#1: Lead Nurturing by Marketo

Marketo breaks down lead nurturing, including how to build personalized relationships at each stage of the sales funnel. This is a step-by-step guide to getting started with lead nurturing, including developing a solid strategy. Marketo also provides a simple four-step process. 

• Your lead nurturing strategy should include lead scoring, content marketing, multi-channel distribution, your website, and retargeting, followed by social, direct mail, and automation. 
• Done well, lead nurturing programs generate more sales, larger purchases, and improved performance, with some companies seeing 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost. 

#2: 7 Amazingly Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics by HubSpot

HubSpot states that inbound marketing leaves as many as 90% of inbound leads on the table. Still, an effective lead nurturing strategy can improve this figure dramatically while also working to improve customer retention and loyalty. HubSpot then offers seven tactics for getting there.

• Start by leveraging targeted content and use multi-channel methods to drive more sales. 
• Consider the benefits of lead scoring, which ranks prospects by perceived value, allowing you to spend more time on the leads most likely to produce a sale.

#3: What Is Lead Nurturing by Oracle

Oracle defines lead nurturing as a way to cultivate leads that are just not ready to buy right now. The goal during the process is to give prospects the information they need to make a buying decision, and that’s more effectively done when the lead’s activity or behavior triggers it. 

• The first thing to do is to understand your buyer, pinpoint what motivates that buyer, and then create a nurturing process to address those needs. 
• To better understand your leads, whiteboard the perfect user experience. Modify the flow of communication based on engagement with your content.

#4: 7 Lead-Nurturing Strategies by Business News Daily

Business News Daily notes the importance of lead nurturing to gain your prospects’ trust and increase sales from that trust. They heavily recommend focusing on content marketing and then using data to target your prospective leads through email better. Engage with your audience through surveys, too.

• Lead nurturing isn’t just about increasing sales, though that’s the main objective, and it also helps you build your company’s reputation. 
• The right tools can help you succeed, including using Google Analytics and Marketo for analytics and data and email campaign automation through Constant Contact, Benchmark, or Sendinblue.

#5: What Is Lead Nurturing by Impact Plus

Impact Plus points out that just 21% of unnurtured leads will make a purchase. Lead nurturing can change that. They also state that it’s common for leads to walk away when they don’t know where, how, or what to do next. They recommend using social media, retargeting, and website content to see a difference.

• Consider the use of events and webinars for serious buyers looking to buy with more information. 
• Put the buyer’s customer experience journey to work for you by understanding what it is and how it works.

#6: What Is Lead Nurturing – Definitive Guide by Send Pulse

Send Pulse points to the benefits of lead nurturing, stating it’s essential because it helps you generate more sales at lower costs and helps businesses make better decisions. It can also help boost engagement with the company, build the business’s reputation, and create cross-selling opportunities. 

• Create a lead management process from the start. This should allow the sales team to handle hot leads while the process manages warm leads.
• Don’t just create any content. Rather, develop a content plan that’s designed to provide valuable insights. Know your timelines and when to send content to prospective leads.

#7: What is Lead Nurturing? 5 Techniques That Actually Work by G2 Learn Hub

After describing the difference between lead nurturing and lead generation, G2 Learn Hub provides insight into creating a strategy that aligns sales and marketing teams. Through this five-step process, it’s possible to develop a flexible plan to fit most companies’ needs, noting that no two companies are the same.

• Create a lead profile by dividing customers into various segments, then look at how each segment converts. Google Analytics can play a significant role in the process.
• Make it as easy as possible for your leads to reach out to you, including having professional social media profiles, hosting live webinars, doing demos, and offering chats.

#8: What Is Lead Nurturing by Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor states that lead nurturing campaigns help build brand awareness and establish a trusted relationship with prospects. The focus on building relationships is not just to close the deal but happens at every stage of the sales funnel. 

• Email campaigns are one of the most critical parts of the process if they are automated, personalized messages. 
• The most effective campaigns are built using data and user behavior research, but they are also customized in nature allowing companies to create highly personalized campaigns.

#9: What Is Lead Nurturing and How Do I Nurture Leads by WebFX

Lead nurturing works to do two things, according to WebFX. The first is to convert leads, and the second is to improve the sales funnel. This isn’t only effective in getting the customer but also helping your business to earn more customers on an ongoing basis. 

