Did you know that email marketing has one of the highest conversion rates compared to other organic channels, not only for B2B, but also for B2C marketing? If you took that 2.8% conversion rate, tweaked it, and made it even higher through automated lead nurturing, you could dominate your competition.

Lead nurturing, which we describe below as directing prospects from initial interest to a sale, is an essential part of sales journey. Email marketing is the cornerstone of this process. However, many marketing departments are challenged when it comes to gaining prospects. They may be understaffed, face budget restrictions, or perceive lead nurturing as labour-intensive.

But wooing customers doesn’t have to demand so many resources. Your business can reach and surpass its targets when it utilizes effective lead nurturing and marketing automation to reduce work and save money. Here’s a review of the steps you need to take to do that. Get it right, and you could start seeing increased revenue in only a few months.

What Is Lead Nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the process of converting a prospect into a customer for your product or service. Think of it like metaphorically walking them through the steps they need to be ready to buy. This buyer’s journey is often referred to as the sales funnel.

The Psychology Behind Lead Nurturing

Most potential customers aren’t ready to commit to your business right away. They need information and assurance to develop the confidence to make a decision. You’ve probably experienced this yourself when buying something significant, like a computer, a piece of exercise equipment, or a car.

Stages of Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing can be broken down into several steps that represent milestones along your sales funnel:

Awareness — a prospect first notices your product or service as a potential solution for them or is made aware of your brand through advertising or social media
Interest — the customer takes some action indicating they are interested in what you provide, such as giving an email address or chatting with a rep online
Consideration (aka desire) — the prospect is now seriously thinking about making a purchase, weighing the pros and cons
Action (aka conversion) — the lead becomes a customer by taking action and buying something from you

There are also two more steps beyond action. Loyalty is when a customer stays with your brand, making a repeat purchase or signing up for a subscription. And the last step is advocacy, when they recommend your goods or services to others, either by word of mouth or via online review.

Benefits of Lead Nurturing

When you nurture leads, you enjoy multiple benefits that you do not get when you leave it up to prospects to find their own way to a sale. Some of the benefits of lead nurturing include greater efficiency, better conversion statistics, opportunities for additional sales, and stronger customer rapport, as described below.

Greater Efficiency

First, lead nurturing usually shortens the sales process significantly because you can direct leads to the products or services they need.

It is like having someone greet you at the entrance to a store and point out the aisle you want, versus wandering around to find the desired item. And when you streamline the funnel, your business saves both time and resources.

Better Conversion Statistics

Additionally, it’s now commonly accepted that nurturing leads results in higher conversion rates. That makes sense. If you think of the store example above, what happens when you are left on your own to find your desired item? You might miss things that were right there. Or you get tired of searching and leave without items on your list. But when you have someone showing you where everything is, you’re more likely to get everything you need.

Opportunities for Additional Sales

With a store guide, you might even come home with a few unplanned items. This happens with lead nurturing too. Upselling and cross-selling are available when they otherwise wouldn’t be.

Stronger Customer Rapport

All of the above builds better customer relationships due to personalization. This results in:

Improved customer satisfaction
Repeat business and loyalty
Good customer reviews

These, in turn, increase revenue and long-term business stability.

How to Implement Lead Nurturing with Marketing Automation

If lead nurturing sounds daunting, it does not have to be. You can automate a large portion of this marketing. You can use automated email, for example, to welcome people to your website. Then, you can use email marketing to move prospects through your sales funnel and drive conversions.

Marketing Automation Best Practices

It is important to approach nurturing emails and marketing automation strategically. Follow these steps to stay organized and generate better results with your marketing automation:

Define your goals at the start, setting clear objectives and KPIs for each lead nurturing campaign.
Segment your audience. Your leads are not all in the same place in the sales funnel or need the same product/service. You may also want to group prospects on your email list based on demographics, behaviour, lead scoring, or purchase history.
Create relevant content for each stage of the buyer’s journey. You want to tailor it to where they are in the funnel as well as what they’ve expressed interest in.
Choose the right tools for your needs. Select marketing automation software or platforms that suit your business size and how you wish to communicate with leads. Some will give you a free trial to see if they work for your marketing or sales team.
Set up your workflow. This is where you save time and other resources by automating your content delivery for optimum times. It can be sent on specific dates or triggered when a prospect takes an action on your website.
Monitor your performance as you go. This allows your marketing team to stay on track and make necessary adjustments for more desirable results.

