What is lead nurturing?
At its core, lead nurturing is the process of cultivating leads that are not yet ready to buy. Successful lead nurturing anticipates the needs of the buyer based on who they are (using profile characteristics, such as title, role, industry, and so on) and where they are in the buying process. Nurturing keeps prospects engaged by providing the most relevant content (such as technical briefs, ebooks, and webinars) for their situation. If done well, lead nurturing can build strong brand loyalty long before a prospect is ready to buy. By cultivating latent demand, companies can increase the conversion of unqualified leads to opportunities and drive more revenue. Nurturing also helps accelerate active opportunities by giving prospective buyers the information they need to make purchasing decisions. Lead nurturing is about helping buyers along in their educational journey. Which is why it’s most effective when triggered by prospect activity or behaviors. Lead management technologies are often used to automate such real-time marketing. This type of software makes it possible to track leads and automate content delivery while simultaneously collecting behavioral data and triggering corresponding actions. Understanding lead nurturing Not every prospect is ready to buy now. In fact, according to research firm SiriusDecisions, of the 20% of leads that sales reps follow up on, 70% are not qualified. But it’s a mistake to ignore those leads. After all, 80% of prospects that don’t make the grade today will go on to buy from someone within the next 24 months. And when they do, you want your company to be at the top of their short list. Once prospects are in the funnel, nurturing them with helpful, relevant content moves potential buyers through each stage of consideration at a natural pace until they’re ready to be passed on to sales. Nurturing is the safety net for every stage of the buying cycle, helping ensure that no revenue opportunity is missed. Lead nurturing typically focuses on converting contacts that are already scored well within your marketing database, not generating new inquiries. This improves the results of leads already gathered. Demand Gen Report found that nurtured leads produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. Without lead nurturing, inquiries in your system are nothing more than hand-raisers—they’ve demonstrated interest, but require further profiling and cultivation before they get passed to sales. Lead nurturing is the process that makes that happen. Lead nurturing basics Marketers often mistakenly think of lead nurturing as nothing more than email communication. Instead, you should think of lead nurturing as a workflow, or series of communications, in which each step has a clear and concise objective—whether moving someone to the next stage or driving another desirable action. Effective nurturing incorporates questions, which help you collect the information necessary to continually refine the relevance of your messages and move prospects through the buying cycle. Building lasting relationships based on trust requires an extensive knowledge of your prospects. Only then can you provide them with the most relevant content, messaging, and assets. Nurturing paths should be based on unique customer profiles. The following are some of the key elements of a successful nurturing process: Segmenting Segmentation allows you to use title, role, industry, or sales stage to account for nuances in messaging. In this way, you can ensure that your content resonates with the recipients and reduce unsubscribes. Customer nurturing This is not just for prospects. Even when you’re bringing on a new customer, there are plenty of ways to nurture the relationship and drive adoption. Here, too, is an opportunity to segment based on user role. Is the customer a “champion,” “power user,” or “executive sponsor”? With this knowledge, you can funnel customers through onboarding programs tailored to their roles, making the transition smooth and seamless. Give to get At two points in the buying cycle, you have prime opportunities to gather information about a contact: when someone is new to your organization and when someone decides to become a customer (or transacts new business with you). During these times, you can increase the frequency and number of touches. Customer focus Use personalization whenever possible, calling the customer by name or mentioning the company name. Provide assets relevant to the customer’s industry and ensure that every communication is matched to that buyer’s need at that point in time. Each communication should be designed to answer a specific question. If you can’t answer the question “What’s in it for the buyer?” the messaging probably isn’t valuable in your nurturing program. Progressive profiling Requiring registration in exchange for an offer is called gating. However, because lead nurturing typically applies to contacts that already exist in your database, it’s not necessary to put forms in front of every offer. Still, there are always gaps in contact records. Progressive profiling—which incrementally asks contacts for additional information—can help you build a rich, actionable dataset on each prospect. With progressive profiling, each time a prospect clicks through on an offer, the system asks for just one or two pieces of information. For example, one successful nurturing program first provides high-level thought leadership content with no registration requirement. Then, it offers a case study in exchange for information. And finally, it points prospects to a demo which they can access without registering. Five steps to lead nurturing success Before you define your lead nurturing program, you need to lay the groundwork. In so doing, you’ll gain valuable insights and maximize revenue potential. 1 Understand your buyer Prospects go through stages. You need to understand those stages and know what content assets best apply to each. Interview your customers—as well as those that did not buy from you—to define your ideal customer profile and develop buyer personas. What are your customer’s pain points? What purchase process do they follow? Why should they be interested in your product? Define what messages are most appropriate at each stage of the buying cycle and who is responsible for delivering each communication. Good alignment between marketing and sales will keep branding, voice,










