Lead nurturing: Strategies to convert prospects into customers

Very few prospects will ever convert during their first interaction with a brand. This initial interaction usually serves as an introduction to the business. The lead will need more time and interactions to come to trust the brand and buy from it.

Unfortunately, too many businesses focus on lead generation and do not put enough effort into lead nurturing. The results? You drive a decent amount of traffic to your website, but only a handful of leads convert. That means you leave money on the table by not following up with the prospects who do not convert during their first interaction with your brand. 

Lead nurturing is the solution to this. 

An effective lead-nurturing strategy recognizes that customers require time and convincing to buy from you. In this article, we’ll show you seven lead-nurturing tactics you can use to walk prospects through the customer journey until they become paying and loyal customers.

But first…

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with potential customers and moving them down the sales funnel until they are ready to convert. 

A lead-nurturing campaign would typically involve sharing valuable resources to engage customers, educate them, win their trust, and help them make a buying decision. 

For example, it can involve inviting the lead to a webinar covering a topic relevant to their pain points or goals. It may also involve sharing social proof like customer testimonials and case studies to show the prospect that your business has already delivered impressive results for other customers with similar needs.

A good lead-nurturing campaign starts by identifying where the prospect is in their buying journey. Are they still in the awareness stage or already considering multiple options? Or perhaps they are ready to buy and are simply looking for reassurance that the product will resolve their pain points.

Knowing where the customer is in the sales funnel allows you to deliver the right messaging. 

Speaking of which, lead-nurturing campaigns also rely on several communication channels to interact with customers. Email is by far the most popular channel for lead nurturing. However, successful lead-nurturing campaigns use other channels like social media, phone calls, and search ads to keep the prospects engaged.

Why is lead nurturing important

According to a 2023 Edelman report, trust is one of the top three considerations for prospects when buying from a brand. 71% reported that it is more important to use or buy from brands they trust today than in the past. 

But how can a prospect trust your brand if you do not take the time to engage and show them how your brand is different? 

Lead-nurturing strategies give you the opportunity to build and nurture that relationship with your customers. 

Here are four key benefits you can unlock with a good lead-nurturing program.

Builds trust in the brand

Trust is not just vital for getting customers across the line. It also plays a crucial role in keeping customers coming back. 

According to the same Edelman report, 67% of customers will stay loyal and advocate for a brand they trust. It doesn’t end there. 59% of customers are more likely to buy new products from brands they trust, regardless of the price tag!

That’s the value you unlock by launching effective lead-nurturing campaigns. 

These campaigns help you showcase the expertise of your brand and its employees. You can host free webinars to educate your audience. Give them free resources like templates and other tools. Share customer success stories to show how your brand delivered impressive results to other customers who struggled with similar pain points to what the lead is going through. 

Even the consistent communication between your brand and the lead goes a long way towards building trust. 

Educates the target audience

Another benefit of lead-nurturing campaigns is that you get to educate your target audience. 

The truth is that most customers will come to you with a problem or need. However, they usually don’t have a clear solution in mind. That means the customer is looking for a specific outcome but may not know what product they need to get there.

Lead-nurturing campaigns help you educate customers and make them aware of the solutions they need to solve their problems. 

It’s also during this educational lead-nurturing process that you get to position your brand as an expert or authority in its industry. This will be vital when the customer finally comes to the point where they need to make a buying decision. 

Increases brand awareness

Taking the time to nurture leads builds their familiarity with your brand. They get to know who you are as a brand, what solutions you provide, and your general brand values and mission. 

Besides building brand recognition and awareness, this can create an emotional connection between your brand and leads.

Consistent communications and repeated brand exposure also ensure that your brand remains top-of-mind to your target customers. 

Higher conversion rate

80% of new leads do not convert into paying customers. At the same time, businesses that invest in an effective lead-nurturing strategy generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a lower cost (33%). 

On top of that, nurtured leads make larger purchases (47%) than non-nurtured leads.

