Not every visitor to an online store or service website is ready to take a transaction. A very small part of users entering the site is already convinced about the quality of services offered. Marketing activities are designed to convince others to return to the site and decide to buy. There are a lot of methods to encourage leads and potential customers, but Lead Nurturing is one of the more revolutionary ways.

This is not a new idea, but for years it has brought surprising results. Thanks to a skillfully conducted campaign, we are able to obtain a greater return on investment at a lower cost. So what is Lead Nurturing and how to use it correctly?

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead Nurturing in the colloquial translation is the nurturing of leads. It is a process involving all marketing activities aimed at transforming the lead into a customer. It can therefore be a properly designed and skillfully implemented e-mailing campaign, or a combination of campaigns from various sources targeted at a specific lead, which we want to convince to buy the product or start cooperation.

The aim of Lead Nurturing is to properly learn the lead, by making contact at the right moments (for example, after doing a given task) and providing it with adequate content. It is important to establish a bond with the lead and respond appropriately to its current needs at every stage of the sales process.

Lead Nurturing requires wise decisions that are a real answer to the client’s needs. It can not be a classic newsletter that appears at a specified time in a mailbox, and its content is unchanged from all people subscribed to the newsletter. A good term for this type of marketing is dialogue – our answer must be adequate to the client’s actions. We can not do a lead monologue, because it can have the opposite effect to the intended one. It is also important to engage leads and address issues raised by them.

Classic Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing is not a new concept – it is known and practiced among marketers. It can be done at the traditional level, where the marketer verifies the lead alone or with the help of analytical tools, assesses their potential, and then closely observes their actions, reacting at the appropriate moments by establishing contact.

Lead Nurturing should be less aggressive – we should not present a sales offer every time. We are after all trying to prepare the lead for the purchase. The offer should be forwarded when the lead has already collected enough points, or in our opinion is ready to buy. Lead Nurturing can be based on the transfer of educational materials about our product or service – we send information about what features stand out and why the choice of lead should go to the product of our brand.

It can also be a skillfully directed campaign from social media, or gifts sent to the homes of our leads. In some cases, depending on the industry, lead nurturing can last for years, so it is worth developing innovative ways to care for leads.

The simplified lead-management scheme includes contact with the lead at each stage of the sales process, preferably just before and after an activity. At the beginning, it’s good to say hi to the lead and present the benefits of, for example subscribing to the newsletter. This is the first step in establishing a bond with the lead, to convince him of the right decision he made.

In the next steps, we send educational messages from time to time: we review our lead with our achievements, experience and reputation. We can also inform the reader about a specific product that he was interested in, showing his key features and the benefits of choosing this product or service. At the same time, we carefully observe the movements of the lead. If it seems to be interested in our product – by going to our website, reading emails – we can send you a sales offer in the next step (combined with educational information).

This short scheme illustrates well how lead nurturing differs from an ordinary newsletter. Good lead nurturing is not generic – every lead receives information that is relevant to it.

Lead Nurturing and Marketing Automation

Unfortunately, the classic way of taking care of leads can be very time-consuming. We are limited by our processing capacity. Even a team of marketers will not be able to analyze and take care of more leads. Large companies, however, have to reckon with the fact that there will certainly be many leads. If you want to answer the needs of leads well and have a guarantee that their needs are met, it is worth engaging Marketing Automation systems.

In systems of this type, we can determine which messages and which channels should be displayed to which leads. The system assesses at what stage of the sales process the lead is currently located, and adequately presents it with the content to confirm it slowly in the decision about choosing our product.

It is worth using the lead scoring method, that is, awarding points (positive or negative) for each lead activity performed as part of the sales process. For example, we can award 10 points for returning to a blog and spending a certain amount of time there. We can also subtract part of the points for browsing the subpage with job offers. On this basis, our automation system will be able to award points to lead, and on this basis to assess when it will be ready to present a sales offer.

Setting up this system takes some time, but then everything goes its own way. We are aware that our leads are caring for the automatic processes we have previously verified and arranged. Thanks to this, we can focus our attention on other aspects that need improvement.

How to use lead nurturing?

The classic application of Lead Nurturing is the B2B industry, where decisions about buying and selling, or establishing cooperation, are not made on the basis of emotions, but rather on the cool calculation of advantages and disadvantages. In this option, we also have a greater opportunity to demonstrate expert knowledge, to present our brand from the best possible side, in a word – we have the opportunity to build lead trust and increasing the probality that it will be our help.

Lead Nurturing can also be helpful in the standard form of business, involving the sale of products. Not every purchase is impulsive, driven by emotions. Some conscious consumers are able to think long about the right product – a good example here is, among others, an electronics enthusiast, standing before choosing a new computer part. Such a person compares not only prices and parameters, but also tries to compose a set of equipment to their needs. This is an excellent opportunity to recognize and capture such a lead, and to present him with expert content that will convince him to choose our equipment.

Do not be discouraged by hearing that Lead Nurturing is not useful in our industry. Perhaps this will be the right way to increase conversions at a low cost.

Lead Nurturing is still an underestimated but very profitable form of gaining potential clients. It generates more profit with less money. It is enough to implement it, if it is still missing in your business. In the lead management strategy, systems facilitating Marketing Automation turn out to be a great help: thanks to them, the process becomes mostly automatic. Leads receive adequate content, which helps them make the best decision.