Written by Angela Pointon, 11outof11.com
Lead Nurturing Strategies: Warm Up Prospects and Book More Sales Meetings
Today’s companies are looking to find, keep, and enjoy closer relationships with their customers through lead nurturing. This strategy helps businesses guide more high-quality leads through the marketing funnel on their way to becoming customers.
According to HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2022, converting leads into customers is a top priority for almost 75% of companies. Yet many fall short of nurturing their existing customers beyond the first purchase (81% only use early-stage lead nurturing tactics). No matter where your customers are on their journey, you need to be ready with great lead nurturing ideas to ensure the success of your business.
Here’s more evidence in support of comprehensive lead nurturing:
- According to one survey, 48%of businesses say most of their leads require a long sales cycle of nurturing to convert.
- Content marketing is generating more leads than traditional marketing strategies for 93% of B2B companies.
- Email content marketing has been an effective channel for early-stage lead generation for 53% of marketers.
- Because landing pages offer personalized, relevant content that audiences relate better to, 68% of B2B companies are using them on websites to nurture new sales leads for future conversion.
- For 53% of marketers, webinars are the top-of-the-funnel format that generates the most high-quality leads.
- Businesses that nurture prospects with content that’s relevant to where they are in the buying process are achieving 72% higher conversion rates.
5 Ways to Create a Successful Lead Nurturing Strategy
In this article, guest expert Angela Pointon, president of 11outof11, shares five ideas for creating lead nurturing that will help ensure your next campaign is a success.
- Know who to nurture
The people who need nurturing are your ideal customers. Define them and get to know them. Explore all of the different types of your customers, not just one.
- Leave the sales pitch for later
The way that lead nurturing supports and encourages your customers through the sales funnel is a soft sell, by design. Offer your customers something they can value first, so they can get ready to buy. Leave the sales pitch for later. Consider a whitepaper, an in-depth eBook, a new webinar ,or leveraging one of your existing assets that has been successful in converting leads.
- Think about why you’re sending an email
After determining the content that’s relevant for each of your customer types, create a purpose for each email related to the specific stages of the buyer’s journey or how your brand meets their current needs.
- Don’t rush a sale
For a lead nurturing campaign to be effective, time your emails to coincide with your business’s typical sales cycle. Send at least two or three nurturing emails spaced out over the length of your sales cycle to avoid rushing into a sale.
- Test campaigns and analyze your success
Experiment with different email subject lines including preview text, test your offers, and craft specific calls-to-action for each email in your campaign. Keep improving on them with an eye toward better nurturing of leads and more lead-to-customer conversions.
Want more ideas? Look through the leading nurturing category of 11outof11’s blog for articles on creating more sales qualified leads, how to target prospects who work remotely, and more.
Connect with 11outof11
Are you creating the right content? Is it optimized for getting as many conversions as possible? Book a 30-minute content assessment with 11outof11 and gain:
- Topics and ideas for content your ideal persona needs
- Ways to make your content more visible to search engines
- Methods to implement immediately to get your content to convert into leads
Contact us to learn more.
About the author
Angela Pointon is an author, speaker, authority marketing expert, and president of 11outof11, an award-winning digital content marketing firm for small businesses. Certified as a woman-owned business with the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), 11outof11 is a preferred marketing agency for companies running on EOS® and similar operating systems, recognized as a HubSpot Platinum Partner based on client success, and one of Philadelphia’s fastest-growing companies by Philadelphia100®. 11outof11 continuously offers exceptional content marketing services, super-fast communication, and detailed progress updates for growth-focused companies in the greater Philadelphia area and beyond. Visit https://www.11outof11.com for more information.