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How to Improve Lead Nurturing

Want to make your lead nurturing even more effective? Here are a few further pointers:

Personalization

One of the best ways to improve your lead nurturing is to incorporate personalization. This goes beyond addressing prospects by name. You can recommend merchandise by shopping habits or give special offers, for instance. You can also tailor content to the person’s industry or job title.

Multichannel Marketing

Do not forget that email is not the only way to nurture leads. You should consider a multichannel approach where you complement email with social media, remarketing, and other techniques.

In the days before the internet, you had to find leads where they physically hung out, whether at the golf club or the mall. Nowadays, it’s much easier to reach people globally, but you want to take the same tactic of focusing on their particular corner of the web.

Lead Scoring

We mentioned lead scoring above. This is a way to prioritize leads based on factors like:

Source and reliability
Company industry, size, and revenue
Engagement with your brand
Readiness to buy
Purchasing power
…and many more!

You want to put more resources into hot, trustworthy leads that are close to taking action because that’s where your revenue lies.

Consistency and Follow-Through

Finally, do not forget to follow up with leads. This shows consistency on your company’s part, and it keeps a high-quality audience engaged with your brand. When you use marketing automation, you can schedule communications to save time and never leave a prospect hanging.

Tools to Automate Lead Nurturing

There are many tools to help you automate lead nurturing. The most successful marketing teams use a combination of these methods for the best conversion rates:

Email Marketing Automation

Automated email platforms will generate emails on a schedule that you set up in advance. You might want to email your list on the 1st and 15th of every month. Also, send automated emails when someone subscribes to your site or requests certain information.

There are dozens of platforms that will do this for you. The most popular ones are:

Mailchimp
ActiveCampaign
HubSpot
Adobe Engage (formerly Marketo)
Salesforce Marketing Cloud

The key is to look for a marketing automation platform that includes features you need, such as:

Personalization
Email sequences
Dynamic content
Segmentation
Abandoned cart reminders
Birthday greetings
Reactivation messages
Lead scoring
Privacy compliance
Tracking and attribution

Lastly, ensure your marketing automation platform can manage lead validity. If an email is undeliverable for a prospect has unsubscribed, the system should stop sending emails to that person. When databases contain a large number of undeliverable email addresses, you risk that your emails get blocked — even everyday email correspondence!

Chatbots

Chatbots are everywhere now to assist customers either during non-working hours or for basic questions that do not need a live human response. Chatbots can provide directions or schedule appointments. They can also be used to triage inquiries and forward vital calls to a staff person — another form of lead nurturing.

There are different ways to add chatbots to your website or social media accounts. Most commonly, a plugin or code snippet will accomplish this for you. Then, it’s up to you to decide what you want the chatbot to do and what triggers further action outside the bot.

CRM Integration

Integrating your CRM (customer relationship management) system with your marketing automation is an ideal way to make lead nurturing more efficient. It’s also great for linking your sales team with your marketing department, as the two must work in tandem.

Some CRM platforms, like HubSpot or Salesforce, offer more comprehensive services. This lets you easily connect your CRM to your marketing automation platform, for example. However, if you use different platforms for various functions, you’ll have to figure out how to integrate them. Some CRM systems provide native integration; others rely on a third-party platform to make a connection, such as Boomi and Zapier.

Social Media Automation

Just as you can automate your emails, you can also automate social media posts. This is especially helpful if you serve a broad range of time zones. You may wish to post when the bulk of your prospects are having their morning coffee in Europe but your employees are still in bed in Vancouver.

Tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Tailwind let you create social media posts for publishing at scheduled times. You schedule when you want them to go live, taking advantage of the best times to reach leads without having to maintain 24/7 staffing.

Whether you’re a small or medium-sized business wanting to up your game with marketing automation, 1UP Digital Marketing is here to assist. We welcome the opportunity for a consultation on implementing marketing automation to transform your lead nurturing.

Our experts can show you how to drive traffic, increase customer engagement, and get those coveted conversions. When it’s sales you want, lead nurturing is a vital step that virtually guarantees results. Don’t wait — go for that boost in revenue today. Reach out to 1UP to learn more.

How to Improve Lead Nurturing with Marketing Automation