Lead nurturing is the process of sending automated, scheduled s to a lead to help move them along through the buying cycle.

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2 Lead nurturing is the process of sending automated, scheduled s to a lead to help move them along through the buying cycle. Lead nurturing touches the lead after they have left your website. You can "butter them up" for an easy slide down your sales funnel.

3 The Stats

4 Companies who master lead nurturing activities generate 50% more salesready leads at a 33% lower cost. Source: Forrester

5 70% of leads will originate from the web by Source: SiriusDecision

6 Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. Source: DemandGen

7 Companies that excel at lead nurturing have 9% more sales reps make quota, and enjoy a 10% shorter ramp up time for new reps. Source: CSO Insights

8 It is said it takes 7 touch points before a lead is ready to buy. A lead is only ready to speak to a salesperson in the last third of their buying process. Source: Tippit

9 Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should go to sales. 50% are qualified but not ready to buy. Source: Gleanster Research

10 Lead Nurturing s get 4-10 times the response rate compared to standalone blasts. Source: SilverPop / DemandGen Report

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12 Importance of Lead Nurturing Therefore, lead nurturing provides two key assets to your company: 1. Lead nurturing moves the lead through the sales funnel until they are ready to actually speak to one of your sales professionals. 2. Lead nurturing saves your company money by freeing up your sales professional's time and not wasting time on leads that are not ready to buy yet. Nurture Your Leads to Get Them Ready to Buy

13 The Benefits

14 1. Establish Thought Leadership 2. Show You Are An Expert in Your Field 3. Let Prospects Get to Know You 4. Maintain Communication With Leads 5. Learn More About Your Prospects 6. It s Automated 7. Moves Leads Through the Buying Cycle As you get to know your prospects and your prospects get to know you, you can analyze your lead nurturing s and see who is responding to what lead nurturing s. In future, you will be able to send certain lead nurturing s to certain prospects based upon your data, knowing those types of prospects respond most to those types of s. This will help you achieve the greatest success rate. MarketingSherpa found that segmented s get 50% more clicks.

15 The Processes

16 Choose Software You may have lead nurturing capabilities through your current or inbound marketing software. Check. Make sure your lead nurturing software interacts with the rest of your marketing campaign - most importantly your landing page and lead conversion form. When a prospect lands on your landing page and completes your form to receive your content marketing offer, they should be automatically enrolled in your lead nurturing campaign (sometimes called a drip marketing or campaign). Your software provider should allow you to create a conversion form that can be placed on your website s landing pages and set-up lead nurturing campaigns to be sent to leads who complete the form.

17 Think about your landing page and the content offer on your landing page. After the prospect completes your conversion form and becomes a lead, what do you want to do with the lead next? Most of the time, you are going to want to qualify the lead even further. What other content offers will interest the buyer persona you are targeting for that particular content offer? And, how can the new content offer qualify the lead even further?

18 Create lead nurturing content for each stage of the buying cycle.

19 Sample Lead Nurturing Process If a lead downloaded content from your landing page and the landing page had a Stage 1 Buying Cycle offer on it, possibly a type of ebook, they may be researching products/services and may not be ready to buy yet. You could move this lead through the sales funnel with lead nurturing by sending them a lead nurturing that asks them to connect with you in social media. Have them get to know you a little better. Next, you may send another lead nurturing that provides another content offer that directs to another landing page where they can convert, again. This time, the content offer will further qualify them (a Stage 2 Buying Cycle offer). For instance, it may be a report on how your product or service compares to competitors. If the lead converts from the Stage 2 Buying Cycle lead nurturing to the landing page content offer (The Competitor Comparison Report), and completes the conversion form, you have a pretty good idea that they have intentions on buying and may be a good fit for your product/service. How can you next help move them along through the buying cycle further and know they are ready to purchase your product? Your next lead nurturing may ask for a phone call, a meeting, or a demo.

20 Remember to consider your buyer persona: When you are creating your content offer When you are creating your call to action button or link When you are creating your landing page When you are creating your lead nurturing campaigns

21 Types of Content Offers to Send in Lead Nurturing s Videos Social Media Connections ebooks Lists Reports Guides White Papers Links and Information on Blog Posts enewsletter Subscriptions Webinars Invitations You don t have to create brand new content. You can re-use content that you already have made as long as it fits with each step of the buying cycle and the buyer persona you are targeting. If you already have successful content, use it. Tracy Terry

22 Get Your Timing Right Know your lead s buying cycle. If it typically takes your lead 2 months to make a purchasing decision, then make sure you are sending lead nurturing s through those 2 months. Typically, 3-5 s per Lead Nurturing Campaign. This keeps you top of mind, keeps leads engaged with your brand, moves the lead through the buying cycle, touches the lead several times before their purchase, and saves your sales team time. Research shows most leads buy in approximately 1-2 years. You may want to send lead nurturing s monthly and remember not to rush the sales process or you ll sound too pushy and lose the lead. You ll need to test what works best for your leads.

