Lead nurturing is a set of processes aimed at guiding a lead from their initial acquaintance with a company or product to the point of purchase. Through lead nurturing, a company creates favorable conditions for the customer to move through the sales funnel. At each stage of the sales funnel, the lead receives what they need, which pushes them further along. To achieve this, the company creates appropriate content, provides consultation to the leads, and presents itself in the best possible light.
If a company neglects to lead nurturing, it increases the chance that a potential customer will drop off at one of the stages of the sales funnel. Nurturing leads is necessary to address the audience's needs and increase customer loyalty from the beginning of their interaction with the company. The lead will see that the company pays attention to their requests and does everything to satisfy them. This helps to convert leads into actual customers.
Lead nurturing involves comprehensive work that can be divided into several stages.
- Creating a customer profile. This allows the company to better understand its potential customers and their desires. The customer profile helps to form more accurate messages and adjust targeting so that advertisements reach potential customers.
- Studying the customer journey. To understand customers' needs and identify the difficulties they encounter, it is essential to walk through their journey. The lead's perspective needs to be assessed, and various points of interaction with the company should be evaluated to determine which processes need to be optimized to improve the user experience.
- Lead qualification. To make it easier for marketing and sales departments to work, leads need to be qualified according to their readiness to become actual customers. This enables companies to allocate their resources more efficiently and concentrate on the most important leads.
- Audience segmentation. In addition to qualifying leads, it is desirable to segment potential customers based on their characteristics. This helps to personalize work with the audience and create relevant content for each segment.
- Developing a lead strategy. With all the necessary information gathered, the company already understands what it needs to do to turn leads into customers. Depending on the sales funnel, the company develops content for each stage. This content takes into account the characteristics of the target audience and the needs of the leads. The company sets up email chains, prepares landing pages, and other scenarios for working with leads.
As a result of lead nurturing, the company obtains a loyal customer who is already familiar with the product. The business will not have to work with leads chaotically because they will move in the direction set for them. This streamlines the company's work and makes it more efficient.