How can you use lead nurturing to turn your prospects into customers?

In the inbound marketing family, we're talking about lead nurturing!

This expression refers to a concept aimed at converting prospects into customers by subtly nurturing them, with their consent, with informative content, messages and other little touches.

It's an endurance race in the longest buying cycles, those that require reflection and where the competition is very strong. Without rushing your contact (the famous lead), you stand out from the crowd and gently lead them to close the sale!

In this article, co-written with Jérémy Lacoste, an expert in growth and acquisition, find out how to put in place an effective lead nurturing strategy and which tools to adopt.

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The definition of lead nurturing

Lead nurturing is defined as the deployment of marketing actions designed to nurture immature prospects into customers.

Lead nurturing is therefore an inbound marketing technique that involves developing and maintaining a special relationship with your prospects, by delivering tailored content, until they decide to buy.

☝️ Nurture, nurture, nurture, nurture... nurturing is a strategy that focuses on the consumer, their expectations, their needs, their habits, in order to raise their awareness and lead them to your product or service.

Why use lead nurturing? The main advantages

As we have seen, lead nurturing is an essential component of inbound marketing, which is becoming increasingly popular with companies because it is so cost-effective and is better perceived by consumers.

Let's take a closer look at the benefits of lead nurturing as part of an inbound marketing technique 👉.

Improving your reputation and brand image

No more advertising hype! Make way for retargeting and lead nurturing.

Retargeting is similar to advertising retargeting, and aims to reach prospects who have visited your website through a display advertising campaign on other sites.

Lead nurturing, on the other hand, seeks to communicate intelligently with them in order to :

• establish your legitimacy: your carefully selected content demonstrates your expertise ;
• encourage them to interact with you: you actively engage them in a relationship that becomes concrete and you benefit from their opinions;
• keep in touch: you maintain a relationship with your potential customers and stay in their memories;
• inspire confidence: your references and customer testimonials are concrete and reassuring.

By nurturing your e-reputation with quality, non-intrusive content, you're no longer "desperately" chasing your prospects: they'll come to you when they're ready. A new form of lead generation, beneficial from every point of view!

Growth in your sales

If lead nurturing is in vogue, it's because the results are so impressive.

Companies that master lead nurturing generate 50% more sales, at 33% lower acquisition costs!

As for closings, you are 20% more likely to close when the lead has been brought to maturity (source: Forrester Research).

Finally, "nurtured" contacts lead to a 23% shorter buying journey (source: Market2Lead).

What are the challenges for lead nurturing in 2024?

As with other aspects of sales and marketing, the challenges of lead nurturing will become more complex in 2024, with changes in buying behaviour and the rise of technology.

Here, then, are the main challenges companies need to prepare for 👉.

Large-scale personalisation

The era of standardised content is coming to an end!

In 2024, consumers expect personalised communications tailored to their specific needs. The challenge is therefore to finely segment leads and create hyper-personalised nurturing scenarios, while managing a high volume of prospects.

💡 To meet this expectation, we recommend investing in marketing automation tools capable of processing large quantities of behavioural data in real time.

Advanced use of artificial intelligence

AI is becoming an essential tool for analysing lead behaviour and predicting future actions.

That's why companies need to integrate it to improve efficiency, through :

• intelligent automation of campaigns
• optimising lead scoring
• dynamically adjusting content according to prospect engagement.

☝️ Beware, the challenge is not to limit ourselves to campaigns based on fixed rules, but to exploit machine learning to anticipate needs and thus improve the customer experience.

Marketing-sales alignment (smarketing)

The perfect coordination of marketing and sales teams remains a central challenge.

In 2024, this alignment needs to be more collaborative to ensure the effectiveness of lead nurturing. This means

• a more fluid data-sharing process ;
• real-time feedback;
• continuous optimisation of lead qualification operations.

In short, the aim is to avoid organisational silos that compromise the fluidity of the customer journey.

How do you make a success of your lead nurturing strategy? The different stages

The trickiest part is not necessarily finding the prospect, but getting your offer to them at the right time. Unless you're lucky, it's rare to find just the right person.

