22 min read

15 Best Practices for Effective Lead Nurturing in 2024

Dozie Anyaegbunam

Last updated on Oct 3, 2024

QUICK SUMMARY

Wondering why your leads aren't converting? Lead nurturing could be your missing link. Below, I share proven nurturing strategies, best practices, and tips for running successful lead nurturing campaigns.

TABLE OF CONTENTS What's Lead Nurturing? Benefits Best Practices Nurturing Strategies Tips for Running Successful Campaigns Measurement

Let's cut to the chase: if you don't have a lead nurturing strategy, you're leaving money on the table. Plain and simple. And lead nurturing doesn't mean spamming your prospects with generic emails, hoping something sticks.

So let's dig into everything you need to know about lead nurturing, must-have elements of a winning lead nurturing email, lead nurturing best practices, and nurturing strategies proven to increase your lead generation and speed to lead rates across your various lead sourcing channels.

Ready to stop wasting time and start closing deals? Let's get to it.

What is Lead Nurturing?

lead nurturing best practices infographics

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty, let's get our definitions straight.

Lead nurturing is about building relationships with potential customers throughout their buying journey. Think of it as dating, but for business. You're not proposing on the first date - you're getting to know each other, building trust, and showing why you're the best choice.

Here's what it looks like in practice:

Delivering relevant info tailored to your prospect's needs and interests
Keeping your brand top-of-mind without being annoying
Gently guiding leads down the sales funnel until they're ready to buy.

Do it right, and your chances of closing significantly increase. In situations where the deal doesn't close due to some other reason, the prospect still leaves with a positive impression of your brand. They're more likely to come back via inbound marketing if their chosen solution doesn't pan out, or when they're ready for a change.

Key Elements of a Winning Lead Nurturing Email

What makes a lead nurturing email work? Here are the essentials you need to nail:

Company branding: Your logo and consistent visual style. Makes your email instantly recognizable. Keep it subtle - you're not here to win design awards.
Greeting and introduction: Personalized opener that addresses the recipient directly. Sets the tone and grabs attention. Use their name and reference previous interactions if possible.
Email copy with a call to action: The meat of your message. Delivers value and nudges towards action. Keep it concise, focused on one main point, and always tie back to the recipient's needs.
CTA button: Clear, action-oriented button. Makes the next step obvious. Use contrasting colors and action verbs like "Get", "Start", or "Learn".
Signature: Your name and role. Adds a human touch. Include a professional photo to build a connection.
Link to your website: Easy way back to your main site. Provides more info for interested leads. Place it in the footer, don't let it distract from your main CTA.
Unsubscribe link: Legal requirement and courtesy. Keep your list clean and respect the recipient's choices. Make it visible but not prominent.

Benefits of Lead Nurturing

Look, I get it. You're busy. You've got a million things on your plate. Why should lead nurturing be one of them?

Here's why:

#1. Ensures You Don’t Waste Your Prospect’s Time

It's a time saver. Lead nurturing ensures you're delivering relevant, timely content to your prospects, tailored to their specific needs and stages in the buyer's journey. This precision approach respects your prospect's time, keeping them engaged without overwhelming them with irrelevant information.

The result? A shorter sales cycle, higher conversion rates, and prospects who feel understood and valued.

#2. Differentiates Your Brand

In a sea of "Buy Now!" messages, nurturing helps you build actual relationships. You're not just another faceless company.

A lead nurturing strategy means you are consistently delivering personalized, valuable content that addresses your prospects' specific needs and pain points. This targeted approach builds trust, establishes your expertise, and creates a memorable brand experience that stands out from the competition.

The value? Increased brand loyalty, higher engagement rates, and a stronger market position.

#3. Curates Personalized Journeys for Your Prospects

Cookie-cutter approaches are a no-go in today's market. With lead nurturing, you create tailored experiences for each prospect, delivering content and interactions that match their interests, behaviors, and stages in the buying process.

This approach to personalization improves engagement, increases the relevance of your communications, and guides prospects toward a purchase decision. It also results in higher conversion rates, increased customer satisfaction, and more efficient use of marketing resources.

#4. Increases Conversions

According to Demandsage, companies that nurtured leads were able to generate 50% more sales with 33% lower cost expenses. Lead nurturing boosts conversion rates by guiding prospects through the sales funnel with targeted content and interactions, addressing their concerns and needs at each stage.

This approach increases the likelihood of prospects choosing your solution when they're ready to buy, resulting in higher ROI on marketing efforts, increased sales, and a more predictable revenue stream.

#5. Do More with Less

Efficiency is one of the biggest benefits of an effective lead nurturing strategy. It automates your prospect engagement, allowing you to reach more potential customers with personalized content without increasing your workload.

