B2B lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with your prospects. The goal is to earn their business when they are ready in the buying process to decide whether to purchase your product or service. We will explore the 3 aspects of B2B lead nurturing and fundamentals that can help you move leads through your pipeline.

3 Aspects of B2B Lead Nurturing 

Consider this article for information about B2B lead nurturing. The 3 aspects of lead nurturing include timeliness, efficiency, and being targeted.

Timeliness speaks more to finding the right time to connect with your leads when they are ready to make a decision. Marketing automation for example allows you to act based on the interactions a lead may have with your company. Trigger events are actions taken by a lead that would indicate they are interested in learning more about your company. A Trigger event could be an action such as downloading a white paper or blog or submitting a request to be contacted. Consider this video for how leads are then moved to qualified leads.

Being efficient means the time it takes you to engage with a lead once they have submitted a sales request. The odds of an inbound lead becoming qualified are 21x greater when they are contacted within 5 minutes versus 30 minutes.

Targeted is the act of crafting your emails or message based on the action your lead takes. Always remember to use a message or language that shows you are a real human being. Your goal is to build trust with the lead. You can nurture your leads by engaging with them on an ongoing basis throughout the buying process. You should be providing them with information that will be relevant to them or provide them value. For more information on B2B lead nurturing, consider this article.

Fundamentals of B2B Lead Nurturing 

3 Elements of your B2B lead nurturing strategy should include the following: Contact management, Segmentation, and the Buyer’s Journey. Contact Management focuses on using a software program or CRM (like Hubspot) to store your contacts’ unique information. This should include their name, contact history, email address and more. Segmentation is the act of keeping contact properties organized and clear.

The Buyers Journey involves 3 stages for a buyer which are the awareness stage – the buyer has identified they have a problem and are actively searching for a solution; consideration stage – when the buyer is evaluating the options they have found from the awareness stage and assesses the value and resources it will take to implement the solution; and the decision stage where the buyer will make the ultimate decision whether to move forward with purchasing the product.

SMART Goals and Buyer Personas

The first step in creating an effective B2B lead nurturing campaign is to have an established set of goals you are looking to accomplish. You should have a goal supported by an established plan to measure your success. Without a goal you will not be able to know if you are successful. a S.M.A.R.T goal is a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. 

You should also establish who your buyer personas will be. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculation about your customers’ demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, or goals. Your message should be tailored to your ideal buyer personas. You should be delivering content that will generate interest from your buyer persona. For more information and tips on developing your content consider this article.

You will need to identify your timeline for your B2B lead nurturing campaign. Generally, your timeline should be tailored to the average length of your sales cycle. You do not want to bombard your lead with content but instead be more intentional in sending information on a regular basis. This is also known as a marketing drip campaign. For example, you may send a lead an email or content once per month instead of multiple times during the week. Lastly, you need to ensure the accurate tracking of your conversations so that you can continue to improve them. 

Remember, the goal of B2B lead nurturing is to guide your leads from being strangers to qualified leads through your funnel. If you need help with your B2B lead nurturing campaigns, you can always reach out to me for a conversation.