However, a prospect who is not interested today may be interested tomorrow! Here are the steps and a few tips to help them "warm up" to your offer without losing sight of them 👉.

#1 Segment your contacts to target your campaigns more effectively

Lead management is your starting point.

You have collected contacts in several ways:

• by buying access to multi-criteria BtoB or BtoC databases;
• via your sales teams and their canvassing activities;
• by encouraging them to give you their contact details and preferences by means of call-to-action (CTA) buttons in your emailings, for example, directing them to a landing page, in this case the contact form on your website.

The most important thing remains to be done:

• segment them by type (e.g. according to the products purchased, the pages of your site most frequently visited, areas of interest, functions, SPC, etc.);
• determine your core target, with the aim of focusing your marketing communication efforts on it.

💡 The method: we recommend that you use lead scoring, i.e. rating contacts according to their degree of interest in your product or service, to segment them into cold, lukewarm or warm prospects, then adapt the message in your acquisition campaigns accordingly.

#2 Get to know your visitors' profiles

Experience shows that it's only after you've made yourself known to the consumer at least ten times, directly or indirectly, that their decision to buy will come to fruition.

An average that is all the more true in BtoB (Business to Business)!

So it's by knowing your customers that you can stand out from the crowd and address them in a personalised way. In B2B, the sector of activity, the geographical location, the size of the company or the development challenges are all aspects that you can use as criteria.

🛠️ The tool: the datadrive lead solution enables you to identify the different visitor profiles on your site (intentional visitors, newcomers, occasional visitors, loyal customers, drop-outs) in order to define and segment your marketing personas.

#3 Contact your prospects at the right time

The chances of converting a prospect into a qualified lead, particularly in B2B, are much higher if you contact them quickly, as soon as you get their details (via an information request form, for example).

So you need to be reactive, because late calls or cold emails are less likely to lead to a sales opportunity. And with good reason: the longer you wait, the more time the prospect has to change their mind, or even forget about you!

This is where a marketing automation tool or CRM comes in handy, as it allows you to set up alerts.

🛠️ The tool: monday.com CRM offers an intuitive pipeline view so you can easily track the progress of your prospects. You can also set up personalised notifications so that you don't miss out on any lead qualification and sales opportunities.

#4 Analyse the customer journey

Analysing the behaviour of the prospect or customer during the different phases they go through (reflection, research, product discovery, then purchase) helps you to understand their habits and personality, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your sales path.

To find out when and through which channel to approach them, study the customer journey and its mapping. This will enable you to :

• know the different points of contact (physical shop, e-commerce site, forum, etc.) ;
• propose the right content (informative, promotional, expert);
• send it at the right time (when the customer is becoming aware, evaluating the offer or making a decision).

For example, if you often find that people get stuck looking for information about your product, develop more informative content to help your target audience understand what makes you stand out in the market.

🛠️ The tool: Salesforce Marketing Cloud is one of the market leaders in creating intelligent customer journeys and personalised experiences across all channels. Combined with the CRM module, it's a complete tool to support you throughout the sales funnel, right through to developing the loyalty of your leads.

#5 Opt for multi-channel digital communication

Thanks to customer knowledge and behavioural targeting, you can now define the right digital communication strategy.

However, all marketing experts now agree that email campaigns are no longer enough. You need to adopt a multi-channel strategy, deploying your content via :

• other channels:
  • websites ;
  • blogs ;
  • social networks ;
  • mobile applications, etc,
• and other techniques:
  • advertising ;
  • natural search engine optimisation ;
  • paid search, etc.

In this way, you help to nurture your target audience by reaching them through multiple points of contact.

#6 Propose relevant, high value-added content

The golden rule of lead nurturing is to offer your contacts relevant content (content marketing). The underlying challenge is to demonstrate your legitimacy in the sector, your experience and your expertise.

This content can take a variety of forms:

• newsletters or loyalty emails ;
• white papers (ebooks): themed dossiers that can be downloaded from your website;
• case studies: by talking about a specific problem, you can identify readers who are asking the same questions;
• success stories: testimonials from satisfied customers;
• webinars: videos or webconferences with educational value, focusing on a specific area of expertise.

