In our last article we learned how to qualify your leads. Today’s post focuses on all those email campaigns and nurturing efforts once you’ve captured a new lead.

Using content marketing to nurture your leads

So, to recap: you are now an SEO master, and visitors have begun to flock to your site. You’ve developed a great landing page, and you’ve figured out how to get the right people to visit that landing page. You’re passing out free content and getting email addresses in return. So all these leads must be converting into customers, right?

Not so fast. You better be nurturing those leads.

Lead nurturing involves a lot of sincere listening. Find out what your prospects need and give it to them to keep them engaged and moving toward conversion. The best nurturing campaigns deliver the right content at the right time and contain valuable relevant content assets.

Benefits of lead nurturing

Lead nurturing activities help to build and maintain communication, increase engagement and identify opportunities to segment your audience and deliver more customized experiences, among other benefits. Lead nurturing also helps to provide a steady flow of new leads and helps to shorten conversion time.

Ways to nurture a lead

• Email them.
• Give them a newsletter.
• Offer a product demo.
• Invite them to an event.
• Call them.
• Chat with them online.

Things to remember when nurturing a lead

• Listen to them. It’s really not about you or your company. It’s about hearing their pain points and helping them to solve their problem.
• Educate them. Based on where they are in the funnel, give them the content they need to move to the next step.
• Track everything. Be ready to respond to what your data is telling you. Have they not reached out lately? Call them. Did they not respond to a piece of content? Ask their opinion.

Lead scoring

Lead scoring helps you to assign a value to each lead and allow your sales team to focus more intently on leads that score higher. Typical ways to calculate a lead score include assigning a weight to different attributes, such as demographics, online behavior and email and social engagement.

Lead nurturing best practices

Here are some best practices to ensure that you are taking care of your leads:

• Get personal with them.
• Educate them based on where they are in the funnel.
• Segment them properly.
• Listen closely to what they have to say.
• Keep track of everything!
• Don’t stop until you close the sale.