5 Things to Consider Before Employing a Lead Nurturing Strategy

Beginning lead nurturing efforts can often be stressful and trying, but there’s no doubt all the hard work is worth the reward. There is a multitude of information and statistics available that prove lead nurturing is valuable and profitable for businesses. Recently, Hubspot compiled a list of stats attesting to the benefits of lead nurturing:

• 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance.
• Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.
• Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
• Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months.
• Companies that excel at lead nurturing have 9% more sales reps making quota.
• Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads.

As you can see, nurturing your leads is an imperative component of gaining customers and revenue. In order to embark on such an important journey, you must first be adequately prepared. Businesses can encounter a variety of challenges while implementing a lead nurturing strategy if they haven’t accurately assessed their company and their staff.

Here are the key questions companies and marketing teams should consider before jumping on board with lead nurturing.

1. Do you know your target audience? Having a buyer persona is the first step to being successful in lead nurturing. If your company does not currently have complete buyer personas, start by creating one. This is crucial, as you will define an exact outline of who your target audience and customers are. Another piece of information you will need to know is your customers’ pain points. This will be where your sales department comes in; they should know what kind of comments and questions they are receiving on a regular basis.
2. Do you have adequate staff resources? It is important to realize that marketing a company is not a one-man job. In order to create a successful lead nurturing campaign and market your company in an effective way, you are going to need help from your staff. It is important to have, at the very least, writers, designers and developers who not only understand inbound marketing concepts but have the time, energy and willingness to devote to marketing your company. At the minimum, these employees should be able to write blogs and advanced content, design calls to action and landing pages and be able to add all these things to the website with ease. If you do not have these resources available in house, you should consider hiring an agency.
3. Do you have buy-in from higher level executives in your company? Making sure everyone in the company understands the importance of lead nurturing is imperative. It cannot be just one person’s sole responsibility and burden to worry about all aspects of the campaign. Having buy-in from executives in the C-suite makes the process more manageable. This way, if something goes wrong and things need managed or adjusted, there is someone who can put their foot down and iron out a solution.
4. Do you have a Project Manager? If you already have social media accounts, an active blog and PPC, you are that much more prepared to begin your campaign. But, it is extremely important to have someone in charge of these things who will be able to control the increased activity without decreasing quality. If you do not have these tactics in place, you will need to designate someone on staff to create and manage them—making sure to choose someone with enough time and knowledge to do the job well.
5. Do you have a website optimized for lead capture? Having a website that not only looks good, but also gathers information from your visitors is essential. Your customers want to find information and content in a centralized location, and you want to generate and nurture them through the sales funnel. A perfectly optimized website will make all of this possible.

Don’t fret if you’re answering no to these questions; there is always a way to better your marketing plan. Check back next time when we give tips on how to begin and move through a successful lead nurturing campaign.

*This information was gathered during an interview with Kuno Creative Senior Consultants Meghan and Shannon.

Courtney Moser is an Associate at Kuno Creative. She applies her passion for writing and editing to assist in creating content for Kuno and its clients. Courtney loves to read, expand her vocabulary and write engaging content for multiple audiences. You can connect with Courtney on LinkedIn.

photo credit: Terry McCombs