Six Lead Nurturing Best Practices
Lead nurturing is a concept that has gained immense popularity amongst marketers in the recent past. Until then it was the same old story of passing the buck –the marketing automation passing the leads, irrespective of their readiness, to sales team who followed-up hot leads leaving the rest to gather dust. Neither the sales team nor the marketing team was making any constructive effort to turn the leads into sales.
The sales and marketing teams are the lifeblood of any organization, and therefore their working together as a team is essential for business growth. This realization led to the emergence of a new business process called Lead Nurturing.
What is Lead Nurturing?
As more and more leads started slipping through the fingers of the sales team, enterprises and organizations gathered their wits and decided to implement a method that guaranteed more sales and conversions. Lead nurturing is the process of developing a positive long-term relationship with leads/prospects through meaningful dialogue, and then tracking their development into sales opportunities.
Lead nurturing, as the name implies, is the practice of nurturing raw leads till they become sales-ready. And this process led to the revamping of the relationship that was shared by the sales and marketing teams. The lack of interaction, which was the root cause of all the problems, was nipped in the bud and more collaborative efforts were made possible.
In this process, marketers categorize leads based on their sales readiness and pass on to the sales team, only those leads that are ready to purchase. And the prospects that are not ready are nurtured to create interest in the products or services offered. The sales team on the other hand, makes great progress as they have only hot leads to follow-up on, and if any hot lead turns warm, it is directed back to the marketing team to be nurtured. Thus, with lead nurturing, enterprises can ensure maximum sales success.
Lead Nurturing Best Practices
Having understood the significance of lead nurturing in the B2B marketing world, let us also take a look at some of the best practices in lead nurtiring that can bring about the desired results.
- Understand Prospect’s Interest Level
When developing nurturing campaigns, ensure that you are well aware of your prospects’ likes and dislikes.
- Have Meaningful Interactions
Ensure that your interaction with prospects is useful to them.
- Avoid Sending Generic Content
Since each prospect is unique, never send generic content to all the prospects. Instead, develop content that matches the role or industry of prospects.
- Timing
Timing is a crucial factor in the lead nurturing process. It is always necessary to strike a balance between under and over-interaction. The best option would be to ask the prospects about their preferences i.e. to let them decide how often they should be contacted.
- Different Storyline
Adopt a different storyline for your communication during different stages of the buying cycle. This helps in achieving better results.
- When Developing Emails
Ensure that the content developed is brief and to the point. However, it must focus on one topic and must necessarily include one call-to-action.
The secret of effectively carrying out the lead nurturing process is to think from the perspective of prospects. This coupled with lead nurturing best practices can help marketers achieve better results and improve ROI.
Know more on – lead nurturing programs
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