This efficiency enables your team to focus on high-value tasks while maintaining consistent, quality interactions with prospects. The marketing automation also reduces the cost per lead, improves resource allocation, and increases overall marketing productivity.

#6. Reactivate Dormant Leads

With lead nurturing, you can rekindle interest from prospects who've gone cold, re-engaging them with relevant content and personalized outreach.

This approach taps into an often-overlooked segment of your database, potentially reviving sales opportunities that were thought lost. It's more cost-effective than acquiring new leads, leverages existing relationships, and can significantly boost your conversion rates from previously unresponsive contacts.

#7. Identify Redundant/Dirty Customer Data for CRM Cleaning

As a bonus, nurturing campaigns help you identify and clean out outdated or inaccurate data in your CRM. By tracking lead interactions and engagement, the process naturally surfaces inconsistencies, duplicate entries, and obsolete information.

Cleaner data improves targeting accuracy, enhances personalization efforts, and increases the overall effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. It also ensures compliance with data protection regulations and maintains the integrity of your customer database.

15 Lead Nurturing Best Practices to Improve Prospect Relationships

Ready to take your lead nurturing to the next level? These 15 best practices will help you build stronger relationships with prospects, increase engagement, and ultimately drive more conversions.

#1. Target Your Content Appropriately

Targeting your content appropriately means delivering personalized, relevant information to each prospect based on their specific interests, behaviors, and stage in the buying journey. This approach dramatically improves engagement rates and nurtures leads more effectively because it addresses their needs and pain points directly.

By providing content that resonates with each prospect, you build trust and demonstrate your understanding of their challenges, making them more likely to view your brand as a valuable resource and potential solution.

Pro tips:

Use behavioral data and lead scoring to inform your targeting
Create buyer personas to guide content creation and distribution
Regularly review and update your targeting criteria based on performance metrics.

#2. Test Out Text-Based Emails

Strip out the usual HTML design and test out sending simple, plain-text messages instead. This approach can significantly improve deliverability and engagement rates.

Text-based emails often feel more personal and authentic, mimicking one-to-one communication rather than mass marketing. They're less likely to trigger spam filters and load quickly on all devices, ensuring your message reaches the intended recipient. By stripping away distracting design elements, you force yourself to focus on crafting compelling copy that resonates with your audience, ultimately improving the quality of your nurturing content.

Pro tips:

Keep messages concise and focused on a single call-to-action
Use personalization tokens to increase relevance
A/B test subject lines and message content for optimal performance.

#3. Create Supporting Content Formats

Explore developing a diverse range of content types beyond just blog posts or emails, such as videos, infographics, podcasts, or interactive tools. This approach to content strategy caters to different learning styles and preferences among your prospects, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

A diet of varied content formats provides your prospects multiple entry points to connect with your brand. It also deepens their understanding of your offerings and nudges them down the sales funnel. This diversity also allows you to repurpose and amplify your core messages across different channels, reinforcing your value proposition and keeping leads engaged throughout their journey.

Pro tips:

Align content formats with your audience's preferences and consumption habits
Ensure consistent messaging across all content types
Use each format to its strengths (e.g., video for demonstrations, infographics for data visualization).

#4. Send Personalized Email Sequences

Sending personalized email sequences means crafting a series of tailored emails that respond to specific actions, interests, or characteristics of your leads. This approach enhances lead nurturing by delivering relevant content at the right time in the prospect's journey.

Personalized sequences increase engagement rates because they address the individual needs and pain points of each lead, making them feel understood and valued. By automating these sequences based on trigger events or lead behavior, you ensure consistent, timely follow-up without overwhelming your team, allowing for scalable, effective nurturing that guides prospects toward conversion.

Pro tips:

Use dynamic content to customize email body based on lead data
Set up trigger-based sequences for key actions (e.g., content downloads, website visits)
Regularly review and optimize sequences based on performance metrics.

#5. Explore Retargeting

Retargeting serves targeted ads to leads who have previously interacted with your website or content across various platforms. This practice keeps your brand top-of-mind and nurtures leads by reinforcing your message and value proposition.

It improves lead nurturing by maintaining engagement with prospects who have shown interest but aren't yet ready to convert, gently reminding them of your offerings as they browse other sites. Retargeting allows you to deliver tailored messages based on specific actions or pages visited, creating a more personalized and relevant nurturing experience that can significantly increase conversion rates.

Pro tips:

Segment your retargeting audiences based on behavior and interest level
Use dynamic ads that showcase products or content the lead has already viewed
Set frequency caps to avoid ad fatigue and maintain a positive brand perception.

