Lead Nurturing Best Practices for a Unique User Experience

By now, any marketing manager, business owner, or content creator should know how important lead nurturing is to the success of a company. But why?

From a content development perspective, there are trends you can follow, topics you can present, and informative ways to develop thought leadership with your lead nurturing campaigns.

The lead nurturing campaign element of your inbound marketing campaign should be very well planned, monitored and tracked. There should be a unique formula for each product, service or business focus. – However, it is up to your analytics tracking and A/B testing to perfect the process.

Knowing your email recipients, or buyer personas, will allow you to create a unique user experience. You may be thinking, how can my product or service become the nucleus of thought leadership in its industry?

The simple answer is make sure you have high-impact content that is conducive to opening communication and is easily shareable for your audience. How can you develop this high impact content? There are a few important marketing statistics you should keep in mind when you are developing a lead nurturing campaign.

• Marketing automation is considerably sparse across the board. Forrester Research has concluded only about 5% of marketing managers are using full-featured marketing automation systems. If you’re one of the few taking advantage of marketing automation, you are ahead of the game. Stay ahead and use each feature to the fullest to help you stay focused, goal-oriented, and on track with your strategy.

• The study from Forrester Research also stated that 25% of marketers who adopt mature lead management processes report that sales teams contact prospects within one day. And, only 10% of marketers report the same follow-up time without mature lead management processes.

Maybe your company has just adapted to the innovation of content marketing and is looking to develop a detailed lead nurturing campaign. Be sure to complete the necessary target market and buyer persona research then create profiles that are well researched and properly developed.

Now you are ready to begin nurturing, and you’re sitting in front of the computer ready to get started. However, you have no idea what to say in your email. Let’s review a few lead nurturing best practices to keep in mind when planning your next lead nurturing campaign:

• Just write. Lead nurturing emails, although automated, should be as free-flowing as your latest sales email. It should fly off the tongue as the recipient glances at the page. Finesse like this is achievable but MUST first be attempted.

• Get your hands on a good editor. It is difficult enough to synthesize the right information to guide a marketing-generated lead through the sales funnel. However, typos and grammatical errors only detour the path further.

• Identify your sales cycle prior to beginning your content planning. It is important for both marketing and sales teams to fully understand the consumer behavior as it pertains to the sales cycle, or how long it takes a customer to buy from the discovery to the closing stages (even for repeat purchases). This will delegate a timeline for your nurturing campaigns. Think of it as a road map to guide your current and potential customers through their journey with your product or service.

• Create a clear path. Although complexity does not equal success, mature, well-thought-out lead management strategies tend to have more success.

• Produce more content. Increase your brand’s value proposition by adding useful, informative, and inspiring information. This content is leverage in building trust, recognition, and community around your business.

For any lead nurturing campaign, the more in-depth your research and planning is, the more likely you are to be successful. Lead nurturing strategies take time to develop, but don’t let that discourage you. Give it your best shot. Keep the tips and statistics mentioned above in mind and above all, offer value to your visitors.

Create a transparent buyer’s journey – provide value, analyze, adjust, and repeat. Give it some time. Test out what you have learned and always keep your recipients in mind. And remember, companies that excel at lead nurturing have 9% more sales reps making quota. So what are you waiting for. Let the nurturing begin!