Nowadays, companies are confronted with the problem of not being able to detect any noticeable increase in leads despite active marketing activities such as newsletter mailings or email advertising. This may be due to the fact that such emails are often perceived as irrelevant or are quickly labelled as annoying sales promotion and end up in the trash folder of the mail account. Lead Nurturing is increasingly being used to escape the spam folder. This strategy helps companies to provide potential customers with relevant information at the right time. But how can companies successfully use Lead Nurturing?

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead Nurturing refers to all lead management activities implemented by a company to provide customers with the right information at the right time. This depends on which stage of the purchase decision they are currently at. The aim is to win new customers, keep existing customers and encourage them to buy again. An important factor of Lead Nurturing is to provide the user with relevant content which should encourage people to get in touch with the company. It is important not to bother the lead with run-off-the-mill input, but to provide them with high-quality content. Creative and interesting content can be brought to customers in form of personalized offers, interesting blog posts, guidebooks or creative newsletters.

However, before the content can be developed accordingly, it is important to define which content should be targeted when and to whom and in which phase of the purchase decision the person is. For this purpose, the target group should be analyzed by means of relevant characteristics such as origin, age, gender and preferences. Based on the characteristics of the target group, the emails can be filled with suitable content.

Advantages of Lead Nurturing

• Increase of qualified leads
• Higher quality leads
• Shorter purchase process
• Higher conversion rate
• Efficient marketing investments

Application in practice
Similar to the strategy of funnel marketing, the Lead Nurturing process can be displayed as a funnel. As a tool for generating content, the leads are classified into different stages of the decision-making process.

Category 1 – Inquiry: The user has an unsatisfied need and obtains first information. As a company, it is important to provide potential customers with qualitative information and arouse their interest in the service.

Category 2 – Marketing Qualified Lead: The lead is specifically looking for a solution to a problem. In this phase, the personal contact between the person and the company has to be established.

Category 3 – Sales Accepted Lead: The consumer who is willing to purchase, looks into the services of the company. The service provider should go into the details of the product and explain the added value.

Category 4 – Sales Qualified Lead & Closed Won: The lead is finally convinced and chooses the product. The business deal is closed.

After a successful business transaction, it is important to keep the customer up to date with further creatively designed content. Experience has shown that emails that have a real benefit for the reader do actually attract interest.

Successful Lead Nurturing campaigns

Even companies that already use Lead Nurturing have to take initiative with campaigns in order to create new and better leads. The following examples show how successful lead nurturing can be brought into practice.

Mister Spex
With personalized messages for birthdays, Mister Spex arouses the customer’s interest. A call-to-action for the recipient is included with a time-limited discount code.

Picture: HubSpot – Screenshot of a newsletter from Mister Spex

Secret Escapes
Secret Escapes uses high-quality pictures for its newsletter which raises the recipient’s interest in holidays and travel. Especially for products in the B2C sector, it is important to arouse the need for products by presenting the customer benefits of the product with high-quality images.

Picture: HubSpot – Screenshot of a newsletter from Secret Escapes

Amazon
For follow-up campaigns, the qualified lead should be given further suggestions based on their purchasing history. It is important to keep an eye on the customers and arouse further needs through personalized offers.

Bild: Hubspot – Screenshot of a newsletter from Amazon

Types of campaigns

Lead Nurturing campaigns don’t have to consist of newsletters only. There are various ways of approaching customers and providing them with the right information.

• Personal contact by phone or email: It is often difficult to determine which products or services a company offers. Especially in the B2B sector, it is useful to return to a personal level. This means that as a follow-up, a personal phone call is a suitable option to check whether the recipient has any questions about the email or product.
• Through content on social media channels: News leads can be generated through social media channels such as LinkedIn or Twitter – through interesting articles and posts, but also through direct contact with users.
• Chatting with users: Apart from personal contact via telephone, corporate chat services can be an opportunity to provide potential customers and leads with quick, targeted and personal advice on open questions. Instead of filling in contact forms, a chat on your own website can be a useful alternative.
• Retargeting Campaign: By tracking users who have subscribed to a company’s newsletter or recently browsed the website, companies can position themselves in such a way that they are kept in mind. The best way to do this is to segment retargeting campaigns according to customer types and needs and implement a call-to-action.

Conclusion

Especially in times of mass newsletters, the concept of Lead Nurturing offers an opportunity to stand out from the crowd with individual and special emails. It can be used for the management of new leads as well as a stay-in-touch campaign for existing customers. It shows that it is not the quantity of distributed information that matters, but rather the quality and concrete benefit for the customer. With high-quality content that is sent to the right people at the right time, traffic to websites can be increased and product sales boosted.

HBI would be pleased to support you with your Lead Nurturing. Please contact us at vibes@hbi.de!

– This article was written by Melanie Kehl, Marketing Assistant at HBI