The secret behind these impressive results is in the personalized interactions you get to have with leads during the nurturing process. Plus, increased brand trust helps you get higher customer lifetime value, which makes your lead-nurturing efforts well worth their weight in gold.

How does lead nurturing differ from lead generation

Lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential customers to your business. This process usually comes before lead nurturing. However, to get optimal ROI from your lead generation strategies, you’ll need to complement them with lead-nurturing campaigns.

While lead generation attracts interested leads, lead-nurturing builds the relationship to ensure the leads convert into customers and stick with your business for the long haul.

Lead generation typically involves campaigns like search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising, cold calling, and affiliate marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, lead-nurturing programs involve email drip campaigns, retargeting campaigns through paid advertising, and follow-up calls. 

You’ll need both lead generation and lead nurturing campaigns to be successful. Lead generation feeds your engine with leads while lead nurturing builds the relationships to convert leads into customers. Your sales and marketing teams will also need to share feedback with each other for optimal results. 

We’ll talk more about marketing and sales team alignment below. 

7 lead nurturing strategies for successful conversion

Here are seven lead-nurturing best practices you must follow to boost your conversion rate. 

1. Targeted content with personalization

Your lead-nurturing efforts will fall flat unless your messaging and content can resonate with each lead at a personal level.  

Every piece of content and offer must be personalized to speak to each lead individually. That’s why a solid lead-nurturing strategy starts by collecting data to understand the prospects.

Brands like Warby Parker use quizzes to get customer data, such as the type of sunglasses they want, the glasses’ shape, and color preferences. This data allows them to understand the potential customer better so they can share relevant resources and tailor their offering to meet the prospect’s needs.

You’ll need to do something similar with your own lead-nurturing program. You can gain this information through a quiz or a lead capture form. Keep in mind that long lead-capture forms are notoriously bad at generating leads, though. 

For most B2C and DTC brands, a shorter form asking for the basics (name and email address) is a good starting point. You can proceed to collect more data once you’ve captured the email address. 

B2B brands may have more leeway to ask for more data. This is especially true when using valuable lead magnets like industry research and reports. Most leads won’t mind sharing more information about themselves if it means gaining access to a super valuable report.

The next thing you’ll need to do to send targeted, personalized content is invest in a marketing automation platform. This is the most effective way to automate lead-nurturing interactions at scale.

A marketing automation software like GetResponse lets you set workflows that send specific emails based on user behavior. A new lead just joined your email list? A GetResponse welcome email workflow can send several welcome messages, make a great first impression, and start building relationships. 

2. Multi-channel approach

The best lead-nurturing campaigns take advantage of several channels to maintain consistent brand exposure. That said, email is arguably the most effective lead-nurturing channel.

Email marketing allows you to engage and personalize your lead-nurturing efforts at scale. Email automation platforms can connect to your systems to deploy behavior-triggered emails. These platforms can also pull data from your customer database to personalize the email content automatically. 

For example, they can track the products customers browsed and recommend similar products. They can also monitor abandoned carts and send relevant follow-up emails to convince leads to complete their purchases. 

Besides drip campaigns and behavior-triggered emails, you can also send regular newsletters. These are especially effective at educating your target audience. The GetResponse benchmark report shows that a regular newsletter sent 1-2 times per week gets optimal open rates and CTR. 

But you shouldn’t rely on email alone. Here are other channels you need to use:

• Social media – Social channels are great platforms for engaging leads. You can share relevant content here, engage leads with interactive content like polls, quizzes, and contests, and contribute to crucial industry conversations.

The trick is to identify the popular social media channels among your target audience. Facebook and Instagram can be great options for B2C brands, while LinkedIn works well for B2B companies. 

• Paid retargeting – Retargeting campaigns on search and social media are especially effective for leads who are already in the consideration or evaluation stage of the sales cycle.

So, include a tracking pixel on your website and target the leads with relevant ads depending on where they are in the sales funnel. For example, you can promote a case study for leads in the middle of the funnel and send discount or free trial ads to leads at the bottom of the funnel.

