Today’s customers are more intelligent and demanding than ever before. They expect to communicate with a brand in novel ways that go beyond general interests. This has completely changed how marketers see inbound marketing, lead generation, the lead conversion funnel, and marketing automation. Businesses now have to make extra efforts in generating leads and nudging them along the conversion path.

But where should they begin?!!

It all starts with personalization and lead nurturing. These are the two marketing pillars that can drive lead conversion at reduced costs while delivering higher ROI. In fact, personalization and lead nurturing can generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower costs.

Let’s understand everything in depth.

Nurturing Leads Nudges Them Towards Purchase

Lead nurturing is the process of developing relations with the potential customer and slowly nudging them to make a buying decision. Even if leads are inquiring about your products or services, they might not be ready to buy.

For instance, a Statista report shows that internet users aged 16 to 24 use social media to research products. However, this does not mean that they will get all the information they need to make the purchase in the first search.

With a lead conversion process, you can provide all the information to leads that can help them make a buying decision. Similarly, providing a new lead with timely responses, segmenting leads and targeting them based on requirements, etc., helps guide them through each sale funnel stage.

Arizona State University has set an example in nurturing leads through effective email campaigns. They migrated 13 mass email systems on Salesforce to segment their leads and target audience. Segmenting helped them understand their leads’ requirements and send personalized and authentic emails, with the goal to convert.

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Personalization Helps Build Relationships with Customers

Personalization means understanding the requirements of leads and providing them with what they need. While lead nurturing keeps the prospective customer engaged throughout the customer journey and builds relationships, personalization makes it effective and long-lasting. Personalizing your marketing campaigns gives a sense of importance, connectivity, and control to the leads.

Today, no one really cares about the same generic emails or messages that are sent out to everyone. Hence, personalization is vital. A Gartner study revealed that a brand could lose around 38% of prospective customers due to poor personalization. While this study is enough to emphasize the importance of personalization, another study shows 70% of millennials get frustrated on being bombarded by non-personalized and irrelevant emails.

Personalization in digital marketing does not end at emails; you need to personalize every interaction with the inbound lead and gently push them along the sales process. For instance, it helps to personalize content marketing, website, social media ads, PPC and PPL ads, and is possible, the entire customer journey.

Global brands like Adidas have proven to be a success in personalization. The leading footwear manufacturer launched a campaign where it allowed the customers to design their shoes. This not only enabled the customers to customize their shoes but also helped them embrace the brand with open arms.

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Best Practices for Personalization and Lead Nurturing

Now that we’ve understood the importance and seen some note-worthy examples of lead nurturing and personalization, let's get to know how one should do it. Here are some of the best practices to ensure successful campaigns for your business.

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Fig. Best Practices for Personalization and Lead Nurturing

Close Sales and Marketing Alignment

Your sales and marketing teams need to be aligned to create an effective pipeline. In fact, a lack of alignment between the two teams can result in lost opportunities, even with a qualified lead.

Marketers need to understand the decision path that the leads take. Similarly, the sales team needs to know how the product has been marketed and what information has been sent. Both of them also need to have insight into the parameters used for lead qualification, lead conversion strategy, lead scoring models used, and leads conversion metrics. To achieve the perfect alignment, both teams need to work hand in hand.

Meticulous Lead Segmentation

When building a 1:1 relation with all leads and customers, segmentation is the first step. You can segment the leads based on demographics, location, browsing history, etc.

Segmentation will help you differentiate leads based on their requirements and then cater to those needs. However, you will require ample data and information for this. Use modern-day technologies like AI, IoT, and big data analytics to gather and analyze data for generating actionable insights. You can then use these insights to segment leads and build lasting relationships.

Multiple Touchpoint Focus
Today’s customers use multiple devices and platforms in a single shopping journey. This increases the number of touchpoints. According to a study, a lead receives around ten marketing touches till it becomes a customer. Hence, successful lead nurturing and personalization campaigns focus on multiple touchpoints. In addition to emails, you can also use social media, whitepapers, blog posts, etc., to nurture leads.

How to Implement Nurturing and Personalization to Drive Lead Conversion?

You can implement nurturing and personalization at multiple stages and in different ways. For instance, you can personalize ads, website content, emails, and the entire buying journey for nurturing your leads. However, using the right technology and platform plays a key role in strategizing the implementation.

The right technology and platform will help you gather and analyze the data, which is a must for successful nurturing and personalization campaigns. With the perfect combination of creativity, strategy, and technology, your business can reach new heights with effective lead conversion and ensure a higher marketing ROI.

Sounds interesting?! Drop a Hi! to marketing@altudo.co and our team will help you put personalization and lead nurturing in place for your business.

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