How Do You Increase Lead Quality Through Nurturing?

In a new report from Ascend2 and Revsure, B2B marketers expressed their confidence level in boosting their lead-to-opportunity conversions. The report found that 44% of the respondents said they were extremely confident in their abilities to convert leads at the top of the funnel, 51% were extremely confident at the middle of the funnel, and only 39% expressed that level of confidence at the bottom of the funnel.

The 2023 State of Pipeline Generation report went on to find that the confidence marketers lack may come from understanding the pipeline better. That is demonstrated by the finding that only 29% of the marketers asked reported that they can fully predict contributions and outcomes from the pipeline, and 66% can’t figure out where there is funnel leakage and bottlenecks. As a result, two of the highest-ranking priorities for increasing lead-to-conversion rates are related to pipeline insights. Improving pipeline analysis was cited by 39% of respondents, and understanding which leads are converting into pipeline was cited by 34%. However, the number one priority for boosting lead-to-opportunity conversions for B2B marketers is to improve lead quality and nurturing, coming in at 43%.

Lead nurturing involves developing and maintaining positive relationships with potential customers. Building meaningful relationships can’t be done without time, effort, and a thoughtful approach. It may be challenging, but the rewards can pay off handsomely.

Tips for Increasing Lead Quality Through Nurturing

A good lead-nurturing strategy will help encourage relationship growth, increase your prospects’ trust in what your business offers, and improve your conversion rate. Here are a handful of tips to help you nurture leads so they turn into customers:

Understand who your target customer is. Like all successful marketing tactics, lead nurturing must start with a thorough understanding of your ideal customer. Creating buyer personas will help you develop accurate and effective representations of your target customers. Here are some important factors to consider as you craft B2B personas:

• Industry – The industry that the target buyers work in should be considered. Different industries have different pain points, goals, and ways of evaluating solutions. Understanding the industry can help marketers create more targeted messaging that resonates with buyers.
• Pain points – B2B buyers typically have specific pain points they want to address with their purchase. As a marketer, you should gather information about your target buyers’ specific pain points and create messaging showing how your products or services can help address those challenges.
• Goals and objectives – Understanding the goals and objectives of your ideal customer buyers is important. It can help you craft messaging that targets the specific outcomes that your prospects are looking to achieve.
• Decision-making process – Knowing about the potential buyer’s decision-making process is also valuable information for you to have. B2B purchasing may include numerous steps and people within the process. Understanding the roles and priorities of each decision-maker can help you create messaging that addresses the concerns of each stakeholder.

By considering these key factors when creating buyer personas, you can create messaging that resonates with target buyers and drives more effective marketing campaigns.

Write targeted content relevant to the buyer’s stage in the sales process. Each communication with your buyers should be at helping them learn and move a step closer to making a purchase. That means crafting appropriate content based on where they are in the buying process.

Top-of-the-funnel content should satisfy prospects in the awareness and discovery phases. The types of content might include educational, question-and-answer, problem-solving, or other content that provides leads with the information they need. Blog posts, infographics, guides, and videos are examples of content for buyers at the top of the funnel.

Buyers in the middle of the funnel are at the point of deciding whether or not to buy your product or service. Now it’s time for content that helps them understand more about exactly what they’ll be getting and how it will help their companies. Landing pages, case studies, whitepapers, e-books, and webinars are all useful at this stage.

When buyers are at the bottom of the sales funnel, in the buying stage, content should be used to guide them toward becoming customers. At this point, content should include live demos, free trial options, discounts, FAQ pages, and testimonials.

Utilize lead scoring. Lead scoring involves assigning a numeric value, or score, to the leads that are in your pipeline. The score assigned represents qualifying attributes and lead behavior. It’s an efficient way to evaluate where the prospect is in the sales process and if they are well-suited for your products or services. Assigning numerical values can be based on attributes such as company size, demographics, annual revenue, and others that you deem important. In addition, you may base scores on the behavior and actions they have taken on your site. For example, the emails they have opened or clicked, forms they’ve filled out, pages they have viewed, their engagement with your social media, and call-to-action buttons they have clicked are all attributes that can be scored. Lead scoring is an effective way to monitor the success of your lead nurturing efforts.

Be active on social media. Social media fosters engagement and is an effective way to build and nurture relationships with potential customers. It makes it easy for prospects to talk to you, and because people spend so much time on social media, it makes your company and its products more visible. Your social media posts and interactions allow your viewers to get to know your brand.

You can boost the success of your social media by doing the following:

• Posting the right type of content to the right social media channel
• Updating content regularly
• Understanding your audience
• Interacting with your audience
• Paying attention to trends and posting about them
• Using the right tools to automate what you can
• Evaluating analytics and making modifications when needed

Follow-up with leads regularly. Following up with leads works. However, you never know how many follow-up interactions it will take to get a prospect to respond. The reality is that most salespeople do follow up with prospects at least once or twice. But it may take seven or eight (or more) times to get a response.

Effective ways to improve your follow-up practice include:

• Keeping a schedule – Over-communicating can be just as ineffective as under-communicating. So, keep track of your follow-ups and set reminders for when you should reach out again. It’s important to remember that each prospect is unique, so the schedule you set for one prospect may not be right for another.
• Using different channels – Different people prefer to interact with different methods of communication. If a lead isn’t responding to phone calls, try sending an email or social media message.
• Create value – Your follow-ups should create value for prospects. Consider including valuable free resources in follow-ups. A download for a relevant e-book or a link to an applicable blog post might help get your leads off the fence.

Final Thoughts about Nurturing Leads

Tuning into the needs of your prospects is at the heart of a successful lead nurturing strategy. Remember that each lead is different; what works best for one may not be what works best for another. They may have different purchasing behaviors, budgets, and decision-making processes. It’s important to have a process but always remain flexible and responsive to individual leads. Start with the tips above and develop your own strategies along the way to increase lead quality and give your bottom line a boost.