I am absolutely, 100% certain that a measurable, focused Lead Nurturing Strategy can significantly increase the revenue of any business.
I am also unequivocally, 100% positive that the VAST majority of Lead Nurturing strategies currently in place throughout marketing departments in the UK are a complete waste of time.
How Lead Nurturing is supposed to work
If you don’t already know, Lead Nurturing is a watertight marketing concept that meets the purchasing and content needs of competitive markets and evolved consumer behaviour.
Lead Nurturing in a sentence: By encouraging genuine consumer engagement and responding to how potential customers interact with your brand, you can accompany them on a natural journey that eventually leads to conversion and has a high likelihood of repeat business.
Lead Nurturing Gone Bad
Lead Nurturing is not a prolonged sales pitch.
Neither is it an excuse to bombard hard-won inboxes with a torrent of discount codes, offers and savings.
Your Lead Nurturing strategy cannot be bought, it cannot be created by third party software and it cannot be tested for two weeks and then abandoned.
Here are the top 3 mistakes businesses are making when it comes to Lead Nurturing strategies:
1 | Calling Lead Nurturing a ‘Campaign’ & then just testing it for a couple weeks
Lead Nurturing is not a campaign. It is not a short term solution. It is an ongoing strategy that requires constant review, adaptation and measurement. A/B testing it the surest way to discover what your leads respond to, and this takes time.
If you can’t find the time to develop a strategy that will eventually make you more revenue, ask yourself why you got into business in the first place.
2 | Technology cannot replace creative marketing and responsive analysis (yet)
Many think that Lead Nurturing features within marketing automation packages will do the hard work for them.
Then they complain when their strategies come to nothing.
There are tools that will help make the mechanics of your Lead Nurturing strategy more efficient and simpler to fine tune, but there is no piece of software that will create a profitable one for you from scratch.
3 | Drip Marketing is not Lead Nurturing
Times change quickly in the Marketing world.
What was once acceptable can quickly become redundant. Drip marketing may have once been referred to as Lead Nurturing, but not anymore.
Sending a prospect an email every 2 or 3 weeks over the course of 6 months is Drip Marketing. It is not Lead Nurturing.
Drip Marketing is a pre-planned, linear journey that ignores leads’ interactions with you.
It is these interactions or ‘contact points’ that define the Lead Nurturing process and help businesses who embrace it make lots more money than those who don’t.
Connect with your buyers. Understand the ways they may want to interact with you. Respond to their interactions.
Do the above and you’re well on your way to creating a premium Lead Nurturing strategy.
Need a little help? Visit our free resources page for a variety of workbooks and handy documents to help you tailor a bespoke strategy for your business.
