A business is not sustainable if it’s not consistently generating leads. That’s why a solid lead generation strategy is most vital to your business is lead nurturing.
The process of turning a browser into a buyer is not always easy, and a business needs to keep track of leads and data to know if their strategy is working.
If you’re in the boat of a sinking strategy, then here are a few tactics to consider to improve your lead nurturing strategy.
1. Contact Management
Every business should have a system to keep track of leads. This is known as the Customer Relationship Management system (CRM).
A CRM keeps track of potential leads and current customers, and, as the name suggests, helps manage relationships with your customers.
CRMs store information on your leads, including their name, phone number, email address, and notes. The system enables you to track marketing, sales, and customer service activities with your leads.
Why do you need a CRM, though? CRM’s are important because you can get leads through many different channels: website contact form, referrals, social media, and more. Putting it all together in one system prevents you from losing contact with potential leads and ensuring they go through a proper lead nurturing workflow. Details like this can also help you segment your email lists, and some content management platforms even allow you to change your Calls to Action depending on specific contact attributes.
2. Buyer’s Journey
Have you considered the buyer’s journey with your lead nurturing strategy? By determining where a lead is in their buyer’s journey, you can present content that relates to their needs.
Let’s take your email list, for example. You wouldn’t want to send a long-time and active subscriber an email introducing your brand when they already know who you are. Introduction emails are more appropriate for people that have recently subscribed to your newsletter.
Let’s break down each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Awareness
A lead is aware that they have a problem or opportunity, and they are researching to learn more about it.
From a content marketing perspective, you want to create educational content and interactive to capture their attention. You want the person to think, “Finally, this is the information I needed.”
Consideration
Now that your lead has educated themselves, they will move onto the consideration stage. The lead will look for more information on how to solve their problem or capitalize on their opportunity. They are considering all of their options on how to move forward.
Decision
After doing all that research, the lead will decide on what the best option is to solve their problem. For a sales team, this is when a money transaction occurs.
Though they may have gone through the buyer’s journey, content marketers or customer service representatives know that they need to keep nurturing the lead to keep them as loyal customers.
3. Segmentation
Segmentation applies to more than email marketing. (Check out our article about email segmentation to learn more about this specific subject.)
Segmentation can also apply to your content marketing. You can create content that specifically relates to your potential lead and persuade readers to convert.
Here is a homework assignment for you: Make a list of the content you’ve written and ask, “Is this content meant for someone in the awareness, consideration, or decision stage of the buyer’s journey?”
You may quickly notice gaps in your content. Perhaps you have a lot of content for raising awareness of your brand, but you have almost nothing for the consideration stage.
Or you’re only catering to the decision stage and missing out on developing relationships with your leads. People like to know and trust you before they buy from you, so make sure you’re also developing content for awareness and consideration.
Segmenting your content like this can help you find ways to improve your lead nurturing strategy.
Next Steps
How can you take this information and implement it into your content marketing strategy?
The first step is to organize your contact list, so you can have a more focused approach to nurturing your leads.
You can start creating content specifically based on a person’s behavior and stage in the buyer’s journey. This targeted strategy helps move a person down the funnel until they convert.
Finally, take the time to measure and analyze the data. Metrics determine ROI, and you should establish what those metrics are for your lead nurturing strategy.
Lead nurturing is vital for a business to thrive.
What is your current lead nurturing strategy? If you have any tips, then please share them in the comments section.