Lead Nurturing is the set of digital marketing techniques that allow you to build relationships with users who are not yet ready to buy but who could turn out to be ideal customers in the near future .
As you can easily imagine, the primary objective of this activity lies in educating the prospect , building their awareness of a specific brand or product and, most of all, developing a relationship of trust with them . In fact, before anything else, this is the founding value that underlies every purchase.
Ultimately, Lead Nurturing undoubtedly has the ultimate purpose of generating conversions (and therefore profit for the company) starting from contacts acquired but not yet loyal , but it should not simply be interpreted as a sales technique. On the contrary, it is rather based on the virtuous conduct of the user along the funnel (which is, in fact, a path) in order to guide him first to the purchase, then to the retention and finally to the referral.
How Lead Nurturing works in practical terms
We explained that Lead Nurturing consists in accompanying users along the purchasing process.
This path is the result of the combination of different operations that must be integrated into a multi- channel strategy , i.e. using different tools and platforms made available by digital marketing. Each step of the path will have the aim of making the brand enter into a relationship with its potential consumers , stimulating their curiosity and interest and earning their trust through the provision of interesting, useful and relevant content .
Keeping in mind that every single lead is in a different mindset from that of all the others when the purchase funnel begins and that, most likely, it is also located in a different point of the path , the creation of communication with the leads it will have to be calibrated in a customized way .
Marketers will therefore act upstream by segmenting the public so as to carry out targeted actions on different targets : in this sense, technologies such as marketing automation or even machine learning will prove to be very useful, especially in the case of very large databases.
Specifically, automation will allow you to program a series of actions that would be impossible to manage manually. Among these, the most important include:
- Inbound marketing , with the creation of particular funnels TOFU, MOFU, BOFU
- Email marketing , automating the sending of personalized messages at the right time and to the right contacts
- Social media marketing , planning engaging and specific conversation calendars
- Social media advertising , designing and programming advertising campaigns on social media
- Google Ads campaigns , through the delivery of ads on Google tailored to specific audiences
Content Marketing – understood as the conception of valuable content to be declined on different media or tools, with the aim of attracting, seducing, interesting, convincing and retaining users, is at the heart of Lead Nurturing’s activities.
The benefits of Lead Nurturing
Structuring a calibrated Lead Nurturing strategy undoubtedly involves commitment and resources, but it also generates a series of undeniable advantages .
Not only does it allow the company to cultivate the relationship with its potential customers , learning to understand their desires, expectations, critical issues , but it also offers the possibility of increasing the brand reputation (i.e. its authority) understood as the influence that the organization is in able to exercise on its audience through the proposal of informative and interesting contents, punctual answers and really useful insights.
Lead Nurturing also generates an increase in conversion rates because, based on the increase in the value inherent in the relationship between company and customer, it leads to an increase in customers who tend to become loyal after the first purchase .
If studied correctly, a good Lead Nurturing program also allows you to plan the contents to be proposed in advance and at regular intervals , and to define upstream the channels through which to deliver them according to the different targets they will have to hit. Planning is an activity that, in itself, saves time and resources for any company.
Finally, in the long term, Lead Nurturing creates free advertising for the company , because loyal customers will take on the role of ambassador , acting as the brand’s megaphone in their communications with other potential leads.
Some tips for an effective Lead Nurturing strategy
The basis of effective Lead Nurturing is the marketer’s ability to produce content that acts on a double front : on the one hand by generating interest in the user, on the other by stimulating his will to communicate with the brand.
These contents will be the result of the analysis of leads and their different levels of engagement with the brand: it goes without saying that a marketing action designed to generate awareness (i.e. knowledge of the brand) will be different from that intended for users already in Consideration , Conversion or even Post-Purchase phase (i.e. repurchase).
What we offer you to follow are therefore general tips and tricks on how to act to nourish your contacts with valuable content – without prejudice to the need, on the part of each company, to contact digital marketing specialists to define a plan of nurturing correct and calibrated both on the specificities of the company and on those of its public.
- Study and define your buyer personas : your valuable content will work best if it is intended for users who are genuinely interested in your product or service (or who may be). Remember that only by studying your potential customers with the utmost care can you build truly interesting and engaging content.
- Use a marketing automation platform : because it will help you identify, segment and target the different buyer personas as the Lead Nurturing strategy is adapted and modified on the real needs of your company and / or its digital marketing plan.
- Use multichannel techniques : the simple email drip no longer works. Conversely, a good Lead Nurturing strategy will consider different tools with which to target different audiences, at different times and with different short-term goals. We must therefore go far beyond simple email nurturing and focus on the many options currently available in the digital environment.
- Be punctual in follow-ups : when this action happens in a timely manner, the benefits are evident. The reason is simple: the lead is “hot” and is immediately stimulated by the contact from the company, increasing the chances of buying. Unfortunately, many companies tend to postpone this step which, on the other hand, is fundamental for the purpose of conversion, nullifying the results obtained with nurturing with a late follow-up that is, at times, almost equivalent to a sort of cold call.
- Aim for personalization : we always repeat it. In the new digital marketing concept, the personalization of messages is at the heart of every communication. The more the lead feels treated as a unique individual rather than as a name in a database, the greater the possibility that he will make the purchase or become loyal to the brand, recommending it to others. The added value of today’s business lies not only in what it offers, but in the way it is offered.
- Use lead scoring tactics : This is a methodology used to rank leads and prospects on a scale that represents their value as perceived by the company. Lead scoring can be implemented with the aforementioned marketing automation technology from almost all platforms on the market now, allowing you to assign numerical values to certain user behaviors, conversion events or interactions on social networks. Depending on the score obtained, it will be possible to proceed with nurturing with specific actions, specifically calibrated on those behaviors.
