A long time ago and its importance in any online marketing strategy, especially in eCommerce. We then mentioned ‘lead nurturing’ as a key strategy in relation to which we will discuss more extensively.
And as promised is debt, Today we are going to dedicate the post to talk about lead nurturing. If you have read previous posts of mine, you already know that using names in English in marketing is something that I do not take well.
Things that do not originally come from the world of marketing but from sales, mostly in SMEs, where if you say to a client «we are going to improve your digital performance to get more leads and increase the ROI» the response you receive is: what? or ein?
However, I break a spear in favor of lead nurturing being called that and not “lead nurturing” or worse yet, “potential customer nurturing”, which would be leaving the pan to fall on the coals. So let’s leave the name as it is.
What is a lead?
A lead is a potential customer, understanding as such the one who has shown interest in the products or services we offer. If we had a physical store, a lead would be the person who visits the store and asks us about a product but has not yet decided to buy it.
We could say that it is the intermediate step between the target audience to whom we direct our message and the final buyer. This is someone who has filled out a form, answered an e-mail marketing campaign or interacted with us through the , and who “takes the lead” with respect to the rest of the public to be interested in us.
What is lead nurturing
Well, as its name suggests, Leads need to be fed if you want them to remain leads. It’s just the opposite of what happens with (don’t feed the troll, my friend). Let’s remember that a lead is someone who has shown enough interest in our eCommerce to leave us your contact information (eMail, social networks, telephone, etc), usually through a registration form.
Unlike trolls, which are bugs that have a hard time dying even if you don’t feed them, the leads are delicate creatures, as were the tamagotchis. If you don’t feed them, they die right away. And if you feed them what you shouldn’t, like the , you run the risk that the food will go undigested and they will turn into evil trolls.
What do leads eat?
And what do leads eat? So they feed on things that have value for them. That “value” can be two types:
1. Target value (monetary)
I mean, money. In the form of discount vouchers, flash offers, personalized discounts, free shipping or anything that means savings. Sorry, not anything.
If you offer him a discount voucher of 5 miserable euros from 200 euros of purchase (and I swear by Mark that I have seen this) you will see how the lead metamorphoses, his fangs lengthen and his claws grow. And you will have it well deserved, for trying to tease them. So if you decide to offer objective value to your leads, it must be a value able to tip the scales towards the purchase decision. Target value goes beyond discounts.
may include gifts, invitations to events, free tickets, trips...and a long etcetera of things that can be assigned a value in euros.
2. subjective value
The fundamental subjective value that we can offer to a lead is information that is useful to you. And therein lies the crux of the matter. We must combine the interests of a certain lead profile with ours.
Namely, if we bomb to our leads with information about how wonderful our products are, we run the risk of trolling. And if we do it only with related information but without mentioning our product (for example cooking recipes if you sell pans) you run the risk of keeping your leads in a state of permanent hibernation in which they follow you, consume the information but do nothing.
There are other types of subjective values, related to the power and attributes of the brand, the stimulation of curiosity towards novelties or ethical, social, environmental or corporate social responsibility values. Both types of value have different goals.
The objective value is more focused on the conversion of the lead into a client, while the subjective value pursues the loyalty of the lead and their repeated exposure to our brand. The ideal is to use a combination of both, but it depends a lot on each case. Anyway, lead nurturing is a strategy that aims to establish and maintain a permanent relationship with a potential client.
How to design a simple lead nurturing strategy in 4 steps
Inside of the , lead nurturing is one of the parts that allows more versatility, although it is not exempt from the aforementioned risks of abandonment and/or trolling. Although email has traditionally been (and continues to be) the most widely used means of communication, social networks are not far behind. But let’s go by parts:
Step 1: Segmentation and lead scoring
If you sell different products, the first thing is to segment your lead database according to the interests of each one. However, this is not enough, since not all the leads in your database have the same value for you.
Therefore, some kind of classification is necessary. If you intend to do this well, the logical thing is to use a many of which already incorporate tools from (in my times of commercial management, already remote, we called this ABC of clients).
