Guidelines For Getting Started With B2B Lead Nurturing

Guidelines For Getting Started With B2B Lead Nurturing:

Half of the qualified leads that visited your website are not ready to buy yet. Lead nurturing allows you to develop a relationship with your leads in a timely and effective way and the best part is that you can even automate the entire process. The first statistic above, from Gleanster matches with data from other organizations that tell the story of how most website visitors are browsing and researching topics throughly online before they make a purchasing decision. In order to establish an effective lead nurturing campaign though, you need to plan from beforehand, create a content map, and assess your results constantly.

Instead of pushing your sales team into a making a pitch they won’t be able to close, you should be nurturing those leads into more qualified sales opportunities. Below are some critical pieces you need to keep in mind when building your lead nurturing campaign:

• Thought Leadership: It’s important to provide your leads valuable content during your lead nurturing campaign. Think of providing content such as an e-book or a webinar instead of going straight for a sale. Show your lead that you’re a thought leader in your space – it’ll establish your credibility and increase the chances your sales team can make the sale.
• Remember how you acquired the lead: There are typically multiple entry points on a website for a visitor to convert into a lead – the campaign they receive should be built around what drove their conversion. For example, if you run a food importing company and someone entered your site based on a landing page related to private label wine brands, make sure your messaging is related to private label wine brands.
• Stay focused on your goal: Every email you send should have a goal that’s prompted by a call to action. Do you want your lead to download a whitepaper, read a recent blog post, or request a demo? Your emails should have a purpose and drive your lead to do something.
• Be Careful with Marketing Automation: Marketing Automation can be deadly if it’s not conducted properly. Many companies make the mistake of scheduling out their campaigns but not remembering whom their selling to or how they should sell their product. However, if marketing automation is done correctly, it can make the lead nurturing process that much easier. Remember to plan ahead and think through your marketing automation process. Constantly keep track of your efforts – just because it’s automated doesn’t mean that your campaign can run on its own.

With those key components in mind, here are 5 steps to take your marketing campaign from lead generation all the way to a “sales-ready” customer.

1. Create your lead nurturing goal: Before you start your lead generation campaign your first step should be to set out what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to increase the lead quality for your sales team? Remarket to cold leads? Figure out what your campaign goal is first before you take any other steps. In addition, set up numerical benchmarks for your campaign. It will keep you on track with your goal and give you a better picture of how successful your campaign is doing.
2. Segment your audiences into separate campaigns: Not every one of your customers is the same so why would you send them all the same campaign? When you build your lead nurturing campaign, think about what type of customers you typically sell to and tailor your messages to their needs. Make sure to segment your audiences for maximum effectiveness.
3. Create offers for every stage: Remember that your leads are not going to jump into a sale right away. Make sure you follow your typical sales schedule and create appropriate content at the right time. Offer values like an eBook or webinar first and then, when they’re ready, offer up a demo or trial. As you come up with your calendar remember the following components need to be included:

Subject Line: How are you going to entice your lead?

Content: What type of offer is going to provide value to your lead?

Call-to-action: How are you going to get your lead to convert again?

Goal: What are you trying to accomplish with this particular email? (ie gain awareness, educate, offer trial, etc.)

1. Set your schedule: Lead nurturing is about walking your potential customer down the sales funnel with the right messages to convince them to buy from you. Timing is everything so if you send the wrong message at the wrong time you may screw up your chances of converting to a sale. Think about your typical sales cycle when building your schedule. Start by educating and giving value to your lead and slowly progress towards a demo or trial offer. It’s important to plan ahead and know the path you want to take your lead so they’re eventually “sales-ready.”
2. Measure and Optimize: Even after you your campaign starts, track how your emails are doing. There’s always room for improvement. Remember your benchmarks that you set up in the beginning? How is your campaign producing against those goals? How can you improve your results to reach those goals? There’s always ways to improve how your campaign runs, whether it’s changing the offer type or switching around the subject line. As mentioned before, marketing automation can’t run on it’s own to be successful – it still needs the hands of a marketer to succeed.

Lead nurturing can be effective if done correctly, but if you don’t put the time into your campaigns, you’ll be less likely to drive more lead-to-customer conversions for your business. Follow these steps and you’ll be running effective marketing automation campaign in no time!