6 steps to create an effective lead nurturing strategy

Fierce competition today means that buyers have plenty of options - if they don’t get what they want from one brand, there’s always another brand ready and waiting. However, a large portion of consumers isn’t ready to buy straight away. This isn’t surprising. No one’s going to propose on a first date, after all.

The seven-touchpoint rule is a marketing term that states buyers need several interactions with a brand before they even consider handing over their money. There are many reasons why a buyer might not be ready straight away: they might be weighing up their options; they might have just discovered your brand and need to confirm you’re legitimate; they might not believe their pain is painful enough to warrant a solution.

It’s crucial that you build a relationship with buyers from the moment they start interacting with you. You wouldn’t buy a $5,000 watch from a street hawker you’ve never seen before. You can’t expect other consumers to do the same. You might, however, buy from the street hawker if they’ve made small talk with you every day, have taken the time to get to know you, and don’t push the same sales spiel every time you walk past. 

These small interactions are the building blocks to a much bigger picture. Failing to focus on creating connections with buyers means leads will go elsewhere, and you’ll lose customers and sales. 

The solution is a lead nurturing strategy that maps out the process leads go through and targets their needs at each stage. Having something like this in place will get you more leads, more conversions, and create happy, loyal customers.

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the process of developing ongoing relationships with buyers depending on where they are in the sales funnel. It’s about giving prospects what they need, when they need it, with the aim of guiding them towards a sale. 

Of course, it’s a lot more complex than this. No two customers are the same, and the sales cycle looks different for almost everyone. As such, lead nurturing goes one step further than giving customers what they want. It involves unlocking individual pain points, understanding buyers better, and providing personalized content based on their specific needs.

Why do you need a lead nurturing strategy?

Lead nurturing takes prospects from complete strangers to customers. When every prospect has different needs, it’s important to address them with well-timed communication and relevant content. Without a strategy, you can end up missing the mark with a lot of would-be buyers. 

Capture leads in a non-linear customer journey

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to lead nurturing, which makes it difficult to know what content or message to send and when to send it. A strategy based on different touchpoints and individual customer needs rather than a step-by-step process is the key to targeting consumers at every stage. 

Successfully meet the needs of different leads 

The best lead nurturing strategies use data and analytics to capture customer information. Brands can use this information to get a better picture of who their customers are and what each buyer might need at different points throughout the sales cycle.

Don’t tie yourself to this process though. The sales funnel will look different for different companies depending on average cycle time, who they’re targeting, and the level of product they’re selling - the key is to uncover what your unique funnel looks like. 

Create a loyal base of returning customers

Customer experience is now one of the most exciting and important parts of the business. In an age where consumers crave connection more than ever, lead nurturing creates a slick experience for buyers at every stage of the cycle and encourages them to return.

It’s not just about gaining new customers, though. It’s about creating a space for existing customers to thrive. Once a lead makes a purchase, they’re still a lead with the potential to buy again. By fostering stronger relationships through appropriate, well-timed content, customers are more likely to come back and spend more while they’re at it. 

Automate the process to scale your efforts

Clunky, manual lead nurturing activities are a thing of the past. Having a strategy in place allows you to automate the lead nurturing process, which frees up team time, scales your business, and generates sales on autopilot. It also reduces customer queries by giving them the information they need, when they need it. 

Gain a competitive advantage over brands that aren’t nurturing leads

Only 35% of B2B marketers have established a lead nurturing strategy. By implementing lead nurturing, you’re already one step ahead of them. 

Think about it: a customer will choose a brand that understands their needs over a brand that doesn’t. In fact, 56% of consumers feel more loyal to brands that “get them” and who show a deep understanding of their priorities and preferences. 

How to create a lead nurturing strategy?

Creating a lead nurturing strategy has several moving parts. Understanding customer needs drives the type of content you create, but putting it all together is the hard bit. Here’s how to put your best foot forward. 