🛠️ The tool: in this area, the Plezi marketing automation software lets you leverage your content to develop your business. For example, you can offer your target audience a blog article or white paper in PDF format, depending on their success.

A word from the Expert

Let's listen to the data and the customers to build the most appropriate nurturing path!

While most marketing automation tools today include AI modules to personalise the discussion channel or the frequency of sending, nothing beats proactive action by a prospect.

The solution is to allow them to interact in each email/SMS or content received, so that they can indicate whether their situation has changed. The aim is to collect weak signals so that you can then re-prioritise the handling of the lead.

Jérémy Lacoste,

#7 Use Sales Intelligence

Sales intelligence is a technology that enables you to integrate, analyse and present information to guide your sales force.

Predictive lead scoring is based on the use of an algorithm to predict which contacts in your database are likely to qualify, by compiling information gathered from forms, social networks, demographic data and various publications.

🛠️ The tool: one example is Predict by Sparklane, which automatically determines the profile of your ideal customer based on your sales history, searches a database of several million companies for similar profiles and ranks them in order of relevance.

#8 Maintain contact, after asking permission!

At the origin of inbound marketing, Seth Godin, former head of direct marketing at Yahoo, spoke of permission marketing.

Now you have no choice: it is imperative to obtain your prospects' permission to communicate with them, in compliance with the European RGPD regulation. Only maintain contact with those who have given you their consent.

This is what lead qualification is all about: weeding out those who are of no interest to your business, so that you can concentrate your efforts on those who have potential.

🛠️ The tool : Webmecanik is a French RGPD-compliant solution for generating qualified leads using behavioural targeting, and setting up automated, conditional marketing campaigns by defining scenarios based on lead scoring.

Examples of lead nurturing campaigns

Example of BtoB lead nurturing

You're an accountancy consultant and you've got a new subscriber thanks to the distribution of a white paper on the latest reforms affecting your profession?

In a welcome email, briefly introduce them to who you are and ask them for their job title and their preferences for future newsletters, so as not to disengage them too quickly. You will then begin to qualify this lead by sending them relevant content.

You can also offer them the chance to attend a webinar you're organising, showcasing your expertise and legitimacy, so that the prospect continues to mature their thinking around your service.

💡 Here's a tip: using the drip marketing technique (an email campaign sent out in dribs and drabs), send them a sneak preview invitation to promote your service, then a reminder a little later, and why not a replay if they weren't able to attend.

Example of BtoC lead nurturing

A visitor has requested a quote on your site for an ecological conservatory, leaving their contact details, but they haven't made a purchase since.

Start by scheduling a follow-up to ask them if they have encountered any problems in processing their request and if they have any comments on your offer. This will make them feel valued.

Some time later, send them an article from your blog about saving on heating costs by harnessing solar energy. The content will be informative and expert, with subtle references to the added value of your product.

You can also send this article to the segment of your database that is concerned about environmental issues or has recently purchased a property.

What about marketing automation and marketing automation software?

As already mentioned, lead nurturing and marketing automation are closely linked, because they allow you to optimise the management of prospects throughout their buying journey.

While lead nurturing involves maintaining an ongoing relationship with prospects, the process becomes difficult to manage manually when the volume of contacts is high.

This is why the use of marketing automation software is rapidly becoming essential. These tools can be used to automate a number of the key tasks mentioned above:

• sending personalised emails
• contact segmentation
• lead scoring;
• multi-channel campaign management.

Thanks to these features, you can create sophisticated automation scenarios and adapt content according to prospect behaviour. What's more, these tools encourage alignment between marketing and sales teams, since information is shared in real time.

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What can we learn from lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing has become central to both BtoC and BtoB marketing. By adapting your communication campaigns and coordinating your sales and marketing teams around an optimal acquisition funnel, you can mobilise all your resources to help your prospects convert successfully.

As you can see, implementing an inbound marketing strategy is essential if you want to improve your conversion rate and build a lasting customer relationship.

In this article, you'll find some key ideas for you and your prospects 🌿!