Time is the most valuable resource for your sales people.

Asking them to contact every prospect, interested or not in buying, could be a waste of time and energy for them. Although a significant number of leads may not be interested in buying your product or service, you cannot neglect them. Otherwise, you risk losing them or easily letting your competitors win them. 

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing consists of nurturing and maintaining the relationship with your prospects by sending them useful content by e-mail to help them progress in the buying cycle.

To do this, it is essential to first define your buyer personas: Who are they? What are they looking for? How to attract their attention and gain their trust? Only with this information can you propose relevant content according to each profile.

Also, your communication strategy with your leads cannot be left to chance, but must be defined very carefully. So you can't send them all the same content, nor can you call them every time to see if they are interested.

Lead nurturing consists of sharing relevant content with each of your prospects, based on their interests, needs, position in the company, stage in the buying journey, etc. In other words, lead nurturing is about sending the right message to the right lead at the right time.

Why do lead nurturing?

#Better return on investment

Effective lead nurturing generates 50% more qualified leads at a third less cost

Lead nurturing emails generate an 8% click-through rate compared to regular emails, which only generate a 3% CTR.

#Grow your customer base

You've probably spent a lot of money and effort generating leads and building your database, but you may not have taken the time to think about effective long-term strategies to turn them into customers. Lead nurturing is the best approach to convert your leads, make your database profitable and increase your customer base.

#No more wasted time!

Lead nurturing uses marketing automation to automate the process of lead qualification and to bring only mature leads to the sales department. This way, they won't waste time with prospects that are not yet ready to buy.

Lead nurturing best practices

To start a lead nurturing campaign, it is important to follow best practices to avoid sending spam to your recipients. This way, you can be sure that your emails are optimized for conversion. So let's summarize the lead nurturing imperatives, in other words, what you need to do to ensure the effectiveness of your campaign.

#Require collaboration between marketing and sales departments

For lead nurturing to be effective, both the marketing and sales departments must collaborate together to improve the conversion process throughout the sales cycle. In particular, they must work together to define:

The buyers personas

The most interesting and useful content for each buyer persona

The timing of the emails to be sent

The length of your sales cycles and the frequency at which you send emails

#Segment your emails according to the customer profile

Developing exclusive content for each lead list is crucial. So, developing specific content for each customer profile is one of the main advantages of lead nurturing that should not be overlooked. In addition to creating content for the different customer profiles you want to nurture, you can personalize your messages to make them more direct and relevant,

#Develop supporting content

Each of your emails should provide recipients with useful and relevant content. This will show them that you have the resources to meet their needs and help them solve their problems. It will also allow you to stand out from the competition by conveying an impression of expertise in your field of activity. So, before considering a lead generation or lead nurturing campaign, don't forget to prepare a series of blog posts, white papers or webinars related to your original content.

#Use CTA buttons

Even in a lead nurturing campaign, it is essential to invite recipients to take an action. The button should be clear, concise and visible in the email to ensure that recipients understand what you are asking them to do.

#Choose the right timing

The general rule of lead nurturing is that the standard time interval between sending different emails should be between 6 and 45 days. However, this does not mean that you should choose a fixed time frame that applies to all your emails. Be strategic in your choices and customize your lead nurturing calendar for each email. Don't forget to use triggers to make sure emails are sent at the right time.

#Use lead nurturing for lead qualification

According to MarketingSherpa, 61% of marketers pass all leads directly to sales. However, only 27% of these leads are qualified. Instead of passing a large number of unqualified leads to the sales team, lead nurturing allows to educate non-mature prospects and move them through the buying cycle. In addition, with marketing automation, you can then automate lead attribution based on their level of engagement, ensuring that mature leads are passed on to your sales reps at the right time.

#Add an unsubscribe link

It's important to clearly display an "unsubscribe" link or a link to your email preferences center, where users can control which emails they do and do not want to receive from your company. Don't risk being blacklisted for a simple follow-up email, make it obvious and clear that your recipients always have control over what they receive from you, and how often they receive it.

We have explained in this article the importance of using lead nurturing in the lead generation process. In fact, although most leads are currently only looking for information and have no intention of buying, nurturing them with useful and valuable content throughout the buying process will allow you to build a lasting relationship with them and turn them into customers.