Nurturing business-to-business sales leads can increase sales by 50%, according to Forrester. In fact, business-to-business lead management is vital because few of your leads will be ready to buy from you immediately. So how do you nurture your leads and get them to eventually become paying customers?
Here are some effective tactics you should use for business-to-business lead nurturing.
1. Provide Targeted Content
Increase your conversion rates and move prospects faster through the sales cycle by offering them targeted content:
- Segment your list and plan content for each segment
- Provide content for your list based on their actions and responses to your marketing messages
- Create buyer personas and plan your content for each audience segment
- Ensure that the content you send meets the needs of your audience
- Encourage feedback for each piece of content you send out
2. Use Multiple Channels for Your Lead Nurturing
While email is the dominant channel for content-based lead nurturing, it’s not the only way to do it. Remember that many marketers have relatively low email open rates, with many reporting their open rates are about 20%.
Using only one channel can lead to poor conversion rates. Leads are bombarded with hundreds of emails daily, so they’ll only be able to open and read a few of them.
Marketing automation lets you use multi-channel nurturing tactics. Combine email with social media, direct sales outreach, seminars, webinars and customized website content for better engagement with your prospects.
3. Prepare for 10 Contacts Per Lead
According to research published on Aberdeen.com, prospects that were successfully converted from leads to sales received a minimum of 10 contacts. Unfortunately, many marketers don’t even include more than half of these contact attempts in their lead nurturing programs.
Provide adequate content to take your lead through your sales funnel. Offer help for their concerns and provide solutions to problems without being salesy. Use regular blog posts to complement your email messages.
4. Contact Leads Instantly
Leads are more likely to follow through with the sales process when you contact them shortly after they indicate interest in your company or services.
Use auto-response emails to contact leads within five minutes or less. Since only 37% of companies in the U.S. respond to their prospects for the first time within an hour, you’ll beat the competition if you respond promptly.
In addition to automated messages, you need to be able to add a personal touch. After you’ve qualified a new lead, a phone call or personalized email message will accelerate the conversion of that lead to a full customer.
5. Create Synergy Between Sales and Marketing
The best way to optimize business-to-business data management for lead nurturing is by aligning the work of Sales and Marketing. Let your Sales and Marketing teams take joint responsibility for the success of lead nurturing.
Sales should provide feedback on all the leads passed on to them to determine if the lead nurturing was effective. Let Sales and Marketing work together to define your ideal qualified lead. Allow Marketing to be present when Sales is contacting leads for the first time.
Try LeadMaster’s tools to help nurture your leads
At LeadMaster, we provide the most effective lead nurturing tools for small business owners. Our tools will drastically improve the success of your lead management and bring in more conversions. Contact us now and begin your free 30-day trial today.
Recent Comments