Masterful Marketing Home » Inbound Marketing » Lead Nurturing – Build Relationships with Future Clients
This is post eight in the series on Inbound Marketing, focusing on how to nurture all those quality leads you have generated.
Lead nurturing is what it sounds like: continually providing support and nourishment to leads (in this case acquired through your inbound marketing efforts) by anticipating their needs and sending them new, fantastic content that is interesting, educational and relevant.
Lead nurturing is not new – it’s a process that has been used by quality sales people for years, taking prospects through various nurturing stages until the time is right and they are ready to buy. The major difference between traditional lead nurturing and today is you are touching your prospects using social media, email marketing and blogging.
These people gave you permission to contact them when they signed up for your offer. If you ignore them, you will let these leads turn cold and possibly drive them to buy from your competition. According to Brian Carroll, Executive Director of Applied Research, MECLABS (parent company of MarketingSherpa), “most lead nurturing programs don’t begin to impact conversion before at least five meaningful touches, and that it’s important to continue nurturing leads whether it takes five touches or 25 touches to get them to the sales-ready point”.
Nurturing the leads from your inbound marketing lead generation activities
This means you must provide the right information at the right time to help your leads move through the buying decision process. Begin to communicate with them, offering valuable information and “can’t say no” offers every time you touch them. These meaningful touches must provide the value they expect so the prospect begins to differentiate you from the competition in their minds.
Sounds Good – Now How Do I Do This?
If you truly understand your audience and you know what type of information they need, then you can craft a plan that sends the right information to them at the right time without becoming a pest. But, if it were that easy, we all would be wallowing in the fruits of our success.
Remember the content marketing strategy we wrote back in September? You thought it was just for lead generation, didn’t you?
In fact, your content marketing strategy should include the content you will need in order to provide meaningful touches for those who have opted in so you can take them from being a cool lead to a hot prospect.
This content will depend on the complexity of your product or service. Small businesses primarily need educational content that helps your prospect understand:
- Who are you and what do you offer?
- Are you an expert in your field?
- What is your value proposition?
- Can you help me solve my problem?
- Do I want to work with you?
In other words, it is not about selling your services or products through your content, but about selling you as a valuable resource for them. This type of nurturing develops a relationship built on trust and respect.
To get started, set up a schedule for when you will touch your prospects and with what content. Use varying types of content, such as your blog, articles, eNewsletters, white papers, videos and presentations, and begin nurturing your leads.
In summary
- Lead generation with content marketing is geared towards finding new prospects that are not currently in your database that may be interested in what you have to offer
- Lead nurturing is taking the leads you acquired and cultivating them over time to turn them into prospects and eventually into customers
How will you be nurturing your leads generated through your inbound marketing activities? What type of content do you plan to provide at each step of the funnel?
More From Debra Murphy – Masterful Marketing
- Developing Keywords for all Your Marketing Needs
- How to Make Your Blog Stand Out in a Crowd
- Social Media Marketing – Create Outposts to Drive Inbound Traffic
Ask Debra Murphy – Masterful Marketing To Recommend Your Posts 
Get Free Updates via Email
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it. Get tips on inbound and social media marketing
to help your small business succeed.
Leave a New Comment
Click here to cancel reply.
Article source: http://masterful-marketing.com/lead-nurturing-build-relationships-with-future-clients/