1. Understand the stages of a sales funnel

Knowing how your customers interact with you as they go through the sales cycle provides vital insight. Consider the actions taken at each stage - how do leads arrive in the cycle? What questions do they commonly ask? What actions do they take next? 

This information will come together to create a big-picture overview of how your customers engage with the sales cycle, where they are most likely to enter the cycle, what actions they take at each stage, and who is more likely to move seamlessly towards a purchase. Thinking about the sales funnel in the traditional way (even if it doesn’t always look like that) can be a useful way to lay down the bare bones.

2. Align marketing and sales to uncover common objections 

Too many brands consider marketing and sales as separate departments when they should work in tandem. 25% of businesses describe their sales and marketing as either “misaligned” or “rarely aligned”, which can have a negative impact on sales. 

Your sales team might know that price is a common objection for leads, but if this information isn’t shared with marketing, they won’t have the motivation to create resources around it.  Bringing insights from both departments together will help you create content based on common queries and objections. 

Sales teams can provide information like: 

• Common support ticket queries

• Reasons leads end up not converting 

• Biggest objections on an account-based level 

• First-hand narratives of major pain points 

Whereas marketing teams can provide information like: 

• Keywords leads are using to search for solutions

• Best-performing content throughout the sales cycle 

• Granular information about top demographics 

Successful lead nurturing strategies use insights from both departments to build out the process. If you’re struggling to bring the two departments together, here’s some clarity from marketing expert Sujan Patel.

3. Identify and segment high-quality leads

Use your research into the stages of the buying cycle to segment your audience based on who they are and where they are in the cycle. Lead scoring is a technique used to identify high-value leads (or leads that are more likely to convert). The more “points” a lead has, the more often they’ve interacted with your brand or taken certain actions. Interactions can include downloading free content, attending a webinar, reading a post, checking out your pricing page, or requesting a demo. 

You can also segment and score leads using: 

• Firmographic data, like their company name, location, team size, and annual revenue 

• Professional data, like their job title, their experience, what they’re responsible for, and their biggest challenges 

“One of the most important things is correctly identifying the activities you want to score. For example, pick the whitepapers you know leads read prior to conversion and assign them a score. Don’t assign a score to all whitepapers. Next, include a combination of scoring properties to identify the best qualified leads to nurture. E.g job title, industry, company size, and activity history.” says Kushlani De Silva, Marketing Consultant. 

4. Build out your email marketing campaigns 

Automated email campaigns will nurture leads that have handed over their details but aren’t yet ready to buy. You might have got their contact details after they:

• Downloaded a piece of content from your site, like an ebook, a checklist, or a whitepaper

• Called up your sales team for a demo 

• Joined a webinar or an event you hosted 

• Enquired about your services or product and requested more information 

Once you’ve got their details, you can start the nurturing process by landing in their sacred inbox.

Any decent email marketing platform will enable automated sequences. Like with all other parts of a lead nurturing strategy, different leads will need different information. The email sequence they are enrolled in will depend on the insights gathered from the previous three steps. 

Some examples include:

• Welcome sequences and campaigns

• Customer education campaigns

• Competitor differentiation campaigns

• Re-engagement campaigns

• Post-sale campaigns

Someone who’s new to your brand will be best suited to a welcome sequence where you introduce your products and begin trust-building. A lead that is weighing up their options might be better suited to a competitor differentiation campaign, while a lead that’s just made a purchase should be put straight into a post-sale campaign. 

5. Create targeted content 

Nurturing leads is a balancing act of starting conversations, developing trust, showcasing your authority, and presenting your solution as the best possible option. Once leads are enrolled into an email sequence, it’s time to start building a relationship with them and nurturing them towards a sale. 

To do this, send them content that suits their needs at that exact moment. 

Content should answer questions they might have, ease their concerns, and make purchasing your product a no-brainer. Use your segmentation data to create engaging content. For example, a lead in a managerial position might need content on organization, managing people, and scheduling tasks, while a small business owner might need help with scaling, juggling their time, and identifying stakeholders. 

