Did you know? According to recent data, 96% of visitors who come to your website aren’t ready to buy (yet)! As the consumer journey becomes more complicated, the methods of lead generation and lead nurturing are constantly changing.
What is an effective lead nurturing campaign all about?
To put it simply, it is the process of developing relationships with buyers through every step of the purchasing journey. The focus of a lead nurturing company is on marketing right and communicating with the buyers. This is done by tuning into the necessities of prospects, providing data and answers that they require.
It is one of the most critical activities for any marketing department, and at times, it can be incredibly challenging – especially if the product or service requires a substantial amount of money or investment.
The marketing managers need to make sure that these workflows are well- constructed, transparent, measurable and most importantly, ensure that the emails are properly set up for lead nurturing success.
5 Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics
We live in an epoch of data equalization. Customers are now equipped with better information and have more options to choose from. Through various outlets, buyers have an almost solid idea of what is being offered, even before they communicate with a sales team.
So, what is the most effective way to get our communication across with the desired effect?
Target, Follow-Up and Score
A swooping 93% of B2B buying processes starts with an online search. Effective targeting of content for customers can produce much better results, as this technique is about delivering the content they want at a time when they need it.
The process is about educating customers – informing them about how the services or products offered can meet their needs.
This is where follow-up comes into play in the nurturing process. Aligning marketing and sales teams seamlessly is a critical stage in a purchase decision. Lead scoring is a method that rates consumer behavior like using social media or browsing websites with a numeric value.
What can you do? Respond as soon as a customer has made contact. The likelihood is much greater for securing a sale.
Multi-channel Lead Nurturing
Businesses should have a robust, structured and a professional profile across multiple channels to stand out from the million others who are competing.
Any B2B lead that visits your social pages will understand what you do and what your business is. LinkedIn is an obvious choice when it comes to social platforms for B2B leads. Nurturing leads via LinkedIn help you stay on top-of-mind among your prospects.
What can you do?Link well-designed landing pages that have signup forms, and calls to actions to social media pages to endorse services and products.
Targeted Content
Results have showcased content to be one of the driving forces when it comes to lead conversions. Reports showcase as high as 93% companies stating that the results of content marketing have helped them increase business more than traditional marketing strategies.
Regular blogging is also an effective way to reach your targeted audience. Video content is now becoming popular for viewers who don’ want to read loads of text.
What can you do? One of the most popular ways to get lead generation is to source contact details through leading visitors to reports and white papers, who can receive the contact only when they provide their information details.
Multiple Touches
SEO is the answer! It is interesting to note that B2C companies who blog 11+ times per month end up achieving 4X more leads with respect to companies who blog a minimum of 5 times in a month.
It’s the need of the hour for businesses to implement SEO tactics for incurring better performance and placement results during an organic search. Tools such as keyword research, blogging and link-building should be an essential
component for businesses while planning a marketing tactic for businesses.
What can you do? SEO! A combination of paid advertising and SEO can help enhance the business strategy making prospective customers well acquainted with offers and contents.
Personalized Emails
A lot of businesses still use traditional email blast techniques to nurture leads. These techniques are outdated and do not work in the current context. A main contributor to the growing email success rates is marketing automation. Mass blast emailers have become redundant in the nurture leads process. Research reveals that consumers have a 4x positive response towards an offer that is personalized as compared to a generic one.
It is important to understand the persona of a buyer as this can help sales and marketing strategies to be aligned in the interest of the businesses to achieve higher sales.
What can you do? Have a good understanding of who you’re marketing to, take that information and create content that they would actually want to consume. You can nurture your audience using workflows, triggered newsletters, and lead nurturing campaigns.
To conclude
The focus should be on creating a valuable experience for followers which in turn will reap huge results in terms of strengthening the lead nurturing efforts. Make sure to optimize parts of your content on an ongoing basis from your call to action to your landing page copy, forms, individual offers, and media.
Lead nurturing ultimately leads to building trust with potential customers and gives you an opportunity to serve their needs in a better way. The best possible outcome for an effective lead nurturing campaign is when your team’s workflows have a direct impact on your bottom line.
