Lead nurturing: what & how
Companies are spending a lot of money to acquire leads. However, getting a lead in your database does not mean this person is ready to buy. You want to get the most out of your database and maximise conversion.
Since each lead is at a different stage in their personal buyer journey, you need to push as much leads down the funnel as possible. Make sure your leads are not sitting idle in your database. The ultimate goal is revenue.
What is lead nurturing?
Buyers today are empowered. They decide what they need and do their own research. Before they talk to you, they will follow a self-educational process.
This is not a linear process and can never be completely controlled. Too often, we see companies creating their one and only customer journey with a few consecutive touch-points.
The number of leads following this journey is limited, though, or in some cases even non-existing. If these are the only touchpoints you provide, you are missing out on a very large audience. It is up to you to provide the right content at the right time, supporting the online journey.
This means providing them the information that matches their stage in the buying journey, pushing them down the funnel. This is what we call “lead nurturing”.
The different stages in lead nurturing
Typically, we divide the buying journey in three phases:
- The educational/awareness phase: in the first phase, we put the buyer and his problems central. We make him aware of a need he might have and educate him about this topic. The brand name is usually not mentioned in this phase.
- The solution/consideration phase: in the consideration phase, solutions to the problem in the first phase are introduced. This time, the brand name is mentioned because we want them to consider our solution.
- The selection/decision phase: in this phase, the buyer will make his buying decision.
This results in the following funnel:
The phases after-service and advocacy were added in this image to indicate that the buying journey should not stop after the sale.
It is important to keep working on your relationship, as happy customers will promote your business and guide other potential buyers into your funnel. In addition, current customers are the easiest target to sell to.
A funnel representation is used since the pool of leads in the awareness phase is larger than in the decision phase. Uninterested leads will be filtered out.
Lead nurturing is a non-linear process
Important to note is that not every person will enter your funnel in the awareness stage. This is a common misperception.
It is perfectly possible that your leads enter your database in the decision stage. This could be the case for an experienced buyer who engaged with your competitors in previous stages, or the lead stayed somehow invisible up until now. When they enter the funnel, it is up to you to figure out in which stage they are and push them further down the funnel.
Although orchestrating content and identifying stages in the buyer journey seem like an impossible job, technology is here to help.
Want to learn how technology can help you nurture your leads and get more sales? Reach out to discover how we can help.