Take KnowBe4 as an example. They ask visitors how many employees they have. When a lead selects an option, they’re taken to a specialized portal full of information targeted towards the needs associated with a specific type of business.

As well as deciding what your content should be about, think about how leads might prefer to consume content. If they’re busy, short articles might work best, but if you’re teaching a complicated process relating to your product, a video demo is probably more appropriate.

6. Track, measure, and analyze

It’s unlikely you’ll create a wildly successful lead nurturing strategy the first time round. It’ll take some tweaking as you get to know what content your audience reacts best to and learn more about their needs.

Start by setting concrete goals using specific numbers and percentages where possible: do you want to achieve a 25% increase in conversions? Do you want to attract 10% more leads every month? Do you want to cut the sales cycle by 14 days? 

Make sure your goals aren’t too lofty, especially in the early stages. We’ve highlighted some of the best metrics to measure below. Use these to stay on track and keep a close eye on how your lead nurturing strategy is performing. Don’t dismiss intangible metrics, though. When you create a lead nurturing strategy, you’re playing the long game.

Key metrics to calculate the ROI of lead nurturing

Metrics will tell you how well your lead nurturing strategy is performing. The more you tweak and optimize your processes, the better your numbers will be. Here are some key metrics to get you started:

Average ROI

Working out your average ROI will tell you how much you gain from each lead. Use this formula to calculate it: 

 ROI = Net income / Cost of Investment

For example, if you make $5,000 in a customer sale and it costs you $500 to land that sale, you would calculate 5000 / 500.

Average deal value

Every lead is worth some amount of business. While the deal value could change by the time the lead becomes a customer, having your eyes on an approximate deal value will help predict revenue. 

Don’t place your bets only on the biggest deals. Focus on deals where the prospect shows interest in your product and is willing to invest. Sometimes, a series of small deals may convert sooner than one large deal. 

Awareness metrics

Metrics that measure the awareness of your brand determine how many new potential leads you have at play. These metrics include:

• Growth in website traffic 

• Growth in social follower count 

Loyalty metrics

Loyalty metrics give you an idea of how well your lead nurturing strategy is working. If you can prove that loyalty is increasing, there’s a good chance your strategy is doing what it should be doing. You can measure loyalty through:

• An increase in contract renewals

• Upsells

• Repeat purchases 

Conversion rates

The more conversions you generate, the more effective your lead nurturing strategy is. Track conversions through: 

• The number of content downloads 

• The number of webinar attendees

• The number of signups

• The time it takes for leads to convert

Financial metrics

The better your lead nurturing strategy performs, the more revenue you’ll make. Track your revenue increase over time and align it with the implementation of your strategy.

Performance metrics

Performance metrics (also known as engagement metrics) show you how often leads are interacting with your content and emails. To measure your performance, track metrics like:

• Email open rates

• Click-through rates

Cost metrics

The slicker your lead nurturing strategy becomes, the easier (and cheaper) it will be to convert new customers. Keep a track of your cost per lead to see how much you’re spending on converting new customers and to determine if this number is decreasing over time. 

Get your lead nurturing strategy off the ground

There’s no time like the present to start working on a lead nurturing strategy. Start by digging deep into your customers’ wants and needs. Then, prioritize the kind of information they need to help them attain what they want. 

Don’t forget to track and measure your performance along the way, but also don’t forget you’re in it for the long haul. Lead nurturing isn’t just about numbers and conversions, it’s about creating life-long relationships with customers that will continue to come back for more.

Lead nurturing examples

Lead nurturing is a critical aspect of any sales strategy and varies significantly across industries. Understanding how to apply it in different contexts can be the key to unlocking greater conversion rates and customer loyalty. Let's dive into specific strategies for Fintech, E-commerce, and IT and Communication Technology, with examples to help implement.

Fintech

In Fintech, trust and credibility are vital. Customers are looking for secure, reliable financial services and products. Lead nurturing here focuses on building trust, demonstrating expertise, and addressing specific financial challenges.

