B2C Lead Nurturing Strategies That Turn Leads Into Customers (Part 2)

In our previous discussion of how to convert more leads into the customers your business wants, we focused on discussing account-based marketing or ABM.

As you might recall, ABM was a notable departure from more traditional marketing efforts in that it uses a much tighter focus for conversion. Despite this, a number of companies that implement ABM strategies find more success with this method than with traditional lead funnels.

With that said, ABM tactics aren’t a fit for all companies. If it does not seem to work at your company, there are still other tactics you can try. This time around, let us look at another popular tactic that is proven to generate results: Content and email marketing.

Content and email marketing

When most marketers think about content and email marketing, they don’t think about it as a nurturing tactic; after all, email marketing is fairly standard practice for most marketing campaigns. The same is true of content marketing, where blogs, videos and other content items are used to introduce a product or service to the consumer and provide a push that gets them to make a purchase.

You would likely be hard-pressed to find a marketer who hasn’t worked on at least a few content or email campaigns, especially as part of a larger sales funnel approach. Unfortunately, because these campaigns are so familiar, many marketers fail to see just how much potential email and content have beyond standard funnel campaigns.

A different approach

Email and other content campaigns are typically little more than a vehicle to deliver a call to action.

It may take a few emails or a couple of videos to get there, but as soon as the first message arrives the recipient knows that the CTA is the end goal. In some cases the campaign will be successful, in others, it will largely go ignored. Regardless of the outcome, it isn’t providing the recipient with anything that they have not seen before from other companies. Until it does.

Instead of using email and content marketing to set up a sale, you can use this same type of campaign to nurture a relationship with consumers instead. Provide the same sort of useful information that you would before but leave off the push at the end to make a purchase. The goal here is not to make a sale, but instead to provide value to the consumer.

Slower nurturing

This process is typically a slower one than traditional email campaigns as it focuses more on creating a relationship with your leads than it does on making a sale. You can use the slower pace to your advantage, however. Instead of using a call to action as a way to try and get the consumer to make a purchase, try adding a CTA to follow your company on social media or to download content instead. Add to the relationship and nurture the trust that the consumer develops as a result.

When you do introduce purchase options, this should be much more casual than your standard call to action. Instead of pushing for the sale, simply use an email or newsletter release to inform the consumer about a new product or service without adding pressure to buy. The relationship that you build with your leads throughout this nurturing campaign will increase their overall interest in your company’s products; as new products become available, the consumer will be increasingly likely to seek out the new items to purchase even without your prompting.

Read part 1