Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with prospects at every stage of the sales funnel. A successful lead nurturing program focuses on marketing and communication efforts and listening to the needs of prospects and providing them with information and answers they need to build trust, increase brand awareness, and maintain a connection until prospects are ready to make a purchase. 

Lead nurturing is the process of educating and developing relationships with qualified sales leads who have not yet made the decision to buy. After this step, the end-goal of lead nurturing is to convert these prospects into paying customers.

“Lead nurture is still primarily centered on email marketing efforts, but the customer experience needs to span all channels to foster engagement and point-of-sale—from in-store, to mobile, sales, referral, social, and support.” 

– Corinne Sklar, Global CMO, Bluewolf

Components of lead nurturing

Lead nurturing consists of cross-channel communication that combines marketing across different channels to create a system that builds and maintains relationships with the prospects.

• Lead scoring. This is the backbone of a strong lead nurturing system because it identifies when and how to address each prospect with the most relevant content at the correct time. To develop a successful lead scoring strategy, sales and marketing must come together to pinpoint where a particular lead is within the sales funnel. Each lead scoring system will be unique to each brand and includes lead fit lead behavior, buying stage, and time.
• Content marketing. Content marketing is the process of creating relevant and valuable content. This includes content created across the marketing channels based on what your prospects might be interested in – the website, emails, social media, etc. 
• Multichannel distribution. In order to implement a successful lead nurturing campaign, all your channels must be interconnected with different content pieces, so you can maintain contact with leads across the board.
• Retargeting. Display ads and retargeting can be a large part of your marketing budget. Creating content that prospects will engage across the channels.
• Web. Your website is a great place to capture new email addresses, and also a fantastic place to continue and start conversations. 
• Social. Social media is a critical part of cross-channel nurturing. Running social media campaigns is great, but making every campaign social is better. When you connect your lead nurturing to your social efforts, they enhance one another. 
• Direct mail. Creating personalized emails and running campaigns creates a great impact on nurturing leads.

Why is it Important?

When a retailer website focuses on lead nurturing, they make 50 percent more sales at a 33 percent lower cost.. Lead nurturing results in more sales, motivates larger purchases. This is why lead nurturing is so incredibly important to include within their approach strategy. The nurturing time taken on leads is nothing compared to the ROI retailers will see because of it.