• To achieve these results, the process starts with lead generation, validation, engagement, and then conversion. Each step in the process works to support the next.
• To create a competitive nurturing strategy, start by creating a targeted customer profile that gathers as much detail as possible. 

#10: 3 Ways Automated Lead Nurturing Can Supercharge The Sales Cycle by Neil Patel

Neil Patel breaks down the nurturing process and its importance, noting that long sales cycles can last 3 to 18 months. During that time, businesses have to take steps to keep their leads interested and moving through the sales funnel, and it’s a challenging process. 

• Automated lead nurturing handles many complications of a long sales cycle by keeping leads interested with fresh content and perspectives.
• Automating the lead nurturing process also provides an opportunity to systematically track engagement with the company’s site and content, providing improved results with more data.

#11: B2B Lead Nurturing: Learn How to Close More Deals by VWO

The backbone of a robust nurturing system is having your marketing and sales teams aligned with the same messaging, goals, and information. There’s also the importance of focusing on lead qualification to ensure that leads fit your ideal customer profile and are likely to become paying clients. 

• One way to do this is through lead scoring, which uses behavioral data that helps qualify the lead. 
• Numerous nurturing campaigns exist, including educational, event engagement, promotional, welcome campaigns, and re-engagement.

#12: What Is Lead Nurturing? Types, Tips, and How-Tos by Active Campaign

Active Campaign begins by reviewing some essential tactics in lead nurturing, including email drip campaigns, email segmentation, lead quality scoring, and remarketing. Then, they break down various campaigns, including re-engagement campaigns and product deep-dive campaigns. 

• Organizations must first fully understand their customer’s journey to perform well. 
• Measuring results after the lead becomes a customer is vital to creating better outcomes.

#13: Lead Nurturing: A Complete Guide for Marketing Teams by Crunchbase

Lead nurturing impacts customer loyalty as well as retention and revenue. A lead nurturing funnel improves marketing and communication methods to listen to prospective customers’ needs and then provides information that allows the lead to trust the company. 

• While a lead nurturing strategy supports and builds relationships through the sales process, it also allows prospects to advance through the buyer’s journey at their own pace. 
• The right campaigns allow you to gather relevant buy signals to evaluate the buyer’s level of interest and then enable tracking of that behavior to improve ROI.

#14: Creating a Successful Lead Nurturing Strategy by MailChimp

MailChimp states that the lead nurturing process allows you to move your customer from the awareness stage to the decision-making stage while also helping to reduce prospects that end up with your competition. There are three key stages of the buyer’s funnel to focus on, the awareness stage, consideration, and decision. 

• Provide different channels for your customers to reach out, as many as possible, and then pay attention to how effective each is to know where to focus more of your time.
• Using retargeting ads can also help companies to get interested customers back.

#15: Create and Optimize a High-Converting Lead Nurturing Strategy by Freshworks

Freshworks defines the seven-touchpoint rule that states buyers must interact with a brand numerous times before buying. They also note that starting a relationship with a buyer from the first interaction is essential. 

• To be successful, focus on capturing leads in a non-linear customer journey in a way that isn’t a messy ball of string.
• It’s beneficial to meet the needs of each of your leads rather than focusing on just one type of buyer.

#16: 11 Steps and Goals to Lead Nurturing Done Right by Oktopost

After explaining what lead nurturing is, Oktopost then focuses on a B2B marketers’ need to focus on that, noting that only 2% of customers agree to buy during that first meeting. However, when done well, these campaigns can generate higher quality leads that remain long-term customers. 

• Don’t rush the process of planning your campaign. Instead, set aside time and effort to create lead generation at the first stage. 
• Work to understand your leads and then segment them. Learn the customer’s pains, the solutions available to them, their motivations, and what it’s going to take to get them to buy.

#17: Lead Nurturing Statistics by 99 Firms

There’s no doubt the statistics shared by 99 Firms are important. They state that 5 to 20 touchpoints may be necessary to convert a lead to a buyer, but that when that’s done, 47% of these nurtured leads become high-order value customers. 

• About half of markers feel that nurturing initiatives need improvement within their campaigns.
• Some statistics indicate that 66% of companies will run as many as ten different lead nurturing programs each year. They do this to identify the best practices in the process.

One Way to Nurture and Convert More Leads

While everyone’s focusing on social media and email, forward-thinking professionals are picking up on the success of handwritten notes for lead nurturing. Here are a few articles about handwritten notes to give you an inside look into the power of today’s marketing AI.