How Lead Nurturing Can Optimize the Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel can be a powerful tool for converting leads into sales, but it cannot create meaningful and lasting relationships with new customers without lead nurturing as the backbone of the funnel. Modern customers have more choices and higher expectations.
The marketing funnels main purpose is to capture a lead’s interest by providing them with valuable offers and useful information that inspires them to become customers. Lead nurturing by nature is intended to do just that in a subtle and personalized way. It allows marketers to deliver the right content to the right person on the right channel at the right time in order to optimize the marketing funnel.
Most website visitors are searching for helpful, insightful, or entertaining content that benefits them in some way. The information they choose to read needs to answer their questions, provide them with real value and gently nudge them in the direction of making a purchase. It cannot be an over-hyped sales piece that resembles the numerous advertisements they are subjected to each day.
You can improve your chances of gaining further information on a lead by placing barriers on access to content. If you place lead nurturing content behind a form or registration on a website then marketers can collect the name, email address, contact information and IP address of the visitor who wishes to access their content. This means that the visitor knows they are giving up their anonymity to read the information, which is a significant sign that they are truly interested in the product or service.
Today’s consumer has access to an abundance of information and they are not willing to waste their time on inferior content. If they visit a site, take the time to enter all of their personal information, download a tutorial, and then take the time to read it – it better be worth all of their effort. By providing leads with free educational or thought-provoking content, you are building their trust in your business, product, or service. That is the very purpose of the marketing funnel.
Capturing leads in the marketing funnel is necessary but it must be accompanied with solid and personalized (when possible) lead nurturing content. Every lead has access to hundreds,thousands or even millions of potential sources. Businesses that want to stay competitive need to prove themselves before a sale is made. Always providing leads with reliable and relevant content is how lead nurturing can optimize the marketing funnel.