#6. Use Marketing Automation Tools to Follow Up with Leads Promptly

One of the major benefit of marketing automation tools is they enable you to send timely, personalized follow-ups to leads based on their actions or predefined triggers. This approach ensures that no lead falls through the cracks and that each receives a relevant response at the optimal moment.

Prompt follow-ups improve lead nurturing by capitalizing on the lead's current interest and engagement, increasing the likelihood of moving them further down the sales funnel. If automated, these follow-ups help maintain consistent communication without overburdening your team, allowing for scalable, efficient nurturing that can significantly boost conversion rates and shorten sales cycles.

Pro tips:

Set up triggered workflows for key actions like form submissions or content downloads
Personalize automated messages using dynamic fields and segmentation
Regularly review and optimize your automation workflows based on performance data.

Best Marketing Automation Tools

Marketing automation tools play a crucial role in implementing and optimizing lead nurturing strategies. They automate processes, provide valuable insights, and help scale your efforts efficiently.

Here's a shortlist of the very best marketing automation tools to consider, along with what I found each does best:

1. Birdeye — Best for reputation management
2. Trellis — Best for Amazon PPC automation
3. Eloqua — Best for omnichannel marketing automation
4. Ahrefs — Best for automating brand mentions
5. EngageBay — Best for small businesses
6. Intercom — Best for customer service
7. Mailchimp — Best overall affordable option
8. Ontraport — Best for entrepreneurs
9. GetResponse — Best for automating customer engagement
10. Social Champ — Best for social media automation

#7. Use Multichannel Marketing to Nurture Leads

Multichannel marketing nurtures leads across various platforms and touch-points, including email, social media, content marketing, and retargeting ads. This approach creates a cohesive brand experience and reinforces your message across multiple fronts.

Meeting prospects where they are increases the chances of engagement and conversion. By using different channels, you cater to diverse preferences in content consumption and communication styles, ensuring no lead slips through the cracks. Multichannel marketing also provides valuable data on which channels are most effective for different segments, allowing for more targeted and efficient nurturing strategies over time.

Pro tips:

Maintain consistent messaging and branding across all channels
Use cross-channel tracking to understand the full customer journey
Tailor content to each channel's strengths and audience expectations.

#8. Make it Easy to Opt-Out of Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Making it easy to opt-out of lead nurturing campaigns means providing clear, simple unsubscribe options in all your communications. This practice respects your leads' preferences and builds trust in your brand.

Counterintuitively, easy opt-outs can actually enhance your nurturing efforts by ensuring your list remains filled with engaged, interested prospects. It demonstrates transparency and confidence in your offering, which can increase respect for your brand.

Moreover, by allowing uninterested leads to remove themselves, you maintain a higher-quality list, improve deliverability rates, and focus your resources on leads more likely to convert.

Pro tips:

Include a one-click unsubscribe link in every email
Offer granular opt-out options (e.g., reducing frequency instead of full unsubscribe)
Regularly clean your list by removing consistently unengaged contacts.

#9. Use Lead Scoring to Focus on the Right Segments

Lead scoring assigns numerical values to leads based on their behaviors, demographics, and engagement levels. This intent data system helps prioritize leads and tailor nurturing efforts accordingly. By focusing on the most promising segments, you can allocate resources more efficiently and increase conversion rates.

Lead scoring allows for more personalized and timely interactions, as you can trigger specific nurturing actions when a lead reaches certain score thresholds. This targeted approach not only improves the lead experience but also shortens sales cycles by identifying sales-ready leads faster and nurturing others with content that matches their current level of interest.

Pro tips:

Align scoring criteria with your ideal customer profile and buyer journey
Regularly review and adjust your scoring model based on actual conversion data
Use both explicit (demographic) and implicit (behavioral) data in your scoring.

#10. Map Out Your Customer Journey

Mapping out your customer journey involves creating a visual representation of every touchpoint a lead has with your brand, from initial awareness to post-purchase. This comprehensive view allows you to identify key moments of engagement and potential pain points throughout the buyer's journey.

By understanding the path your leads typically take, you can create more targeted and relevant nurturing content for each stage.

This approach enhances the effectiveness of your nurturing efforts by ensuring you're delivering the right message at the right time, addressing specific needs and concerns as they arise. A well-mapped customer journey also helps in identifying gaps in your nurturing process and opportunities for improvement.

Pro tips:

Involve multiple departments (marketing, sales, customer service) in creating the journey map
Use data from analytics, customer feedback, and sales interactions to inform your map
Regularly update your journey map to reflect changes in customer behavior or market conditions.