23 Analyze You need to know which lead nurturing s are working and which ones aren t working. To do this, you will need a system that tracks your goals for each lead nurturing campaign. If you are seeking to grow your leads and enewsletter list, you will need to measure how effective your lead nurturing s are in growing your contact lists. Your lead nurturing software should provide you with reports on each of your s. Using your analytic reports, you can then determine which lead nurturing s are most effective. Lead nurturing s should generate three times the click-through rate of your normal marketing campaigns. If they are not, you need to adjust your strategy. *How to Calculate Your Click Through Rate You can calculate your click-through-rate by dividing unique clicks by the number of s delivered or by dividing total clicks by the number of s delivered. If it s below 2%, re-analyze your campaign to find out why and how you can improve.

24 Types of Lead Nurturing s * Educational s Provide other content offers that eduate * Promotional s Provide information on discounts and contests * Pain Point Solution s Provide information on how your product/service solves their pain * Personal s Create s that are personalized specific to your lead * Invitation s Provide invitation to a webinar, event, or open house * List s Provide lead with a helpful resource list * Closing Sales s Ask lead for a meeting, call, or product demo * Resource s Ask lead to join your social media community, group, or enewsletter list * Thank You s Thanking a lead for downloading your offer, attending your event, etc.

25 Plan Them Out - Sample Lead Nurturing s to Follow After Lead Downloads our Report on Subject Line Call to Action Type of Content Goal of Get a Free Download Educational Thought Leadership What You Need to Know About Download List Educate Let s Get Social Connect With Us Resource Join our Facebook Page How Our Product/Service Saves Money Free Demo/Sample Read Blog Pain Point Solution Solve Pain Contact Us for Free Demo/Sample Closing Sales Purchase Product/Service

26 Optimize Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns Send your lead nurturing s from a personal address, if possible. This means using a person s name in the address instead of sales@yourcompany.com or newsletter@yourcompany.com. Use person s name in the reply to address as well. Personalize your lead nurturing s when possible. Once you have a contact database stored in your software, when you send an to a list, your software should ask you if you want to personalize the To field. If you can, choose yes. Don t sound to corporate-like. Add a personal touch and feel to your lead nurturing s. Keep your lead nurturing s short and to the point. Personalize the signature of your lead nurturing s. Show each as being signed by a person and not just your company. Include your company name and logo in the header or footer for branding purposes. This also helps the lead to recognize your company sending the .

27 Optimize Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns Time your s correctly. You don t want to a lead for the first time a year after they have visited your website. You also don t want to leads every single day. Sending s too frequently will definitely increase your unsubscribe rate. Space it out. If your lead will make a purchasing decision in the next month, send a lead nurturing at 3 days after conversion, 7 days after conversion, 14 days after conversion, and 20 days after conversion. Include social media sharing links in your lead nurturing s. Lead nurturing s should be related to the initial subject the lead converted on. If they signed up for your enewsletter list, they should receive enewsletters. If they signed up for your webinar, they should receive s on future webinars. If they signed up at your event booth, they should receive s related to the event, etc.

28 Optimize Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns Include a call to action in all your lead nurturing s. Tell them what to do immediately in the first few sentences and then again at the end. Write attention grabbing subject lines to increase your open rate. Create compelling headlines that intrigue the reader and entice them to keep reading. Keep your subject lines short so they don t get cut off in software. Keep the morst important words at the beginning. Keep your most important information at the top of your . This is the part that will be seen if your reader has a preview pane turned on in their Outlook or other software. You don t want important information below the fold. Send a text and html version.

29 How Unsubscribe Statistics Can Be Useful The unsubscribe rate is the percent of recipients who click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your . It is required by law. A good lead nurturing campaign will have an unsubscribe rate of less than 1%. Watch for spikes in unsubscribes or the dreaded report as spam complaints after s. These statistics will let you know not to be sending that particular lead nurturing any longer. Another way to tell if your lead nurturing s are unsuccessful is by your open count. Rather than unsubscribe or report you a spam, some readers will just stop reading your s and delete them as they appear in their inbox. If your open rate is dropping, you are losing interest and you need to change your lead nurturing strategy.

30 Mistakes to Avoid Creating one set of s in a lead nurturing campaign and sending every lead who fills out a form the same set of s Sending s too often Not personalizing s to content. You should mention the content they previously downloaded and make a connection to the content you're offering in the current . Don t just keep throwing content offers at them that don t matter. Ask them if they have questions on the content they recently downloaded. Ask for feedback about your event, etc. Not letting sales know about your lead nurturing campaign process and time table

31 Conclusion of Lead Nurturing Trust emedia