Sales are all about developing relationships. Like any relationship, the connection between dealer and customer takes work to establish and maintain, regardless of whether it’s a prospective or existing customer. In the sales world, this skill of developing and maintaining successful relationships with customers is known as lead nurturing.

What Is Lead Nurturing?

Lead nurturing is a sales skill that focuses on developing and reinforcing relationships with current and potential customers. As many as 80% of new leads never end up making a purchase, so building a compelling lead nurture program is crucial for curbing that drop-off.

By establishing connections with customers throughout every stage of the sales funnel, it’s easier to offer opportunities and information that will be useful and help encourage purchases without being overbearing or spammy. Ultimately, the goal of any effective lead nurture program is to increase sales, but there are other metrics that indicate success, including:

• Increasing click-through rates
• Increasing conversion rates
• Decreasing cost per customer

5 Foolproof Techniques for Effective Lead Nurturing

While measuring your success is important, what’s more critical is establishing a lead nurturing campaign that’s carefully calibrated to your customers and their needs. Although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for this, there are some best practices and techniques you should be following.

1. Develop custom buyer personas. The most successful lead nurture campaigns are effective because they understand their target audience well. The best way to do this is by developing unique buyer personas, then creating custom content, offers, and communications to reach each one.
2. Use more than one channel to reach customers. Why limit yourself to one medium to get your message out there? Start small and then branch out. For instance, if you’ve stuck with only email marketing, consider incorporating social media or paid retargeting to bolster your lead nurturing campaign.
3. Have multiple touches. Every customer journey is different, but on average, prospects are used to receiving 10 touches, from the time they first see your company to the time they become customers. The most successful lead nurturing campaigns are ones that guide leads through the buyer journey at every stage.
4. Personalize your emails. Email is one of the best ways to nurture leads since it’s cost-effective and can easily be automated. Personalize your communications as much as possible, like segmenting your audience to deliver more relevant content and triggering emails that go out when a prospect clicks on something from your website or a previous email.
5. Follow up promptly. We can’t stress this one enough. Speed to lead is critical. All the marketing techniques in the world won’t help your lead nurturing campaign if you fail to respond to prospects quickly. The longer you wait, the less likely they are to convert.

Ultimately, the best way to nurture your leads is to personalize your marketing efforts to the needs of your target customers. Your leads are more likely to move down the sales funnel to an eventual purchase with consistent and relevant communication.

For more tips on growing your business with better marketing and sales techniques, reach out to your Dealer Relationship Manager today!