10 Top Ways to Nurture and Convert Leads Faster
Lead generation is not only a top priority for marketers today but also a top challenge. According to recent data, over 61% of marketers today say they struggle with lead generation. To make things worse, only a small percentage of web visitors today say they are ready to make a purchase. However, the vast majority of organizations where marketing automation software is implemented and adopted within marketing departments experience increased lead ratios. A good proportion of the same businesses claim they have experienced higher lead conversion rates once a similar system was adopted.
In successful enterprises, marketing automation is the cornerstone of successful marketing campaigns, especially when it comes to nurturing leads.
So, without further ado, here are 10 tried-and-tested ways in which you can use marketing automation to nurture leads.
1. Make Your Sales and Marketing Teams Fall in Love with Each Other
Before even starting to think about implementing a lead nurture campaign, you have to ensure that your sales and marketing teams are perfectly aligned, they understand each other, and they collaborate closely. Otherwise, a good lead, a qualified lead, is very likely to die before they reach a profitable stage in your pipeline.
Marketing automation tools, like Sugar Market, are a robust solution in terms of improving sales and marketing collaboration.
Here are some ways in which closer collaboration between sales and marketing can nurture more leads.
- Through proper implementation of lead nurturing campaigns, marketing teams identify sales-ready leads more accurately.
- Marketing automation software automatically sends a task or notification to the sales team as soon as a lead qualifies.
- Lead nurturing systems like Sugar Market enable sales representatives to gain a complete view of a lead’s qualification journey.
By using the metrics and information on how the marketing team has nurtured a lead, sales reps can adapt their strategy and approach to each lead individually.
2. Use the Right Channels
“Hitting” your audience on multiple channels is an excellent way to nurture profitable leads. Just putting your company out there is no longer enough for an efficient campaign of this sort. Your target audience is sophisticated, and using a single channel will tremendously reduce your audience pool. A good strategy that you can use to nurture leads is using email, social media, and even text messaging.
Although marketing departments spend much time on audience segmentation, not every lead that corresponds to your demographics uses the same communication channels.
Many marketing automation tools can help you identify precisely what communication channels your leads use most frequently, coming as a big plus in all marketing departments. This is a good case of efficient use of marketing automation systems to nurture sales-ready leads.
3. Data Is, and Will Remain Your Best Friend
KPIs, metrics, and data insights are best-practices when it comes to tailoring accurate marketing messages.
Marketing automation systems usually provide deep insights into your audience, but they can also offer more insights into how effective your lead nurturing campaign is. Marketers can now focus on those actions that work instead of spending resources on activities that are unlikely to generate further leads.
Lead nurturing is a complex process that involves both accurate data and creativity. While marketers should always be creative with their content and messaging, these messages have to be backed up by data, insights, and KPIs.
4. Find the Right Pace
Setting an acceptable pace for your messaging will enable you to unfold a story that appeals to your audience. It also keeps you from annoying your audience.
Constant outreach increases your chances to end up ignored by leads, which damages your lead nurturing efforts. Find the cadence that keeps your audience engaged and entertained. A similar strategy is more likely to convert, as opposed to daily outreach.
5. Personalization Matters (And We Cannot Stress This Enough!)
Marketing automation tools can improve your lead nurturing campaigns by offering marketing teams access to data and insights that can be used to personalize messages. Although it’s vital to include their names, position, location, and industry in your outreach – and Sugar Market can help you with that to the point – you should use data and insights to personalize the content of your messages.
Especially when discussing email marketing campaigns, personalization is the cornerstone of lead generation and conversion.
6. Keep Track of the Customer Journey
What differentiates a lead from any other representative of your target audience is that they are already prospecting your brand for solutions or products. In other words, they have already started the customer journey. As soon as your audience shows interest in your products or services, it’s the perfect time to start pursuing them.
Marketing automation solutions can help you identify the right moment to engage with your audience and trigger automated messaging. This way, keeping track of your customer journey will help you have a higher rate of conversion.
7. Segmentation Eases Your Job
Audience segmentation and personalization go hand in hand. You can’t afford to be vague in your messaging, so don’t overlook this step in the process.
For example, when it comes to email nurture campaigns, you can’t send emails without referring to your recipient with their title, position, and the company they work at. Some marketing automation tools go as far as allowing you to track behaviors and patterns outside working hours and use that information to personalize your messages further.
8. Find the Right Blend of Written, Video, and Photo Content
Marketing teams are highly reliant on quality imagery and video content to drive conversions and push leads through the funnel.
Search Engine Journal lets us know that content with rich imagery and video performs by almost 95% better than content that lacks it. The same publication also teaches us that email marketing campaigns rich in visuals have higher click-through rates.
That being said, it’s always a great idea to include visual media to push leads down the funnel.
9. Crisp and Clear Call To Action
Call to Action (CTA) phrases make the difference between winning and losing a lead.
For example, in email lead nurture campaigns, your CTA should be easy to spot in your outline. It should also push leads to make the next logical step. Phrases such as “Learn More,” “Visit Our Website,” or “Watch Demo” are good starters. Flexible and easy-to-personalize marketing automation tools allow you to include CTA buttons and customize those with the message you want.
10. Content Still Matters
In regards to nurturing leads, you want to avoid selling from the beginning. Building trust should be your focal point in the incipient phases of similar marketing attempts. The best way to build a strong brand reputation and trust at the same time is through content marketing.
Whether we’re discussing infographics, blog content, or video content, everything should focus on helping leads solve common problems. This type of content shouldn’t be focused on your brand. On the contrary, it should focus exclusively on offering solutions to your leads’ issues.
Final Thoughts
Using marketing automation tools has been proven to boost marketers’ opportunities to convert leads. Lead nurturing is a complex process that demands consistent efforts. Still, automated solutions tailored to offer more insights on leads and their online behavior are some of the few quick-fixes that have been proven to work. So, implement the tips above, along with a marketing automation system, or give us a call to discuss in detail lead nurturing and marketing automation.
