Lead nurturing programs have a variety of benefits, most of which you may have read through already from multiple pieces of content. For this reason I am not going to show you the list of benefits that have been copied and pasted around the web but instead I am going to show you how you can actually achieve those benefits. Some programs have the end goal of guiding their prospects through the sales cycle while another program can have the goal of simply educating their prospects. The goal of these lead nurturing programs can differ but the approach to these programs should be similar, if not identical, each time. The process should be standardized and start with choosing the type of nurture campaign, choosing the audience, selecting the nurture’s flow and content, followed by reporting on the overall nurture campaign. We are going to walk through the process of building a successful lead nurturing program.
1. When building a nurture campaign the first step is choosing the nurture program’s type. As mentioned in the 10 Types of Lead Nurturing programs, there are a number of nurturing campaigns you can choose to run, keep in mind there are more than those 10 types. Are you running a welcome campaign? What about a campaign aimed towards bringing back those inactive leads from last year? The following steps are built upon this decision. You will also find that your ideal nurture campaign may be a combination of a couple different types.
2. Now that you have decided on your nurture campaign’s type, the next step is choosing your nurture list. Who makes up your target audience for this nurture campaign? These can be prospects segmented by a location, interested product, or those who haven’t had contact with you in over 6 months. You should also think about making these nurture lists dynamic so when new prospects come into your system, they are automatically added to this campaign.
3. If you were wondering when we were going to talk content, in this step you are choosing your content and nurturing flow. How complex do you want to make your nurturing campaign? Your campaign can be a simple sending of informative emails or you can input triggers such as email opens and URL clicks to take them down a different path. The trigger-based marketing technique retains a higher response rate than the simple sending of emails every week or two. The reason behind that is due to the customer receiving the content they are triggering with their interests. One example of this campaign is a webinar registration campaign where the initial email is an invite to a webinar. Those prospects who register should be sent more information on the webinar while those who did not open the email should be sent another invite a few days later. The next aspect to ask yourself is how often will you be sending content to your audience? Determining the flow will depend on the campaign type you chose in step 1. For example, if you have a long sales cycle, think about a longer pause in between email sends compared to a training campaign where the emails may be sent within a closer timeframe.
4. You know who your audience is and your content and flow is set, now it is time to track your campaign results. Monitor the emails you receive the most opens from, most CTR, but don’t forget about the emails who don’t perform well. Even though these campaigns are running automatically, it is important to check the report every now and then to see how your prospects are progressing. The report will tell you which emails are your most successful as well as which emails need some revision in order to lead to better conversions.
Lead nurturing doesn’t only show you what content works, it also shows you what content needs revising. View How Does Lead Nurturing Work for further information and tips on steps 1-4. The next topic in this Lead Nurturing series is making sure that your nurturing campaigns reach their maximum potential with best practices. If you need help setting up lead nurturing, please contact us.
