The modern buyer’s journey has put to rest iconic sales practices from bygone eras. Long lunches, cocktail hours, and handshake deals at the 19th hole can’t keep up with the current pace and priorities of business.
Factors such as the digital platforming of business and larger buying committees have contributed to these changes in sales and marketing.
But even with all of these changes, there is one aspect of successful B2B marketing that remains a necessity: lead nurturing.
What is Lead Nurturing?
Lead nurturing is the process of establishing and fostering relationships with prospective customers who aren’t yet ready to purchase your product or service. This process largely takes place in the digital sphere via online platforms and networking tools.
Relationship Building in B2B Marketing
The objective of lead nurturing is to guide an individual from contact to customer through purposeful relationship building. Before we get to the nuts and bolts of lead nurturing, let’s look at the stages of B2B relationship building.
Know your lead
People are more than a name and a job title. This statement holds even more weight in the post-pandemic, purpose-driven business environment where people are self-identifying less by what they do and more by who they are as a person.
Before you contact a potential lead, take some time to do your homework on them. Look at their online persona and find the highlights they share about themselves – accomplishments, interests, shared connections. This information will help you relate to them as an individual when you make contact.
Build rapport that earns trust
Building rapport through marketing is a lot like having a conversation in two different languages. You are speaking through your branded content and ads, and leads are responding through their trackable online behaviors. As you see what content various leads interact with, you can scale your efforts and nurture them to the next stage of the buying journey.
The trust you earn in this process comes from maintaining an authentic brand voice and staying top-of-mind through content that addresses some of your audience’s common pain points. This is where you signal that you offer more than a sales pitch; you offer industry expertise and innovative solutions. Leads will sense you’ve been listening to them, even before the first real conversation takes place.
Lead Nurturing Best Practices and Tools
Now that you understand that lead nurturing is centered on relationship building, let’s walk through how to put this knowledge into practice on the LinkedIn platform and beyond.
Start with lead scoring
After all that talk about personalizing interactions and authentic relationship building, we need to take a step back and look at the numbers side of lead nurturing: lead scoring.
Lead scoring is a method of quantifying the potential value of a lead and ranking that lead in terms of engagement priority. Details about a lead that factor into lead scoring can be gleaned from their LinkedIn profile, their company’s LinkedIn Page, and the company website.
In account-based marketing (ABM) lead scoring is a must, since a lot of resources are dedicated to nurturing high-value leads. You should be able to compare any lead to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and determine if they meet that value threshold.
Learn more about the methodology behind lead scoring from the CEO of LinkedIn Marketing Partner Metadata.io, Gil Allouche.
Get the conversation started
Crafting messaging campaigns that sound authentic and personal isn’t an impossible task. Your product or service has a purpose. The businesses you market to have problems that need solving. News drops impacting the industry. Events occur that your leads might want to know more about.
In short: There are some common topics that can act as springboards for launching the next level of conversation between leads and your salespeople.
LinkedIn InMail offers two ad formats that either prompt recipients to take action or engage in a conversation. Learn more about Sponsored Messaging on LinkedIn.
Again, the key here is to make sure your message uses an authentic brand voice, speaks in a personal tone, and offers value-driven content that sets your sales team up for success.
Stay top-of-mind at any time
The process of nurturing leads doesn’t always involve direct contact. Sometimes it’s a matter of ensuring the right ads are reaching them at the right time, ushering them along the buying journey with content that is relevant to where they are in their decision-making process.
One of the most powerful lead nurturing tools available from LinkedIn is Ad Retargeting. Designed to help accelerate the buyer journey from awareness through conversion, the AI behind this tool can deliver ads to your leads based on their interactions with your brands.
Learn more about LinkedIn Ad Retargeting.
Offer membership on an elite email list
Email campaigns are still an effective marketing tool – when used wisely. The key to increasing your open rate is creating excitement around opting in and offering content that is of value to the recipient.
These elite email lists should focus on sharing content tailored to educate your leads about issues they face in their industries. By crafting quality email content, you become a sought-after expert and garner trust.
Learn more about invigorating your email campaigns and tapping back into the potential of email marketing.
Keep the Cycle Moving
Lead nurturing is not a linear process. There are ebbs and flows within markets and industries that require returning your efforts along the way. The tips we’ve shared here should help you develop a lead nurturing strategy that is authentic, consistent, and agile.
Topics: Lead generation
Related articles