• SMS – SMS campaigns can also be super valuable, but must be used carefully to avoid coming off as a nuisance. Reserve these for high-value communications, like sending reminders for crucial events like webinars.
• Phone calls – Phone calls are a valuable lead-nurturing channel in the B2B sector, where the sales process is long and complex. The channel allows you to handle objections in real time and can create a personal touch.

We recommend using phone calls to complement email and social media posts. You can start your interactions via social media and get to know the prospect through email before scheduling a phone call. 

• Live chat and chatbots – Provide live chat and chatbot options on your website to give leads quick answers and speed up their buyer’s journey. Use AI chatbots to answer simple or common questions and then provide the option to connect with a live chat agent.
• Content hubs – Content hubs will be essential for educating your leads. Create insightful blog posts, guides, case studies, video content, and even podcasts that educate your audience without being overly promotional.

3. Multiple marketing touches

According to the marketing rule of seven, prospects need to be exposed to a product or service seven times before they’re ready to purchase. 

Seven is not an absolute number here, but this rule explains why it’s so important to maximize brand exposure when nurturing leads. Potential customers must run into your brand multiple times across multiple platforms to increase the chances of conversions.

This is more reason why you need to identify every key platform your target audience uses. Then, create a tailored marketing strategy for each platform. This should help you build brand awareness, enhance brand recall, and reiterate the value of your brand. 

In practice, it can look like using your website to generate leads, using email and events like webinars to educate these leads, and creating targeted search and social ads to promote your offers. This increases the chances that leads will notice and come to trust your brand. 

That said, maintain brand consistency across all platforms you use. Your branding style, messaging, and even tone should stay consistent for optimal brand recognition.

4. Timely follow-up

One of the best ways to capture the attention of your leads and keep them engaged is through immediate follow-ups. This requires tracking what your leads are doing and responding with timely and relevant communications.

For example, when a lead joins your email list, don’t wait for several days before sending the first email. At that point, your brand is no longer at the top of their mind. Instead, send a welcome email immediately while your brand is still fresh in their minds. 

Following up is especially important after vital brand interactions. A lead just abandoned their cart? Send a follow-up email an hour or so later. Did they download a critical lead magnet? Follow up. You just concluded a virtual event? Follow up with the attendees. 

You’ll need a marketing automation platform to track and deploy some of these follow-up communications. Beyond email, you can follow up by phone. Even retargeting ads can be helpful here. The bottom line is you must follow up with the leads while they’re still hot to ensure lead nurturing success and conversions. 

5. Lead scoring tactics

Lead scoring is a marketing and sales method where you give leads a score based on how ready they are to convert. The score is usually based on several factors, like how they engage with your content and the types of pages and links they click. 

Lead scoring is crucial during lead nurturing because it helps you prioritize leads. Use these scores to identify sales-ready leads and invest your resources in helping those leads cross the line. 

The system will also help you identify leads that require additional engagement before they’re ready to buy.

Automated lead scoring is baked into most marketing automation platforms. But there are different ways of scoring leads. You can score leads based on their behavior or activities on your website, their demographics, and firmographics. Check out our comprehensive guide on lead scoring for the different techniques you can use.

6. Test and tweak tactics

The only way to optimize the ROI of your lead-nurturing efforts is to test and tweak your strategies. 

Look at all the strategies you have in place. This can be your lead-nurturing emails, ads, phone calls, etc. Next, identify the key metrics that can tell you the performance of each strategy. 

For example, open rates, CTR, and conversion rates are vital email marketing metrics. Conversion and click-through rate are crucial for paid ads. Call duration, connect rate, and conversion rate are important for lead-nurturing calls. 

You also have general metrics like cost per lead, lead score progression, and marketing-qualified-leads-to-sales-qualified-leads (MQL to SQL) conversion rate. 

Monitor all these metrics to determine the performance of each lead-nurturing technique as well as your entire strategy. 

