Let’s face it, customers are perpetually changing and as marketers we must adapt to stay relevant. Customers have a wealth of information and resources at their fingertips and many of them prefer to do their own research.
According to a recent study, “73% of all B2B leads are not sales-ready,” which means marketers need to be prepared to provide sustained, content-driven lead nurturing campaigns to “continue the conversation” with new leads until they are ready to make their purchase.
There are many marketing automation tools including Marketo, HubSpot and Salesforce Pardot, but the key is implementing a solution that will be successful for your company. Here are a few of the key items critical to launching a successful lead nurturing campaign:
- Inbound Lead Tracking – This should be an automated process managed in the optimized CRM we touched on last week. Be sure you are tracking the source of your lead. If it is coming from a Call To Action on your website, use the page title or url directory path as your source.
- Segment your Inbound Leads – You want to send relevant information based on their interests . . . setting up customer personas will identify common traits and allow you to speak to each lead individually.
- Repurpose existing content – There will be some re-creation here as well, so if you’re not actively writing or blogging, don’t panic . . . you’ll want to create some educational content not focused on selling or marketing. This is where you are establishing your company as a leader in your industry. You can link to other blog posts that may be of interest to your leads.
- Establish Buying Cycle Timeline – How long is a typical lead in your pipeline? You’ll want to set a communication plan to ensure your leads are being cultivated until they’re ready to engage with a salesperson.
- Evaluate & Improve – Is your campaign effective? You can modify email titles, content and order of delivery to determine which is giving you the best consistent results.
Automating lead nurturing email campaigns will help increase your lead conversion rate while helping to make the most efficient use of your resources. Now that your campaign is automated, it’s time to continue by automating your lead qualification process.
