Even if you have got a lead, it would not necessarily turn into a business opportunity unless you are not nurturing it like a relationship. Like any relationship, even a lead needs complete nurturing, and each lead may require a different approach than the other. Therefore, it is pretty apt to say that lead nurturing is about building relationships. Needless to say, lead nurturing campaigns like emails have become an essential part of business strategies and practices. However, for success choosing the right approach is fundamental.
Lead nurturing using emails could be an excellent method to guide the leads through stages. For instance, they could be driven by the buyer journey with relevant and valuable content being provided at the right time. Nonetheless, before launching the email campaign, it's vital to understand how the buyers make decisions and how you could guide them to make their minds up the way you desire. Here’re the 5 ways to nurture a lead using email.
1.Why should your emails have one clear call-to-action?
For any impactful email marketing and subsequent lead nurturing, it must have only one specific call-to-action or CTA. Marketing strategists understand the importance of CTA and stress how and why it prompts an immediate response from customers and encourages them for a quick sale. Following the same principle, email marketing should be precise and targeting one set of customers and carries one message to prevent any confusion.
The emails that focus on one subject at a time tend to generate leads and, in all likelihood, prompt the receiver to take action. Therefore, the first target itself gets fulfilled as soon as the prospect takes any action, and from there on, lead nurturing starts.
2. Say no to one-way communication, be conversational!
Customers have stopped paying heed to companies or organizations that do not listen to them, and similar behaviour is seen in B2B businesses. Whether the company is small or large-sized, it needs to talk and elaborate on the specific requirements when sourcing the materials or services, and for that, they want to engage in a conversation. So when your emails have a conversational style, you invite them to open up and talk to you regarding their requirements and expectations, which are pretty fundamental to their business.
For conversational tone in the emails, it must be drafted by the marketing or sales team in a personalized manner. This is a tight rope walk where the language should not be informal and yet personal. A formal language that sounds automated or computer-like is a major turn-off for any personalized communication.
3. Offering value to the prospects
Sending out something valuable to your prospects should be the first priority when sending emails to acquire new customers for your business. The old maxim of business marketing that ‘customers don’t buy your products/services but buy the benefits from it’ is valid even now. Apart from building a rapport, lead nurturing is also a give-and-take kind of strategy where you must offer something that the prospects can feel good about. There could nothing be better than providing information about the products or services that your organization is offering. Offloading information or literature to educate the potential customer could play a pivotal role in influencing them to make some decisions regarding your products or services.
4. Multi-pronged and multi-channel lead nurturing
Since technology is changing rapidly, the methods for lead generation have gone through tremendous change. For example, a simple email drip campaign would have been a complete email marketing and lead generation activity earlier. However, now several channels and tools are being used for the same purpose. Thus, it is a combination of marketing automation, social media, email marketing, paid retargeting, etc., that are being used for lead generation and nurturing.
5. Timely follow up is necessary
All the efforts go down the drain if the timely follow up is not done on the leads. Therefore, for any email marketing plan, it's pretty vital to have a regular and timely follow-up. Although automated lead nurturing could be a ready option, it's essential to understand that email or a phone call is the best way as it carries a personal touch. Chances are that a timely and well-planned call could do well in building a rapport than automated messages or calls.
Generating a lead isn't enough. You need to nurture it so that the prospects can be taken to the purchase stage. It involves developing and reinforcing relationships with prospects at every stage of the sales funnel. They should be provided with the right content at the right time and followed up with a personal touch to make them press the purchase button.
