To build real nurturing training, you will have to start with the basics. We've been talking about it ever since, but it's time to really ask the question. You set up an entire lead nurturing system, but where should you direct it? Potential customers you might say. However, any Internet user could be considered as such. However, there is still a problem, how do you know if it meets your qualified lead profile? The ideal would be to first think about it with your marketers.
Establish your lead profile (Personae)
A bit like the notion of “personae”, each company certainly has its own definition of a qualified lead. In the context of nurturing, we call this a prospect who begins to behave like a customer, that is to say, ready to purchase. To define the perfect lead for your commercial activity, you absolutely must take into account the opinion of your company's sales (sales) and marketing teams. Here is an example for you of the steps to follow:
- Take the trouble to invite your sales and marketing team in order to determine the target, know how to design your database, recognize existing leads likely to make a purchase and the characteristics of those to come;
- Decide how to assess the value of each of your leads, whether one or the other represents a weak source or, on the contrary, a strong attribute;
- Develop agreements that revolve around the transfer of leads between sales and marketing departments;
- Make a regular reminder of the two services in order to exchange information and based on this, review or refine the previous points.
Establish lead scoring
Lead scoring is literally defined as “lead scoring”. It’s a fairly general sales and marketing method for classifying prospects. You will obviously need to rate potential customers based on their interest in your business, their current place in the sales cycle and their suitability. You will come to mature them better.
Noting a lead's interest in you amounts to what in nurturing marketing is called implicit rating. If you are wondering how, it is carried out taking into account the lead's behavior towards your company. You will then be able to know whether or not your business seems attractive to this or that prospect.
When it comes to lead suitability, this is based on information relating to demographics, firmography and BANT (meaning budget, authority, need and time). You most often obtain this information via online forms. If your prospect presents himself as a natural person, you will only be able to have demographic parameters such as his title, his vocation or his location. In the case of a legal entity (company), you will be entitled to a whole lot of information regarding its constitution: the name of the company, its size, its location, its turnover, etc.
With all this information to note and classify, you will be able to set up a nurturing campaign worthy of each type of lead to help your salespeople.
Create mailing lists
To succeed in your prospect nurturing campaign, you will need to increase your list of subscribers and thus collect even more information for your information bank. According to a study by Moon Marketing, companies lose nearly 25% of their subscribers and in other cases, leads that have never gone through the purchasing process. To avoid this, you need to feed the top of your funnel through the email list building method. How to proceed ?
If you have good marketers on your team, they will probably think about creating mailing lists on the following channels for example:
- Website (registration page, white paper, etc.)
- Social networks
- Webinar
- Blog
- Events
Organize your database
Having a healthy and well-maintained information bank is also essential to the success of your inbound marketing strategy. Several marketing automation experts attest to this, including Robert Pease, the CMO at Heinz Marketing.
The following measures are all the more recommended if you obviously want to benefit from a well-conditioned database:
- Frequently inspect each lead in its entirety
- Identify and eliminate duplicates as they arise
- Continually check the uniformity of your information bank
- Consider eradicating your unwanted contacts database
But be careful, it is possible that competitors will subscribe and integrate your information bank in order to learn about your prospect nurturing training. Discuss this with your marketing team.