Basically, he chases assign a score or value to each lead to properly categorize it and focus well the messages that are sent to them. Although many different variables can be handled, we can classify them into two main categories: those of the customer’s socioeconomic profile and the interaction variables, and organize the leads according to a matrix: In a matrix in this style, each letter represents a value, with A being the maximum.
We place each lead according to the variables that we have defined, both their profile (purchasing level, age, profession, geographical location, etc.) and their degree of interaction (number of visits, follower on social networks, response to e-mails). emails, abandoned carts, etc).
The degree of interest of each lead corresponds to the letter and color (warm = more interesting). In many cases, the type and content of the contact we make will vary depending on the classification within the lead scoring matrix that we are going to target.
don’t forget that this array is dynamic: leads can jump category if their conditions or degree of interaction change. It is not a still photo. As an example of this: Are my followers on social media leads? Yes, since they have a gap in this matrix, but if they are only followers and we don’t have any more data about them, they will always be at the bottom.
That brings up something fundamental: lead nurturing aims to make our leads move up the scoring scale and always move up and to the right in the matrix. And that’s not going to happen by itself, we have to help them evolve.
Step 2: Content definition
When we already have a classification or scoring, we can think about what menu we are going to serve each type of lead. Especially important are those of type A, so they should receive a differentiated treatment from the rest and much more personalizedsince their potential to become clients (and also good clients) is much higher.
A good lead nurturing strategy you can’t treat all leads the same way, since not all are going to respond in the same way, nor are their potentialities the same. The greater the purchasing potential, the more meat will have to be put on the grill in the form of discounts or contributions of monetary value.
Step 3: Channel definition
As we said before, the most used is the eMail, either in the form of or specific offers. In this sense, the greater the degree of personalization and adaptation to the profile, the easier it will be for us to achieve the long-awaited conversion from lead to customer.
But there is life beyond email:
1. Social networks
In this case, the most recommended if we want a personalized communication is the direct message. To do this, it will help us a lot to create lists that correspond to the lead scoring classification that we have developed.
2. Blog
Capturing leads and lead nurturing are primary objectives of an eCommerce blog, so this must be taken into account when designing and definition of its contents, sections and menus. In many cases, the blog acts as a landing page (if it is focused on specific topics) or as an alternative gateway.
It’s something like this: We publish on the blog Thinking of our leads, we send them a newsletter/message on social networks with recent publications, and in those especially attractive publications we include calls to action that lead to our eCommerce. All this without going overboard. There are too many examples of blogs that, by wanting to take this to the extreme, obtain the opposite effect.
3. Mobile applications.
If our eCommerce has a mobile app, it’s time to use push notifications for this purpose.
4. SMS/WhatsApp and the like.
Ideal for sending short, personal messages with specific offers, usually with very short expiry dates, flash offer type.
5.
Although the remarketing It is not a specific lead nurturing strategy, it can be used as such, and in fact it is used as a reminder, especially in cases of abandoned carts. In any of the channels, it is necessary to look for the double adaptation of the message: to the channel and to the type of lead.
Step 4: Measurement and feedback
As in all marketing actions, measurement is capital to be able to evaluate if we are having the success we were looking for or if we have to modify the strategy. It is important to define the field of lead nurturing in order to fit this aspect of marketing into our global strategy.
In this sense, we must be clear about how the leads move in the matrix from before, since if the trend is to the left or down (or both) it is that we are obviously not doing it right and we must review our lead nurturing strategy.
Conclusions
It is very important not to overfeed the leads, who can die of embarrassment. Both the amount and the frequency with which we contact them must be carefully evaluated and segmented according to the different types of leads, and even the market in which we operate. A lead nurturing strategy for car insurance, which is renewed once a year, is not the same as for an eCommerce in the retail sector.
It is also not the same if we dedicate ourselves to B2B than to B2C. In this case, the rule that we have previously stated regarding the frequency and duration of offers is applicable to lead nurturing: the frequency of contact with the lead should correspond, in principle, to the frequency with which we want them to visit our website. And this in turn will depend on the…