Lead nurturing, while not a new concept, continues to evolve. On average, we know that prospects convert at a much higher rate when nurtured versus those who aren’t. In fact, Forrester found that the best lead nurturing generates 50% more sales-ready leads.
So, what makes one nurture more successful than another?
First, let’s remember that lead nurturing is about establishing a conversation and building a relationship between you and your potential buyer. You develop this conversation by providing valuable information that can help them overcome obstacles they face in their role or business. Sounds easy enough, right?
Then why do so many companies struggle with building successful nurtures? The answer, in short, is that they forget that no relationship is one-sided. To open the lines of communication and break down any digital walls, you have to be approachable. It’s not about you. It’s about them.
I know what you are thinking. How can you have a conversation with someone that isn’t one-sided if you’re sending your message to hundreds or thousands of prospective buyers?
Below are 7 tips to personalize your communications and build nurtures that convert:
- Uncover your buyer persona’s most common pain points.
Once you have a solid understanding of the challenges your buyer persona is struggling with (check out our Buyer Persona Development Tool if you’re just getting started), you can craft content and messaging for each email in your nurture track that will pique your prospects’ interest. What resonates with a decision maker will be different than what resonates with an end user or a financial buyer. Doing your homework up front to understand your prospects’ pain points will pay dividends in the long run.
- Organize your content.
After you’ve defined your buyer personas, the next step is to make sure you have the right content to help each persona move through the buyers journey. Audit your content inventory and identify which pieces of content you already have and what you need to develop to take your prospects through an intuitive lead nurturing program.
- Write compelling subject lines.
You’ve identified your buyer personas’ top challenges. Now, develop subject lines with an action associated with solving their problem. If you’re a recruiting manager who’s struggling with finding top talent, seeing “Gain access to better candidates today” in your inbox might seem like a gift from the gods. Personalized subject lines get 26 percent more opens. What better way to grab someone’s attention than to mention something that they are actively trying to solve?
- Add personalization tokens.
Everyone likes to see his or her name in an email message. That’s why personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. Adding the recipient’s name makes it feels more like a conversation than an email blast. Just like receiving messages from “no-reply” feels like you are talking to a faceless robot that can’t help solve any of your challenges. Adding a designated name to the “from” field makes the prospect feel like they are communicating with someone who cares about solving their problems.
- Be relatable and relevant.
The opening sentence will determine whether or not you are someone the prospect wants to trust. An excellent way to be relatable is to lead with an example of a company like theirs that is experiencing a similar challenge. Providing relevant stats or examples from like businesses will make the prospect feel like you understand their pain.
- Provide helpful calls to action.
Once you have intrigued the prospect enough to open the email, it’s all for naught unless they take action. Provide a call to action that leads to more relevant content that supports the pain point you uncovered in the messaging. If you’ve successfully identified their challenge, they will naturally want to learn more and will click on your CTA. Once the prospect feels like you understand who they are in the message of this email, they are typically more open to dialog and will click the CTA to keep the conversation going.
- Close with sincerity.
Congrats! You’ve created an email that speaks to your prospect about solving their most pressing issues. Now, you should end with one last helpful tidbit and an offer to get in touch with you if they would like support right away.
Lead nurturing will continue to evolve along with all things digital. The important thing to remember is that all communications, at least for now, are still H2H (Human to Human). Be relatable, provide helpful information, and stay in touch!
Patti Heath is a Consultant dedicated to partnering with clients to achieve their business goals. She focuses on developing demand generation strategy, including lead generation, lead scoring, lead nurturing, and lead management. She enjoys staying on top of the ever-changing digital industry and identifying the best new technological advances.
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