What is lead nurturing?
Simply put, lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship with your target customers and strengthening it overtime to make it easier to sell to them later on.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What is the purpose of lead nurturing?
The main purpose of lead nurturing, as we have seen earlier, is to help you convert each lead from someone who is just interested in what you are selling to someone who buys from you and then comes back for more.
Question #2: How do I do it?
To do lead nurturing, you have to take into account what your leads want and/or need at every stage of the buyer’s journey and provide them with content that supplies and/or addresses it.
For example, if you are nurturing a new lead who has just come across your products and/or services while researching possible solutions to a problem they are having, it would be wise to provide them with content specifically designed to provide them with more information about solving said problem.
Trying to sell to them at this stage might cause them to get turned off and move on to someone else. The goal, then, is to slowly (and naturally) guide them, over time, to the conclusion that your products and/or services are their best bet to making the problem they are struggling with go away.
In contrast, for someone who has already bought from you before, the goal is to make them feel valued and encourage them to make repeat purchases in the future. To do this, you can send them content such as:
- Exclusive deals and discounts
- Rewards
- Surveys
At this stage, sending the customer more information about your products and/or services would be counterproductive—unless you are launching a new one—because they already know what you are selling and have already decided that you are their best option.
Question #3: What are the characteristics of a good lead nurturing program?
The characteristics of a good lead nurturing program are as follows:
- It takes into account the stage of the buyer’s journey where the lead is in. As we have seen earlier, the main goal of lead nurturing is building a strong relationship with each lead, which you can only do if you provide them content that is not only useful to them but also relevant to where they are in the buyer’s journey.
- It acknowledges the different personas of your target customers. Unless you are targeting a super niche market, there is a big chance that you can further segment your target customers into smaller more targeted groups.
For example, if you sell fitness supplements, you could break down your customer base in terms of goals (e.g., fat loss, muscle building, athletic performance, health, and wellness). Doing so would help you more easily provide each segment with more relevant and useful content instead of having to send generic fitness-related content to everyone.
3. It goes to where the leads are. Instead of making leads jump through hoops to get to you or focusing too much on channels that you want to use, you should figure out where exactly your target customers hang out and focus your lead nurturing efforts on those platforms.
For example, while email is one of the most common means of implementing lead nurturing programs, if your target customers tend to spend a lot more time on social media, then you should figure out a way to implement your programs there as well.
4. It is focused on what each lead wants and needs. At the end of the day, no matter how well you do everything else, if you fail to first understand what it is exactly that your target customers want and/or need, then there is no way your lead nurturing efforts would do your business any good.