Implementing a lead nurturing strategy correctly can be essential to conquer and convert visitors to your website into potential customers (leads), and finally, convert them into loyal customers who “wear your brand’s t-shirt.”
In this article, we will not talk specifically about lead generation. Our goal is to show and suggest actions that can be taken to nurture existing leads. That is to say: strengthen the relationship with your potential customers so that they make the purchasing journey with your company.
Thus, to be successful in this task, we recommend following some tips and of course, understanding the importance of lead nurturing to increase sales.
What is lead nurturing?
In short, and as its name says, lead nurturing means: “nurturing” the relationship with your potential clients. To do this, the company can use various channels and strategies that strengthen these ties. Thus, you will be able to have greater authority, offer greater credibility and have a closer relationship with your leads. The result? The conversion of a lead into a customer.
However, this is not as simple as it seems. Countless companies today are using these techniques and that is why yours must stand out in the market and win over the customer. For this, it is necessary to offer a quality service/product, good customer service, and above all, a good shopping experience for the customer. Thus, this will relate your company with positive feelings and sensations.
Furthermore, when this strategy is implemented correctly, lead nurturing exponentially increases the customer’s purchase propensity. Offering quality content that can educate and nourish the company-lead relationship is essential to win over your potential clients.
How to do lead nurturing?
Lead nurturing is done through the preparation and sending of good content. Therefore, the lead goes through the sales funnel appropriately until becoming a customer.
However, each action must have a unique strategy defined, and that is because:
Each action of the nutrition flow has a specific time to work correctly. This is because one of the main characteristics of the lead nurturing strategy is personalization. And personalization serves both the content that will be sent and the time that will need to be invested in each stage. Therefore, every action you take to nurture leads must have 100% of your attention.
For a lead nurturing strategy to work, you must know your leads. This means understanding the demands and desires of your potential customers. That way, you can send material that educates them and strengthens their relationship with your brand. For this process to work effectively, you must define the profile of your ideal student and get it right.
Another essential point to nurture leads is to have marketing automation tools. After all, nutrition needs to be automated. This allows your work team to optimize their time, not to work several times doing the same task or eventually human errors appear in the process. Take advantage of what technology can do for your company!
Actions to take to nurture leads
Regardless of your company’s reason for investing in lead nurturing in search of better results, there are some essential actions that must be executed by all companies. This way, effective and complete results can be guaranteed. Here some examples:
- Offer educational and relevant materials via email permission marketing;
- Produce good materials for social networks that educate and attract your leads;
- Make it easier for leads to search for your products and services;
- Show how the solutions your company offers can help that person;
- Show that your company has great authority in the market.
Benefits of lead nurturing
Any company, regardless of the segment in which it operates, can carry out lead nurturing actions. Check out these examples of companies that have experienced positive changes in their operations:
- According to a study by the market intelligence company Aberdeen Group, companies that do marketing automation through a lead nurturing flow increase conversion rates by 53%. Also, they go from having a growth of 3.1% in annual performance compared to companies that do not use this tool.
- According to a report from DemandGen Report, emails originating from nutrition cycles have 4 to 10 times more responses compared to traditional emails.
- Also, according to data from Nucleus Research, marketing automation increases the productivity of the sales team by an average of 14.5%. In addition, it reduces the company’s marketing costs by 12.2%.
- Market2Lead also has some interesting data. Leads who go through a nurturing stage have a 23% shorter purchasing cycle, compared to others who did not.
LEAD NUTRITION PUT INTO PRACTICE
Understand from the beginning that the results of lead nurturing can take a while to be noticed. But they will appear, so do not despair and think that the results will justify the investment made.
Also, remember that lead nurturing actions are cyclical. That is, it is not enough to just nurture the relationship with the lead; you need to maintain that relationship even after the purchase.
After consolidating the sale, solidify your relationship with the customer. Thus, there will be a greater chance that they will become a loyal customer and even more so, they will be able to spread your brand on their social networks and group of contacts.
Now that you know the importance of this strategy, it is time for you to invest in it correctly and take advantage of the results that lead nutrition brings for your company.