#11. Segment Your Target Account Lists

Segmenting target account lists divides your prospects into distinct groups based on shared characteristics, behaviors, or needs.

This practice allows for highly tailored nurturing strategies that resonate with each specific segment. By delivering more relevant content and offers to each group, you increase engagement rates and move leads through the funnel more effectively.

Segmentation enables you to speak directly to the unique pain points and interests of different account types, creating a more personalized experience that builds stronger relationships. This targeted approach not only improves conversion rates but also helps in allocating resources more efficiently by focusing on the most promising segments.

Pro tips:

Use both firmographic data (company size, industry) and behavioral data (engagement level, content preferences) for segmentation
Create detailed buyer personas for each segment to guide content creation
Regularly analyze segment performance and adjust your strategies accordingly.

#12. Setup a Multi-touch Customer Journey

A multi-touch customer journey creates multiple points of contact with leads across various channels and stages of their buying process. This approach recognizes that prospects rarely convert after a single interaction, instead requiring multiple engagements to build trust and interest. You also end up with a consistent and reinforcing narrative that guides leads towards conversion.

Each interaction builds upon the last, addressing different aspects of the prospect's needs and concerns. This comprehensive strategy ensures that no matter where a lead enters your funnel or how they prefer to engage, they receive a cohesive and compelling brand experience that nurtures them effectively towards a purchase decision.

Pro tips:

Vary your content types and channels to cater to different preferences and stages of the journey
Use automation to trigger timely follow-ups based on specific actions or milestones
Incorporate both digital (email, social media) and traditional (direct mail, phone calls) touch-points for a well-rounded approach.

#13. Create Opportunities for 1-on-1 Conversations

Creating opportunities for 1-on-1 conversations sets up personalized interactions between your team and individual leads through channels like phone calls, video chats, or in-person meetings. You add a human touch to your nurturing process, allowing for deeper, more meaningful engagements.

By offering direct, personalized communication, you can address specific concerns, build stronger relationships, and gain valuable insights into your leads' needs and decision-making processes. These one-on-one interactions provide an opportunity to tailor your pitch in real-time, answer complex questions, and demonstrate your commitment to understanding and solving the prospect's unique challenges.

This level of personal attention can significantly accelerate the nurturing process and increase the likelihood of conversion.

Pro tips:

Train your team to listen actively and ask insightful questions during these conversations
Use scheduling tools to make it easy for leads to book time with your team
Follow up each conversation with personalized content or resources based on the discussion.

#14. Run Surveys and Analyze Sales Calls

Running surveys and analyzing sales calls gathers direct feedback and insights from leads and prospects. This practice provides valuable data on customer needs, pain points, and preferences. By understanding your audience better, you can refine your nurturing strategies to address specific concerns and tailor your messaging more effectively.

Surveys offer quantitative data on trends and preferences, while sales call analysis reveals qualitative insights into objections, decision-making processes, and effective selling points. This combination of data sources allows you to continually improve your nurturing approach, creating more relevant and impactful interactions that move leads through the funnel more efficiently.

Pro tips:

Keep surveys short and focused, with a mix of multiple-choice and open-ended questions
Use call recording and AI-powered analysis tools to identify patterns and key phrases in sales conversations
Regularly share insights from surveys and call analysis with your marketing and sales teams to inform strategy.

#15. Test Different Times for Contacting Prospects

Testing different times for contacting prospects means experimenting with various schedules for sending emails, making calls, or posting on social media to determine when your audience is most responsive.

This practice optimizes your outreach efforts by identifying the most effective times to engage with your leads. By reaching out when prospects are most likely to be receptive, you increase the chances of your messages being seen, read, and acted upon.

Optimizing for time can significantly boost open rates, engagement, and ultimately, conversion rates. Understanding the best contact times for different segments of your audience allows you to tailor your nurturing strategy for maximum impact, ensuring your efforts aren't wasted on poorly timed communications.

Pro tips:

Use A/B testing to compare response rates for different outreach times
Consider time zones and industry-specific work patterns when scheduling outreach
Analyze your website traffic patterns to inform your contact timing strategy.

5 Proven Lead Nurturing Strategies to Increase Conversions and Revenue

Alright, enough with the theory. Let's get practical. Here are five lead nurturing strategies that have been battle-tested and proven to boost conversions and revenue.

#1. Cold and Warm Outreach Email Sequences

Cold and warm outreach email sequences are targeted, multi-step email campaigns designed to engage prospects at different stages of awareness. Cold sequences introduce your brand to new contacts, while warm sequences nurture leads who've shown interest.

This strategy works because it allows for personalized, timely communication that guides prospects through the sales funnel.