The first step in a demand-generation strategy is to generate leads. However, studies show that 80% if not all new leads are not converted into sales. A qualified lead is not necessarily created by downloading an ebook from the website or filling out a form on a campaign webpage. It does not always mean the prospect is available to speak with your sales team or make a purchase.

How can you make sure that leads coming into your marketing funnel are ready and willing to buy from you? How can you get these prospects to return for more? How can you make sure you are visible to the people searching for the solution you offer?

All these questions can be answered by lead nurturing. Companies that have a solid lead nurturing strategy can generate 50% more buy-ready leads at 35% less cost. This is the power and potential of lead nurturing.

Before we get into the details of how nurturing leads using automation can help to close more deals, let’s take a look at the basics and benefits of lead nurturing.

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What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead nurturing is a series of emails that are sent over several weeks to leads who aren’t ready to buy. These campaigns engage leads with content that is relevant to your brand and products and move them further into the marketing funnel. These campaigns foster trust and increase brand awareness. They also build rapport with leads until they are ready to speak to sales.

Lead nurturing involves monitoring behavior, demography, and other web activities and ranking leads based on their purchase intent. Companies can use scoring to determine if a lead is ready for sale or should be nurtured by their marketing team.

The Top 3 Benefits Of Lead Nurturing

1. Increase your business

You can determine whether you want to send these leads to your sales team by how you nurture and score them.

A Gleanster Report shows that only 25% of leads are valid, and should be passed to the sales team. Hot leads are more likely to be converted into business and generate revenue if they are sent to sales.

2. Needs Minimum Investment

Lead nurturing offers higher returns but requires minimal investment. Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times more responses than one-time blasts.

Sending educational emails to your prospects can help them buy without spending any marketing money.

3. Reputation and trust are built

Lead nurturing can position your brand as an authority and build credibility. It promotes a relationship by providing relevant, practical, and educational content.

You can demonstrate to prospects that you are serious about solving their problems.

Marketing Automation and Lead Nurturing

We have now established the benefits of nurturing leads. Now, we need to ask how brands can use it effectively.

It can be tedious and time-consuming to manually send nurturing emails. Without software, tracking lead behavior can be difficult and error-prone.

To avoid this fallout, companies are turning to market automation software to effectively nurture leads. The global market for marketing automation is expected to reach USD 8.42 Billion by 2027, according to a Research and Markets study.

Marketing automation software automates a particular type of marketing activity, such as email, social media, and website actions. It can assist you in:

• Automate repetitive marketing campaign tasks.

• Data-driven insights on campaign performance and leads.

• Emails and workflows that are based on leads’ intent and behavior should be created.

• For greater impact, predict user behavior and communicate accordingly

• Use social media and emails to increase brand awareness.

Marketing Automation: Why Should You?

Marketing automation can make a big difference in lead nurturing. These are some shocking statistics:

• Marketing automation helps beat the competition: Approximately 65% of businesses use marketing automation to outdo competitors in terms of sales and ROI.

• Conversions increase: 77% of owners of companies reported an increase in conversions following the deployment of marketing automation software.

• Lead generation by Propels: 80% of marketers saw an increase in leads after using a marketing platform.

• Marketing automation software reduces marketing overhead. With all repetitive lead nurturing activities automated, marketing automation software minimizes marketing overhead by 12.2%.

• Productivity: According to Research marketing automation software can increase sales productivity by 14.5%

The Top 7 Marketing Automation Strategies to Nurture Leads Effectively

1. Segment Contact Lists

Manual segmentation can make it difficult. An automation tool allows you to segment your contacts list and send personalized emails. You can use it to segment data according to different parameters, such as:

• Demographics: Segment your population based on factors such as gender, age, and location.

• Events: Create workflows and send emails pre-planned when a certain action occurs. A welcome email is sent when a lead signs up for a newsletter.

• Buyer’s stage: Email campaigns based on the buyer stage for each lead.

• User behavior: You can send communication depending on how your leads interact with your app or website, such as which page they visit most often, what products they’ve viewed the most, and so forth.

You can reduce the likelihood of users unsubscribing to your emails by sending targeted messages based on different segments. Well-timed emails, aligned and designed are helpful and relevant, not annoying and disruptive.

2. Email marketing can be set up

Email marketing is the heart of lead nurturing. Email marketing is a powerful communication channel for brands. Companies report a $42 ROI per $1 ( HubSpot).

Automation software can be used to send emails and improve lead nurturing. It also builds trust with prospects. These are some of the automated email campaigns:

• When a user signs up or joins your group/community, they receive a welcome email.

• Thank you email: If the lead attends a webinar and makes a purchase or gives feedback,

• Emails to Onboarding: These emails are sent to new customers to help them understand and learn about the product features.

• Newsletters and updates: Keep customers and leads informed through regular emails and newsletters.

• Offers and discounts that are exclusive to you: Based on data segmentation, create offers that suit your preferences.

• Emails to re-engage leads who have been deemed inactive for a specific time.

Automators allow users to trigger an email using automation tools

Based on user actions. It can be used to plan drip campaigns that are based on “if/then” conditions.

3. Score Leads

You can quickly identify potential clients by scoring leads based on their interaction with websites, emails, and apps. Nurturing and scoring leads over time can help you prioritize leads, win more business, and avoid sending them directly to sales.

You can assign 5 points to new leads who sign up for your newsletter. You can also add 5 points to a lead if they click on an in-mail link.

You can give them 20 points if they fill out a form on your landing page. You can also score each lead and track them until they are ready for you to hand over to your sales team.

4. Landing Pages

Marketing automation software lets users create landing pages and track their performance. Automation solutions are easy to use and can be customized as needed.

You can also use progressive profiling to gradually collect lead information through different content and landing page.

If a lead visits your landing pages and wishes to download an ebook from you, for example, only first, last, and email addresses will be required.

The next step is to send another email and have the lead visit the landing page again.

Progressive profiling reduces friction by ensuring you don’t ask for multiple information during submissions.

5. Automate your workflow

Without a workflow, lead nurturing is not possible. It is crucial to create a workflow that includes emails, landing pages, and tags.

Marketo and Eloqua both have pre-built workflow templates that you can use to get started right away. A well-designed workflow can help you save time.

6. At Every Step, Create Content

Many companies are now online and digital marketing services in Miami are evolving. This has led to many realizing the importance of creating a content marketing plan that will nurture leads and keep them engaged throughout the buyer’s journey.

Content marketing plans involve creating consistent, relevant content that is aligned with customer journeys. For maximum impact on decision-making, the content must be well-written and compelling.

You can make a significant impact on your bottom line by sending the right content at the right time to the right people, regardless of whether you are looking for content for consideration or awareness.

Automating tools enable users to quickly and relevantly send messages across multiple channels.

7. Analytics and Reports

Without proper analytics and detailed reporting, a lead nurturing strategy will not be effective. Automation allows you to generate detailed, region-specific reports that provide insight into your marketing efforts.

You can improve the performance of your campaigns by performing A/B testing on CTA buttons, content, design, date, time, and placements.

Conclusion

Marketing automation software includes all the features you need to create nurture campaigns that generate leads and push them further down the marketing funnel for greater conversion.

It is a great tool for marketing teams who want to improve customer experience, streamline marketing processes, and increase personalization.

Kobe Digital can help you if you’re thinking about marketing automation. Kobe Digital offers solid support in implementing marketing automation to nurture leads beyond the purchase stage.

We make it easy for you to focus on your long-term relationships with customers.