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Lead nurturing has become a vital tool for companies as part of their marketing strategy: it transforms a prospect looking for a solution into a customer ready to sign. What are the key principles to apply in terms of content and customer relations, to make your lead nurturing a success?
How does lead nurturing work?
Lead nurturing is an integral part of B2B inbound marketing. For a professional, it means letting the client company come to them by offering content that interests them as closely as possible and, once they are hooked, getting them to buy. The aim is to gradually bring this potential customer, known as a lead, to choose the proposed solution by fuelling their interest. Once the decision has been made, the lead is passed on from the marketing teams to the sales teams, who will close the deal. The lead nurturing strategy is more targeted than the broad search for prospects, but there are a few rules to follow if it is to be successful.
Relevant content for every stage
The aim of lead nurturing is to maintain contact and entice leads to make a purchase. However, it's important to remember that we don't send the same signals to leads who are ready to make a choice as we do to brand-new prospects. Whether by email or any other means, it is important to support your lead by taking account of their current needs. For example, a company that is interested in your services or products will be more interested in explanatory content if they are in the research phase. When their behaviour shows that they are about to make a choice, testimonials from satisfied customers will help them to choose you.
This permanent, personalised link guides your lead through a process known as the conversion tunnel, until the final order is placed. Emails, news articles, videos, invitations, newsletters... The strategy is only effective if your content offers something genuinely new and responds to the lead's quest at a specific time. Marketing analysis tools are therefore essential for lead nurturing.
What tools are needed for lead nurturing?
Understanding the maturity of your leads is essential if you are to send them appropriate content. To this end, lead scoring is an invaluable asset. This analysis tool is based on lead behaviour. Emails or articles read, clicks made: everything is examined and a score is calculated. A sufficiently high score indicates that the lead is ready to be entrusted to the sales teams.
Marketing automation is another essential tool for successful lead nurturing. Thanks to software based on the segmentation of customer data, tailored content can be sent automatically, freeing marketing departments from the time spent on individual follow-up. The more leads you have, the more responsive you are.
To read Le role du storytelling dans l’email marketing B2B
Finally, the performance indicators will tell you about the effectiveness of the lead nurturing and the relevance of the content. These data include success and failure rates in terms of sales or marketing follow-up. Depending on the results, you may need to adjust your strategy and modify the content sent to your prospects.
Attract new prospects!
Turning a prospect into a firm customer is part of the conversion process, where the relevance of the content at a key moment is of the utmost importance. But the lead nurturing strategy doesn't stop there. Once the sale has been made, the marketing teams need to take charge of the leads again, to build up their loyalty and, above all, to work on the relationship so that they become your most loyal ambassadors, ready to generate new leads... and new future customers!
