In my sales process for my whole life, it was pretty transactional. Until I finally got that ah-ha moment. At that time, the digital marketing solutions that I sold did help companies build a brand and attract customers online, but they were not used to selling me.

Once I started building my own brand and giving valuable content to prospects, I was able to grow my credibility as a seller. I shifted from cold sales to a lead nourishment wherein prospect sees me as something more than trying to4 make ends meet for my deal. So they started coming to me for that solution. 

The finding of lead nurturing turned the game. That even encouraged me to open my own business. Here’s how to value a person’s sales process and create more solid and strong relationships with them.

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the process of offering valuable opportunities and resources eventually convincing prospects to move down the sales funnel. Lead capturing attention and interest by providing useful information to convert them into customers through further deepening the relationship and showing how one product or service will help to address critical pain points for them.

What is the importance of lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is where you create an authentic connection with your ideal clients, learn about their challenges, deliver them value-based information and resources, and then earn the right to pitch your solution. It’s also taking time and effort, and heart. But it was worth it. Here are a couple of benefits: 

1. Learn more about your target customers. Leading nurturing goes deep and finds some pain points, needs, and interests (all to create value). Hence it would be one of the best ones for understanding your prospects. 
2. Build relationships that may last beyond the initial sale: Every day an extra hour is spent solving problems for leads builds trust, respect, and authentic relationshipsOpens in a new window that lasts. And when we do, we leave the door open for future sales. 
3. The most valuable and the closest to purchase prospects will be revealed: Not all leads are of the same value. This is where you look at the levels of engagements because they also show you which will produce leads in your sales funnel the highest value and how likely they will buy. 

Eventually, priorities can be assigned to such prospects to better one’s chances of “hitting” or exceeding “powerfully” the desired sales target.

How to Nurture Leads Through Your Sales Funnel

Timing is everything. Your lead nurturing strategy must revolve around delivering value that’s relevant to each specific stage in the sales funnel. There are six stages, which can be grouped into three general sections:

1. TOFU: The top of the funnel marks the beginning of the customer journey, where low-intent leads live.
2. MOFU: The middle of your funnel is where leads evaluate different solutions—with rising intent.
3. BOFU: The bottom is where high-intent leads make purchase decisions.

Every company’s funnel and customers will behave differently. But the same general rules, and even lead nurturing tactics, often apply.

How to Nurture Leads at the Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

At the TOFU (top of the funnel) stage, awareness is created, and interest is generated as leads recognise their needs and express interest in your solution while searching for answers.

TOFU activities are to engage by attracting attention and imparting valuable information to address the prospects’ pain points and concerns. 

The lead-nurturing things you can do at the TOFU:

1. Socially create awareness: LinkedIn is great; Instagram, Facebook, the works! Be where your ideal customers are, post there, upload videos, and engage on those touchpoints.
2. Freebies: Whether eBooks, white papers, expert guides, blog articles, or worksheets, whatever applies to these disparate types of content should address lead pain points while establishing your credibility and authority in the industry.
3. Newsletters and automated emails: From announcements to content round-ups, email campaigns are (still) an old-time ever-green form of lead nurturing. Pay extra attention to solid subject lines, which work wonders on open rates.
4. Testimonials/how-to/feature videos: Relevant video? More than words! Merge value with entertainment and easy consumption. 
5. Set discovery calls: Gather intelligence about lead needs and how you could be a hymn to help. Just keep the sales-y stuff down a little for now.

Lead-Nurturing in the Middle Of the Funnel (MOFU)

The middle depicts consideration and intent. Prospects would now take a closer look at your solution and (hopefully) show intent through engagement. The lead score will help in the segmentation for targeting precision. Now, this is where you want to sell really hard on the value, while they investigate alternatives. 

Lead nurturing strategies you can use at the MOFU:

1. Demo your product: How will your solution solve their pain points, exactly? An effective product demo will explain your unique value and increase relevance.
2. Free trials: Free trials (like ours) allow potential customers to explore features and performance without financial risk. Foot in the door, check! 
3. Make special offers: You can offer monthly payment plans or bundled packages. Just don’t outright ‘discount’ your pricing, as that diminishes your value.
4. Case studies: Customer stories that the lead relates to or that target audience categories that the lead belongs to quickly introduce identification to the pain points solved by your solution.
5. Value is key; keep offering it. That will keep them engaged.

Bottom of the Funnel Lead Nurturing Strategies (BOFU)

And at the bottom of your funnel, we have purchase and retention. By now, your prospects are well-informed and prepared to make a purchase decision. Retention is where you continue to provide exceptional service securing their loyalty, as well as referrals. 

Lead nurturing strategies you can use at the BOFU:

1. Follow up consistently: Don’t drop leads who are about ready to purchase. Keep following up until you have a closed deal. You can also nurture the new customer relationship after purchase with frequent follow-ups to catch issues early on and elevate the entire experience. (The right CRM can automate this for you!)
2. Maintain high-quality service: Once your leads have become paying customers, keep up the good work! Streamline onboarding and the sales-to-support handoff. 
3. Create retargeting campaigns: Maybe the sale fell through, but that doesn’t mean the lead is dead. Retarget with ads and/or marketing automation to pull them back into your sales funnel.
4. Upsell or cross-sell: Upselling and cross-selling are about increasing the value of your solution for the customer while maximising CLV.

Now you can see the lead nurturing process as applied throughout your sales funnel.

Master the Art of Lead Nurturing: Tools, Tactics, and Trials to Fuel Your Growth

Master the art of lead nurturing and start your growth journey with London’s premier hub of  training and consulting today. Lead nurturing is like an undertaking. There are many aspects, many angles to it, and many pitfalls. But the software of your choice shall (and will) support you all the way from lead scoring to content distribution, lead management to where marketing and sales get their act together.  Having learned how to nurture plants-eh-mmm-leads-what tools would crank a little extra pressure in water? 

1. Close: Close is, in effect, an all-in-one CRM designed to streamline outreach, enrich customer relations, guide lead scoring, and simplify reporting with special attention paid to SMBs and start-ups. 
2. AWeber: AWeber is an email automation platform that creates, manages, and automates any lead-nurturing email campaign. 
3. Hootsuite: Hootsuite allows you to create, publish, schedule, and track all of your social media needs across platforms. 
4. Proof: Proof is a web personalization tool that applies visitor-specific personalisation for various website content based on browsing behavior, geolocation, and other data.

These wonderful tools do not provide free trials.