness.
e) Test, measure, analyze and optimize
Never take for granted that what you are doing is perfect, because there is always room for improvement. With every contact you have programmed in your automation you can learn something new.
Always test new content, images, banner designs, button designs, CTAs, even email titles and subject lines, to see which ones work best. A good lead nurturing strategy can positively impact your marketing and sales goals in a truly profound and lasting way.
To manage a good lead nurturing strategy you will need a good approach, reliable technology and a process that coordinates actions from start to finish.
The 10 tips that helped me to start lead nutrition without fail.
Before I finish, I would like to share with you these simple tips that helped me and will certainly help you:
1. When in doubt ask, remember that you gain more by resolving doubts than by walking blindly.
2. The best way to achieve your goals is through trial and error..
3. Be organized, keeping your databases updated will help you segment much better.
4. Don’t take for granted that your strategy is perfect, learn and improve..
5. Your leads are your best source of information.
6. Metrics are important, analyze your results and based on them implement new strategies.
7. There are no rules that determine how a lead nurturing strategy should be done. Adapt your knowledge to the needs of your product or service and above all to your customers.
8. Think of the customer before you think of yourself, you will get better databases of leads that managed to connect meaningfully with your brand.
9. The possibilities are endless, you will be able to segment your campaigns more efficiently as you gather more information..
10. And finally, it is normal to be afraid, we all face new projects that seem to have no head or feet. Research, research, research. Life itself is a constant learning process, and our work is no exception.
I hope this quick guide for beginners will help you to enter the world of Lead Nurturing. Remember that a relationship that you want to keep for the long term, and even for life, is not built overnight, it needs time, effort and dedication.
