Lead nurturing

The term lead nurturing refers to the cul­tiv­a­tion of contacts with potential customers. This is done by providing in­ter­ested parties with suitable content. You want to increase the prob­ab­il­ity of a con­ver­sion before passing the contact on to the sales de­part­ment.

The main task of lead nurturing is to care for and support generated contacts and to convert these fresh re­la­tion­ships into potential new customers. This basically means ad­dress­ing them with suitable in­form­a­tion. Depending on where the contact is in the pur­chas­ing process, you should keep them in­ter­ested by showing them ap­pro­pri­ate content and ad­vert­ising, and using other useful tactics. This way you can continue the re­la­tion­ship until a suc­cess­ful trans­ac­tion can be carried out.

What is the aim of lead nurturing?

The lead nurturing process is primarily about main­tain­ing customer re­la­tion­ships. If you manage to build a long-term trusting re­la­tion­ship with a potential customer, you can position yourself as an expert and helpful advisor for many different topics, which will prove be­ne­fi­cial to you e.g. in terms of customer loyalty and brand awareness. Initially, it’s about turning initial contacts into satisfied, paying customers. Further qual­i­fy­ing leads is therefore an important process that takes place during the lead nurturing process. This serves the following ob­ject­ives, among others:

• More qualified contacts
• Better con­ver­sion rate
• Shorter pur­chas­ing process
• Increased ROI (Return on In­vest­ment)
• Increased brand loyalty

Lead nurturing takes place in every single phase of the buying process. These phases involve:

• New customer ac­quis­i­tion
• Customer loyalty
• Customer recovery
• Re­act­iv­at­ing inactive customers

It is important to provide those in­ter­ested with suitable in­form­a­tion for each phase. This means target-ori­ent­ated content, which is why lead nurturing is never possible without the ap­pro­pri­ate content strategy. What relevant content looks like depends on the topic, the product, and the interest as­so­ci­ated with it. Tra­di­tion­ally, lead nurturing is based on elab­or­ately designed content types, which already suggest more value due to their format: e-books, white­pa­pers, advice videos, or webinars. Even a simple blog article or slideshow can be ideal for lead nurturing – it depends on the content focus.

Lead nurturing campaigns usually consist of many levels. They start after suc­cess­ful lead gen­er­a­tion and end when the qualified lead has been delivered to the sales de­part­ment. When it comes to lead nurturing, the potential customer is ac­com­pan­ied from the first time they show interest (i.e. after searching for general in­form­a­tion) to when they show concrete interest in the product, after which they are handed over to the sales team which provides them with ap­pro­pri­ate offers.

The further along the pur­chas­ing process of the pro­spect­ive buyer gets, the more precise the content is. Be careful here, as this is where the challenge is when it comes to the lead nurturing process: If you contact the pro­spect­ive buyer with offers too early on, it could scare them off. Therefore, it’s best to gradually provide them with useful in­form­a­tion until they feel ready to make a purchase.

Many marketers dis­tin­guish between three phases when it comes to lead nurturing:

1. Awareness stage: The user re­cog­nises a problem or a need, begins re­search­ing, and looks for in­form­a­tion to help them un­der­stand their problem.
2. Con­sid­er­a­tion stage: The user has un­der­stood their problem and is now searching spe­cific­ally for answers and solutions.
3. Decision stage: A solution has been found and the user now has to decide who should help them and which provider they should choose.

In the early phase of the pur­chas­ing process, the person in­ter­ested usually carries out a lot of research and needs a good amount of in­form­a­tion. The content offered to them at this point is therefore less product-ori­ent­ated. In the awareness stage, the contact should be helped to un­der­stand their problem. Marketers need to empathise with potential customers, un­der­stand their needs, and adjust the nurturing ac­cord­ingly. Just like with content marketing, it is advisable to bear the ap­pro­pri­ate buyer persona in mind. The more in­form­a­tion you have for the contact, the more targeted the lead nurturing tactics can be. In the con­sid­er­a­tion stage, the contact is led in a step-by-step way to solve their problem or fulfil their needs, right up until they are presented with specific offers in the decision stage.

It is a mammoth task trying to satisfy all contacts equally that have resulted from lead gen­er­a­tion. Once a workload hits a certain point, it’s im­possible to deliver suitable content to contacts at the right time if they have shown interest in a product, but haven’t left much in­form­a­tion behind. Powerful auto­ma­tion software can be used when manual lead man­age­ment reaches its limits. Software solutions like these enable a more cus­tom­ised way of lead nurturing, by in­di­vidu­ally co­ordin­at­ing marketing measures depending on the phase and state of in­form­a­tion. Workflows only need to be defined once, since they are automated af­ter­wards, which is a great help and saves marketing de­part­ments a lot of time.

When nurturing and main­tain­ing leads has suc­cess­ful, you shouldn’t just focus on sales and con­ver­sions. It is better to focus on the user and their in­form­a­tion­al needs, and to ask yourself what value and useful in­form­a­tion you can provide. Lead nurturing is primarily about de­liv­er­ing relevant in­form­a­tion at the right time. This way, you maintain the attention and interest of the potential customer after initial contact. This also strengthens the customer re­la­tion­ship, and the pro­spect­ive buyer gradually makes the decision to buy.

Marketers shouldn’t put too much pressure on research. Lead nurturing is a process that won’t yield any positive results if stopped pre­ma­turely. This means: remain patient, don’t hassle contacts with trans­par­ent ad­vert­ising messages, and above all, don’t rush to finalise a sale. When a lead has reached a certain point, you can use lead scoring to evaluate the contact.

Lead nurturing is as­so­ci­ated with some effort, but usually brings very good results. The measures do not only ensure qualified leads and thus a higher prob­ab­il­ity of more con­ver­sions, but also mark the company with a good image as well as a trust­worthy source of in­form­a­tion. By doing this, you can position yourself suc­cess­fully on the market.

The ad­vant­ages of lead nurturing at a glance:

• qualified leads
• higher con­ver­sion rate
• position yourself as an in­form­a­tion provider
• strong customer con­fid­ence
• sus­tain­able marketing
• better return on in­vest­ment (ROI)