A Step-by-Step Guide to Lead Nurturing

Howdy, marketing enthusiasts. It’s time to clear up some misconceptions about the exciting, and very sexy world of lead nurturing! 

Email campaigns bumming you out? Looks like you could use a crash course in lead-ing– the art of attracting, retaining, and converting potential customers. Let’s do this!

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the process of collecting potential clients or buyers (leads) through digital marketing.

Lead generation is the PB&J of marketing.

SEO and stellar content marketing are the delicious, aromatic peanut butter. It’s the value, the protein of your strategy that attracts potential leads to your site. And if you don’t execute it right, it can be real messy. 

Without lead generation or lead nurturing, SEO and content marketing is just…fine. It’s good, in theory, but it feels like it’s missing something. 

Have you ever tried to eat a plain peanut butter sandwich? It’s a no from us because we hate terrible things. 

Freebies, full-page takeovers, coupons, popup modals, and sliders are the J in your PB&J. They are a natural pairing as iconic as, you guessed it, PB&J. They just make sense. 

The bread’s just bread. I mean, come on. We’re not winning any Pulitzers with this analogy. 

What is lead nurturing?

While lead generation is essential, it’s only part of the sandwich equation. 

A winning marketing campaign is a lead nurturing campaign. Lead nurturing prioritizes guiding leads through the buyer’s journey until they convert to a paying customer rather than just generating leads.

Here are some hot statistics on why you should nurture your warm, newly generated leads: 

• Companies that stop after lead generation lose 80% of their leads
• Lead nurturing companies spend 33% less and generate 50% more sales

What is the sales funnel?

The buyer’s journey. The consumer funnel. The customer journey. Different names for the same thing: the strategic process of transforming people into paying customers. This is a tried and true interactive experience that when done correctly, can yield incredible results for your brand. 

In order to make the sales funnel work for you, you have to understand it. With understanding comes respect. Listen well, young grasshoppers. 

The sales funnel visualizes the journey a prospect makes from the first interaction with a brand to purchasing. Each element of the sales funnel has a specific purpose. Understanding the value of each stage allows you to leverage your product to meet the needs of your prospects, showing them how your brand is indispensable to their life. 

While there are many iterations of the sales funnel, its simplest form includes four stages: 

Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. Bam! Funnel, baby! Get those sales. 

Put the FUN in funnel 

Here are your goals for each stage of the sales funnel: 

Awareness

Awareness – This stage is all about increasing the visibility of your brand/business. Make your customers aware of what you do and who you are. Do you meet a unique need for a specific demographic? That’s your audience. Show them how useful and relevant your brand is to their life. 

Sharing awareness is (if we do say so ourselves) a brilliant way to drive traffic to your website. By creating educational blog posts, white papers, e-books, quizzes, or other free, valuable resources, you’re establishing yourself as an industry expert and building trust.

Consideration

Interest – You’ve got their attention! Capitalize on this opportunity by showing how your product, brand, or services will improve their quality of life. 

Killer content will continue to be your best friend during the consideration stage. Continue to add value by showing how to solve the problem your audience is facing. True Classic is an excellent example: Got a Dad Bod? No problem! Our super soft tees were created to make you look like the strong musk ox we know you are. 

Add checklists, tip sheets, educational webinars, videos, demos, calendars– anything helpful– to your toolkit to nurture that interested potential closer toward a decision.

Decision – After awareness and interest, your prospect is primed to make a decision. Informed prospects are likely researching, comparing prices, and considering other options. The decision stage is critical for building relationships with prospective clients, so share valuable information relevant to your brand so they can fall in love with you forever and ever.

Your main goal is to show why you solve The Problem better than any of your competitors. Now is a great time to leverage the Thor’s Mighty Marketing Hammer, also known as social proof. 

Highlight testimonials, free consultations, relevant case studies, data-driven calculators, free trials, blood pacts (wait, what? no blood pacts), curated recommendations, anything to show why others love what you do.

Conversion

Action – Congrats, Superstar! You’ve built a stellar relationship with your lead and now they’ve finally DONE THE THING. They bought, subscribed, booked– ALL THE VERBS. But hold on there, you’re not done yet. You can’t ghost your newly converted customer. Now is the time to build brand loyalty and trust by continuing to offer value. 

Do you need to revamp your leads?

Campaigns can ebb and flow in effectiveness. That’s why taking a proactive approach to creating a lead-nurturing campaign is essential. 

If a plant is starting to look droopy and despite consistent watering, it might be time to try sunlight, fertilizer, or a larger pot. Experienced parents will tell you that different developmental stages require different strategies– heck, what works for one kid is totally bonkers for the next! 

Marketing success requires the same adaptability, tenacity, and persistence. Rough months or even quarters happen, sure, but if you’re consistently seeing some of the following scenarios, it’s time to regroup and try a different approach. 

Dormant leads – If the leads in your database have flatlined, lead nurturing can help resuscitate DOA contacts into interested buyers. 

Long sales cycles – Is your sales cycle too drawn out? You can help wishy-washy buyers commit with a structured lead nurturing program that features concise, consistent, and relevant communication that provides relevant details and information at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Low engagement – If your current campaign is feeling lackluster, it’s time to reevaluate your clients’ needs and create a plan to meet them.

Take an interactive approach to lead nurturing

What to revamp those drab engagements into fab conversions?

Behold, the interactive lead nurturing strategy. 

Interactive lead nurturing is all about putting your customer in the driver’s seat. If you’re a recovering control freak, take a deep breath. This is a good thing. 

As you’ve guided your leads through the sales funnel, you’ve empowered them all along the way with incredible content. This content is the game changer. 

Interactive strategies are value-centric, always seeking to enrich the potential clients’s life in some way. This builds trust. 

Implementing an interactive lead nurturing strategy

Interactive content does two things: 

1. Generates leads
2. Nurtures your leads by guiding them down the sales funnel.

Here are some tried and true strategies for an interactive lead nurturing campaign.

• Interactive quizzes or calculators: Quizzes are fun and informative. It’s also a tool you can use later down the road for segmenting your audience. Start by turning content that’s already successful among your demographic into a quiz or a calculator. You can use this free tool to get started. 
• Retarget your ads for the funnel: Thanks to all those awesome quizzes you’ve created, you now have invaluable data about your client based on their answers: How likely are they to hire a coach? Did they know you donate a meal for every purchase? Based on this information, you can create retargeted ads that specifically address their reservations, concerns, or information gaps. 
• Reward and incentivize: We love rewards! Get creative with how you optimize these interactive strategies. Rather than a basic Instagram giveaway, consider a rewards program, or interactive incentives. Make a website scavenger hunt; drop a product in a dense public place (like a theme park or an airport) and take to social media to encourage your followers to find the item; create quizzes that give a higher discount for each correct answer. The sky’s the limit! 

Lead nurturing is non-negotiable. Get a foot up on your competition by harnessing all the greatness of stellar, interactive content that will boost your brand image and increase conversions. 

If all this feels like rocket science, Limelight Marketing Systems, your marketing rocket scientists, are here to help. Download our free Lead Nurturing Email Planner here. Still have questions? Book a free consultation today!