Five Steps for Implementing a Successful Nurture Marketing Strategy

Laura Guzman
Jul 23, 2017 · 4 min read

Consider that last pair of shoes you bought. By the time you made a purchase, you went through a series of steps that allowed the company you purchased from to learn a whole lot about you, such as your product interests and your personal characteristics like your size or location. Armed with this data, the store probably made little marketing nudges throughout your decision-making process to help you make your final purchase decision.

That’s nurture marketing: the idea of providing targeted marketing messages tailored to a specific person at specific points in the buyer’s journey. This concept replaces the old approach of mass marketing to as broad an audience as possible and praying something sticks.

Nurture marketing is a hallmark strategy for savvy marketers in many industries today, one that can provide equal benefits for A/E/C organizations. In order to effectively attract business, companies must work harder than ever to provide prospective clients with timely, relevant information that breaks through the clutter and helps them develop an affinity for your organization even before they may be looking for a consultant. It can also help your organization develop deeper, lasting relationships with clients by providing content they actually care about, when they care about it.

This may sound like a lot of effort, but it doesn’t have to be. Start small, and in just five simple steps, you’ll be on your way to effectively adopting a nurture marketing strategy that will soon become routine.

1. Establish your nurture goals.

Identify important measures for success and what data you are going to use to benchmark progress. For example, some typical digital marketing metrics include number of email clicks, number of forms completed on a web landing page, or number of video views. These are all good measures to help you understand what content is engaging your audiences versus what’s a flop.

Tracking downstream metrics such as number of proposals generated, value of proposals, and number of projects won are also important measures for A/E/C firms and begin to paint a picture of marketing activities that are generating tangible ROI.

2. Create a nurture map.

Nurture marketing is about providing marketing messaging that is most relevant at each stage in the decision-making process. If someone is at the very beginning and isn’t even aware you exist, showcase

3. Segment your candidate audiences.

your brand and educate them about what your team can do. Even if the potential client is aware of who you are, it’s up to you to communicate why you’re the right partner for that specific project.

Put together an outline that defines who (which type of client) receives what content (email, phone call, article, video, etc.) when (before, during, or after taking what action), where (email, social media, live) and why (what defines which message/content they receive).

Identify the key characteristics of each key audience in order to effectively tailor and target your communications. Be sure to choose segmentations that align with your business goals, as well as give you the flexibility to target your messaging in a variety of different ways.

Categories might include:

4. Develop content for each touch point.

  • Status (current versus prospective client)
  • Position (principal, project manager, associate, marketing)
  • Location (country, state, city)
  • Business Type (architecture, engineering, construction, owner, developer)
  • Market Sector (commercial, healthcare, education, transportation)

From this, you can begin to develop a profile for each client that continues to evolve every time he or she connects with you.

Create content specifically tailored for each key audience segment and stage in the nurture process:

  • Awareness: welcome message to provide a high-level introduction to your organization
  • Interest: key current project profiles, thought leadership pieces, or day-in-the-life stories authored by your team to help prospects connect with your expertise and culture
  • Consideration: current company news, thought leadership pieces, or more technical pieces on a particular project type or market sector
  • Purchase: personal thank-you notes for selecting your project team and introductions to key contacts and resources
  • Loyalty: company news, invitations to special partners-only events, targeted educational content, information about other projects or capabilities not currently being leveraged by that partner

5. Take your content for a test drive.

Today, there is an enormous range of formats in which these messages can be presented. Start with a core set of content for each stage and build out from there. Figure 1 shows a checklist of some essential marketing content you should develop at the outset, plus some additional advanced ideas for content you might consider developing over time.

The only way to really know whether you’re delivering the right message to the right people, in the right places, and at the right time is through trial and error. Treat this like a science experiment and start testing some hypotheses.

Some experiments might include:

  • Messaging: A/B test two variations on an email message-see which generates the most clicks.
  • Content: Create a video and written piece on the same case study-see which generates more views.
  • Channels: Push the same piece of content through multiple channels- see which results in more interactions.

Once you have your nurture marketing machine running, check in from time to time to evaluate your success against the benchmarks you set in the beginning. Then, just set, rinse, and repeat!


Originally published in the June 2017 edition of the Society of Marketing Professionals (SMPS) Marketer magazine.

Laura Guzman

Written by

Global Operations & Marketing Executive | Development & Engagement Specialist | Digital Storyteller

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