But tracking the metrics is not enough. You also want to experiment with the different elements within your techniques. For example, you need to test different email subject lines, copies, send times, and offers. You must also test different scripts for your lead-nurturing phone calls. And so on. 

A/B testing these elements makes sure that you do not leave money on the table. It lets you pinpoint the offers, messaging, etc., that resonate with your leads. 

7. Marketing and sales alignment

Your sales and marketing teams must work closely together to ensure leads translate into sales.

For starters, you need the two teams to work together to describe who the ideal customer is for your organization. You don’t want the marketing team to be chasing a certain type of lead that the sales team cannot convert. Both teams must work off the same ICP (ideal customer profile). 

Next, you need to establish clear feedback lines. The sales teams need a channel to communicate with marketing and tell them what leads are converting best, the leads closing the highest deals, and so on. Such valuable insights help the marketing team know the types of leads to prioritize.

Similarly, the marketing team must communicate with sales and explain the content and pain point of each lead. This is particularly important during the handoff when a lead is getting passed from the marketing team to a sales rep.

Speaking of handoff, the two teams must work together to define what makes a lead sales-ready. This will be important to prevent wasted resources, where marketing hands over leads to sales that are not yet ready to convert. 

Examples of lead nurturing

Here are some examples of common lead-nurturing campaigns.

Example 1: Automated drip campaigns

Drip campaigns are email campaigns where a brand sends several automated emails over a couple of days. These emails usually revolve around a specific campaign.

Popular examples are welcome email series, onboarding emails, abandoned cart sequences, and re-engagement campaigns.

In a welcome email series, the recipient gets a warm welcome that can kick off with a simple non-salesy email. The email can set expectations for what the user can expect from the brand moving forward. 

Like this email we send to new users.

Follow-up emails can then include educational resources, an invitation to a webinar, and case studies before the lead is invited for a live demo or given a discount code. 

Of course, those follow-up emails can change based on user behavior. For example, if they didn’t attend a webinar or open your case study, you may want to nurture them further before inviting them for a demo.

That said, some brands (especially online stores) may also include a welcome discount or offer in the first email.

Example 2: Retargeting campaigns

You can deploy a paid retargeting campaign when a lead visits key pages within your website but does not convert. 

For e-commerce stores, this may include a user browsing through a product and checking out the different sizes and color options, but leaving your site before making a purchase. 

For a software company, a potential customer may visit your landing page, check out pricing, and even open the customer success stories page, but leave before converting. 

Retarget these users with several ads to demonstrate the value of your product. For example, if it’s a high-value product, you can start by targeting users with a case study ad. The more relevant the case study to the lead, the better. So, try to create several case studies for the different ICPs you may have. Next, you can target the user with a special limited-time discount or offer. 

Example 3: In-app campaigns

This is a great lead-nurturing technique for software companies with free plans. The lead-nurturing process kicks off with helpful user onboarding to ensure users know their way around your platform. This can be done using popups like these:

You can then include key messages to be deployed at strategic points within the platform. For example, you can send users an in-app message that they’ve discovered a premium feature when they try to use a paid tool. 

You can also include pop-up messages telling users they can unlock more value with a premium plan. For example, within the analytics dashboard, you could tell users that they can see more data with a paid plan. 

After a while, you can share limited-time discounts through pop-ups or banners.

In-app campaigns can help convert freemium users into paid users, but you don’t want to overdo these campaigns. Filling your platform with too many banners and popups upselling users can hurt the user experience and reduce the likelihood of them converting.

Nurture your leads with GetResponse

Lead nurturing is the best way to optimize the ROI of your lead generation efforts. On top of that, it helps you boost customer loyalty and increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).

GetResponse provides marketing automation software to support your lead-nurturing efforts through email marketing. Our platform integrates with eCommerce, Zapier, and other platforms to help you track and deploy personalized communications. 

We also have ready-made lead-nurturing workflows for popular campaigns like welcome, cart abandonment, and re-engagement campaigns. Sign up for free today to start building those lasting customer relationships.