What is Lead Nurturing?
Lead nurturing is the process of developing a relationship with potential buyers as they go through the sales funnel. It involves understanding leads’ needs, responding to them, and guiding them towards making a purchase decision.
Nurturing isn’t about immediate sales; it’s about building trust and establishing credibility over time. It’s about warming up prospects to the idea of buying from you; often slowly.
Why is Lead Nurturing Important?
Prospects rarely buy during their first interaction with a brand. It’s important to keep in touch with them and develop your relationship. With nurturing, you're doing just that - and ensuring that when the prospect is ready to buy, your product or service is top of mind.
The 3 key reasons to nurture are…
Building Relationships: Trust is a crucial factor in sales. Nurturing allows companies to build trust by demonstrating expertise and understanding prospects’ needs.
Higher Conversion Rates: Nurtured leads often result in more sales and larger purchases compared to non-nurtured leads.
Lower Acquisition Costs: Nurturing helps you get more value out of your leads. This, in turn, drives down acquisition costs - and potentially increases the value of each lead.
Understanding Customer Needs: Regular interactions with your Point of Contact provide insights into their challenges, preferences, and objections. This lets salespeople improve their approach and messaging over time.
Following Up vs Nurturing
While both follow-ups and nurturing are essential in the sales process, they are not synonymous.
Follow-ups are specific actions taken after an initial conversation or interaction, aiming to continue or revive the dialogue.
Nurturing, on the other hand, is a broader, ongoing strategy. It aims to educate, engage, and build a relationship with the prospect over time, irrespective of immediate intent to purchase.
Nurturing vs Closing
Closing is the culmination of the sales process. It’s when a lead converts into a customer.
Nurturing, conversely, is the process leading up to that point. It’s the series of interactions, education, and value propositions that guide the lead to the decision-making phase.
While nurturing develops and maintains a relationship, closing solidifies that relationship into a transaction. Closing can be seen as the culmination of nurturing.
3 Basic Nurturing Strategies
Here are 3 simple ways to nurture leads over time.
Content Distribution
Create and distribute content that addresses the unique challenges and needs of your leads. This can include whitepapers, webinars, and other formats. The content sent should be relevant to where a lead is in the buying process – be it awareness, consideration, or decision-making.
Automated Email Campaigns
Use automated drip email campaigns to consistently provide valuable information to leads. This can help keep your brand top-of-mind and guide the lead through the sales funnel. However, ensure that the content is segmented and personalized to a recipient's behavior and needs.
Social Media Engagement
Engage with leads on social media platforms by sharing insightful content, answering queries, and participating in discussions. This not only positions your brand as a thought leader but also provides an avenue for more informal, organic interactions.
