Lead nurturing tips for B2B marketers
A proper landing page, relevant content and thoughtful PPC (Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn) ads are all key to to effectively manage leads and guide them to the request- and order phase of the customer journey.
As a B2B marketer, we need to be aware of exactly who is participating in the on in the process – and we have to provide them this specific content.
There are several methods to nurture our leads, e.g.: email marketing, retargeting ads, but also a professional marketing automation system can do a great job of relieving the marketing and sales team from time-consuming manual work and preparing the ground for the personal persuation. In this article we will present the key aspects we need to be aware of to lead our B2B marketing efforts to success.
Understand the true needs of your customers
In the US, 34% of the consumers get angry when they are offered a product that they are not interested in. Don’t be one of these companies!
We would not even think of the fact that – even today – many companies and service providers have a real problem to determine who their ideal customers are and what these ideal customers are really interested in. And this is just the very first step to success in the creation of your digital marketing strategy. If we do not know what our potential customers are interested in, we will not be able to tailor our message to them and we would not have a chance to success, either. Every time someone interacts with us, our message should be relevant to that individual and target pain points (concerns) that are important to them.
We need to personalize our messages after we created our so-called buyer personas (typical buyer prototypes). The buyer persona is a semi-imaginary person who embodies our ideal customer, he/she is a result of a lengthy market research and data analysis that includes the person’s interests, basic behavior, main motivations and demographic information.
There are many ways to create your buyer personas, e.g.:
interviewing current customers
placing questions in the forms on our website related to the personas
running pilot digital campaigns to identify the persona’s interests and pain points
As a B2B marketer, without the understanding of our ideal customer / consumer , we cannot create effective web content because we do not know exactly where the visitor is in the customer decision process (customer journey, buyer journey). If we cannot adapt our email marketing messages and offer content to the current step of the given user in the purchasing process, we will pretty much limit the results of our lead management campaign.
Such a cardinal mistake could be, for example, when we send an “awareness” message to a person in the initial phase falsely with the call-to-action to request a demo or a price quote. In this initial phase the users are likely to subscribe a professional newsletter and they are not yet ready to be contacted by a salesperson, either.
If we can understand the phases of the customer buying process and what interests the person at a particular stage, what information do they need, we can show them the relevant and targeted content (through any channel, e.g. email marketing or retargeting ads) and help them to move forward through the buying decision process.
The steps of the customer buying process
First phase: Awareness
In the very first phase of the customer buying decision process all of the information provided to the user should be user-centric (customer-centric), not company-centric. At this stage we need to educate the interested person about the basic problem to be solved, not to recommend the specific solution / product we offer (and this is a more common problem than you might think..).
An interesting data is that e.g.: we mostly unsubscribe from email newsletters because of the lack of relevance and frequency issues.
Most common reasons of unsubscription from newsletters
11% of those who unsubscribe from email lists said that they unsubscribed especially because the emails focused on the needs of the sending company instead interests of the receiver.
The users at the beginning of the buying decision process are not yet clearly aware of their own problem, so education has a key role to play. Let’s educate!
Second phase: Consideration
In this phase the interested person is already aware of the problem to be solved and is looking for a solution to this problem. At this stage, B2B advertisers usually make the mistake of communicating the features and USPs of their own product.
In this phase it is very important to differentiate our own product from similar products from competitors. Ebooks, for example offer a great opportunity for this distinction, as do case studies, product reviews, and customer testimonials.
Effectiveness of B2B marketing tools – how the advertisers rate them
Third phase: Decision
After considering the available options, their advantages and disadvantages, the interested party is ready to take the final step and decide on the purchase. The biggest mistake at this stage is if we do not differentiate ourselves / our product from our competitors. The distinction can also be made through infographics and comparative tables. The other important action of this phase is for the interested party to contact a professional salesperson. We can offer a free demo, free trial or free consultation to achieve this.
A good practice for tracking the qualified leads is a call from the salesperson in five minutes – dated from the arrival of the lead. Every extra minute that passes before we contact them increases the chances that our competitors will make the move and take the lead away from us.
Personalize your message
If you are using an email marketing system or a marketing automation system, personalization is key to success. In 2018, 77% of marketers worldwide used personalization in email marketing. If you belong to the remaining 23% and send “one-size-fits-all” emails, it’s time to start personalizing your emails!
The main success indicators (so-called KPIs) of our email marketing are the opening rate and the conversion rate – both of which can be remarkably improved by personalizing your emails. The opening rate is closely related to the effective subject field and the conversion rate helps you decide if the content you posted has reached its goal or not.
If we use PPC Ads (Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn Ads) for our B2B marketing activities, we must also pay attention in our campaigns to personalize our ad content to where the user is in the customer decision-making process (awareness, consideration or decision phase).
Re-inviting a user with an irrelevant message – such as encouraging a user in the initial phase to request a quote – can frighten them from seriously considering our product in the future while addressing the same user with educational content can effectively help them progress in the purchase decision process. The landing pages of PPC campaigns should also be matched to the current position of the interested party in the buying decision process.
The integration of our web content into the buying process and to our buyer personas plays an important role in the search engine optimization of our website as well. If we want to capture significant organic search traffic and not just in the final phase of the buying process, it is really important to create educational content that users are looking for in the initial phase and make it easy to find on our website, both for users and search engines.
To sum up
For the success of B2B marketing activities, first we must know our ideal customer, create our buyer personas and consciously use them to effectively reach stakeholders at different stages of the buying decision process, effectively nurture the leads to succeed in business.
We have to do our “homework” to offer relevant and tailored – as far as possible – content in order for effective customer acquisition.
Nowadays there are many tools available for determining the value of a lead, email marketing tools, marketing automation systems but we can even use PPC retargeting ads for the purpose. Whatever we use we need to do it consciously, thoughtfully, complemented by organic search engine optimization.
In B2B marketing, no digital marketing solution or tool is a “silver bullet” and will only work properly if we have a clear marketing strategy, precisely defined goals and buyer personas and design our complex online appearance accordingly.
If you need professional support for your digital marketing activities, do not hesitate to contact us!
Sources:
https://www.ironpaper.com/webintel/articles/the-3-biggest-mistakes-b2b-marketers-make-with-lead-nurturing-emails/
https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/us_consumers_strike_a_lifeemail_balance/39223
https://www.sherpamarketing.co.uk/blog/the-optimum-time-to-follow-up-leads
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/best-times-to-connect-with-leads-infographic