Examples:

• Educational content on financial management: Provide valuable insights through webinars, blogs, and whitepapers on financial trends, investment strategies, and market analysis to establish your brand as a knowledgeable authority in the Fintech space.

• Personalized financial planning tools: Offer interactive financial planning tools or calculators on your website. These tools can be crucial to nurturing leads by providing them with personalized value while capturing their financial preferences and needs.

Case study: Humn—Streamlining processes for enhanced customer engagement

In the fast-evolving fintech industry, Humn's challenge was modernizing its lead management and enhancing customer engagement. They transitioned from spreadsheets and disparate systems to Freshworks’ multi-product suite, integrating Freshsales and Freshdesk. 

This shift provided Humn with a unified view of customer interactions, leading to better lead nurturing and a significant increase in customer engagement.

Key Takeaways:

• Automated sales sequences for efficient outreach.

• A 360-degree customer view aligning marketing, sales, and support teams.

• Improved post-sales support with Freshdesk, leading to higher customer satisfaction.

Read more about Humn’s journey with Freshsales

E-commerce

In e-Commerce, personalization and customer experience are key. Understanding customer preferences and shopping behavior can significantly enhance lead nurturing efforts.

Examples:

• Targeted email campaigns based on browsing behavior: Send personalized email campaigns featuring products that customers have shown interest in or added to their cart but haven’t purchased.

• Loyalty programs & special offers: Implement loyalty programs that reward repeat purchases. Special offers and discounts to returning customers can nurture leads into loyal patrons.

Case study: Blue Nile—Personalizing the online shopping experience

Blue Nile, a leader in online jewelry retail, leveraged Freshdesk and Freshsales to transform their customer experience. 

By integrating these tools, they managed to personalize customer interactions, creating a seamless experience that mirrors the special nature of purchasing fine jewelry. Their approach illustrates the power of combining sales and customer service tools to nurture leads into long-term customers.

Key takeaways:

• Unified customer experiences combining sales and support.

• Personalized interactions—crucial in the high-value e-commerce sector.

• Improved customer satisfaction by understanding and meeting specific needs.

Discover Blue Nile’s success with Freshsales

IT & communication technology

This sector demands staying ahead with technological advancements and demonstrating how your solutions can streamline business operations.

Examples:

• Solution-oriented webinars & workshops: Conduct webinars and workshops that showcase your latest technological solutions and their impact on business efficiency and productivity.

• Case studies highlighting success stories: Share detailed case studies of how your technology has transformed businesses. This approach not only educates potential leads but also builds credibility.

Case study: Sify—Digital-first engagement model

Sify, operating in the IT and communication technology sector, adopted a digital-first engagement model to cater to SMBs. By implementing Freshsales, they streamlined their sales processes, enabling faster and more efficient customer interactions. This approach allowed Sify to nurture leads effectively through personalized email sequences and improved account management.

Key takeaways:

• Quick adoption of Freshsales due to user-centric experiences.

• Enhanced prospect engagement through automated and customized email sequences.

• Better account management leading to a significant increase in customer engagement.

Explore Sify’s digital transformation with Freshsales

Common lead nurturing tactics across industries

• Leverage targeted content: Develop content that resonates with each buyer persona, addressing their specific interests and pain points.

• Multi-channel lead nurturing: Implement a combination of email, social media, and direct outreach to create a cohesive multi-channel nurturing strategy.

• Multiple touchpoints: Use a mix of content types to address common questions and move prospects through the buyer’s journey.

• Timely follow-ups: Engage leads promptly after they show interest to significantly increase the chances of conversion.

• Personalized emails: Tailor your email communications based on the lead's interactions with your brand to foster a more personal connection.

• Use lead scoring: Implement lead scoring to prioritize and tailor your approach to leads based on their perceived value.

• Align sales and marketing: Ensure your sales and marketing teams work together seamlessly, sharing insights and strategies to nurture leads effectively.

By adapting these tactics to the unique requirements of each industry, sales leaders can create more effective and engaging lead-nurturing strategies, driving better conversion rates and customer loyalty.