Not every one visiting an online store or service site is ready to make a purchase. Only a fracture of people visiting the website are already convinced about quality of services it offers. Marketing activities are designed to convince others to return to the site and decide to buy. There are many methods of encouraging leads and potential customers, but one of the most revolutionary ones is Lead Nurturing.

The idea is not new, but through the years it has been producing surprising results. Thanks to a skillfully conducted campaign, we are able to achieve a higher return on investment at a lower cost. So what is Lead Nurturing and how to use it correctly?

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead Nurturing is a process that includes all marketing activities aimed at transforming a leada into a customer. Therefore, it can be a properly designed and skillfully implemented e-mailing campaign, or a combination of campaigns from various sources aimed at a particular lead, who we want to convince to purchase a product or start cooperation.

The word “convince” is the key here. The aim of Lead Nurturingu is to properly educate the lead by making contact at appropriate moments (for example after the lead has done a particular action) and by providing him with adequate content. It is an establishment of ties with the lead and responding appropriately to his current needs at every stage of the sales process.

Lead Nurturing requires thoughtful decisions that are the actual answer to the client’s needs. It cannot be a typical newsletter, which appears every now and then in the mailbox, and its content is the same for all subscribers. A good term for this type of marketing is dialogue – our response must be adequate to the client’s actions. We cannot have a monologue aimed at the lead, because it may have the opposite effect to the intended one. It is also important to engage the leads and address the issues raised by them.

Classical Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing is not a new concept. It is known and practiced by marketing professionals for some time. It can be applied the traditional way, where the marketer independently or with the help of analytical tools verifies the leads, assesses their potential, and then closely observes their actions, reacting by establishing contact in appropriate moments.

Lead Nurturing should be less aggressive – we should not present a sales offer at every occasion. In lead nurturing we are working to prepare the leada for the purchase. The offer should be presented when the lead has accumulated enough points, or in our opinion is ready to buy. Lead Nurturing may be based on providing educational materials about our product or service – we send information about what features stand out and why the choice of a lead should be made for our brand product.

It can also take a form of a skillfully managed campaign at social media or gifts sent to the homes of our leads. In some cases, depending on the industry, lead nurturing can take years, so it’s worth developing innovative ways to take care of leads.

An exemplary yet simplified lead nurturing scheme involves contact with the lead at every stage of the sales process, preferably just before and after a certain action had taken place. At the beginning it is worth to say hello to the lead and present the benefits of subscribing to the newsletter. This is the first step in establishing a bond with the lead, aimed at convincing him of the right decision he made.

Further, every now and then we send messages of an educational nature: we familiarize the lead with our achievements, experience and reputation. We can also inform the lead about a specific product that he was interested in, presenting its key features and benefits of choosing this product or service. At the same time, we carefully observe the movements of the lead. If he seems to be interested in our product – by visiting our website, reading e-mails – we can send a sales offer (combined with educational information) in the next step.

This short scheme illustrates how lead nurturing differs from a regular newsletter. It is not generic – each lead receives information that is relevant to him.

Lead Nurturing and Marketing Automation

Unfortunately, the typical way of lead nurturing can be very time-consuming. We are limited by our processing capacity. Even a good marketing team will not be able to analyze and take care of many leads, all the while big companies have to take into account that there will be many leads. Thus if you want to respond well to the needs of leads and have a guarantee that their needs are met, it is worthwhile to engage Marketing Automation systems.

In such systems we can determine which messages and channels should be displayed to which leads. The system also evaluates at what stage of the purchasing process the lead is currently at and adequately presents him with content to confirm him slowly in the decision to choose our product.

It is worth to use the lead scoring method, i.e. awarding points – positive or negative – for each leads activity performed within the sales process. For example, we can award 10 points for going back to the blog and spending a certain amount of time there. We can also deduct some points for browsing the subpage with job offers. On this basis, our automation system will be able to allocate lead points, and on this basis assess when he is ready to be presented with a sales offer.

It takes some time to set up this system, but then it’s all on its own. We are aware of the fact that our leads are carefully supervised by the automatic processes that we have verified and arranged before. This allows us to focus our attention on other aspects that require improvement.

Lead Nurturing Applications

The classic application of Lead Nurturingu is the B2B industry, where decisions to buy and sell, or to establish cooperation, are not made on the basis of emotions, but rather on the basis of a cool calculation of advantages and disadvantages. In this variant, we also have a greater opportunity to show expert knowledge, present our brand in the best possible way, in short – we have the opportunity to build leads trust and increase the probability that he’ll accept our help.

Lead Nurturing can also be helpful in the standard form of business, which consists of selling products. Not every purchase is impulsive, driven by emotions. Some conscious consumers are able to think about the right product for a long time – a good example is an electronics lover who has to choose a new part for his computer. Such a person not only compares prices and parameters, but also tries to compose the best possible set of hardware for their needs. This is a great opportunity to recognize and capture such a lead, and present him with expert content that will convince him to choose our equipment.

So don’t be discouraged when you hear that Lead Nurturing will not be useful in your industry. Perhaps this will be the right way to increase conversion at a low cost.

Lead Nurturing is still an underestimated, but a very profitable form of gaining potential clients. It results in a higher profit with a smaller outlay of resources. This in itself is enough to implement it, if your business still lacks it. In the lead nurturing strategy, the systems enabling Marketing Automation turn out to be a significant facilitation – thanks to them, the process becomes mostly automatic. Leads receive adequate content, which helps them to make the best decision.