Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing sometimes goes by other names: marketing automation, drip marketing, auto-responders, etc. Simply put, lead nurturing  is a system that allows you to send an automated series of emails to an early stage lead in order to pre-qualify them before handing them over to your sales team.   As a marketer, you definitely want to capture as much lead information for as many people on your site as you can, but not everyone is ready to talk to sales. Getting leads is awesome - but not all leads are at the point where they can be considered sales-ready. Depending on whose research you read, only 5% - 25% of the traffic on your site is actually ready to do business with you at that moment; the rest are doing research.

Gleanster Research estimates that 50% of leads who are qualified to buy are not ready to purchase immediately. If you call these leads up and push them into making a decision right away, you will likely lose them. Instead, take a look at your existing sales funnel. How long does it typically take a lead to become a customer after his or her first inquiry? Does the sales cycle vary for different types of purchases?Equipped with the answers to these questions, you can build some effective lead nurturing campaigns and leverage this marketing channel to qualify leads and help your sales organization.

As an inbound marketing tactic, lead nurturing is all about understanding the nuances of your leads’ timing and needs.  by getting these details right, you set yourself up for success. If it typically takes your leads a month to make a purchasing decision, then make sure you’re spreading out your communications to keep them engaged throughout the month. by taking this approach, you save your sales organization time because you educate and qualify the lead over time. This is only one of the reasons you should start doing lead nurturing.
In this section, we will look at some of the other reasons behind launching lead nurturing campaigns.