As an e-commerce business, it’s not enough that you’re able to generate leads—you also need a strategy that will nurture them into becoming actual customers.

A study conducted by Marketing Sherpa notes that 73% of leads are typically not ready to make a purchase after they initially give you their pertinent details such as email or contact numbers. Because of this, most e-commerce companies assume that they need to be more aggressive with their approach to convince leads, which unfortunately could result only to a lead getting turned off and refusing to do more business with you. According to CMO Council, this kind of mistake costs companies at least $1 trillion annually.

There’s no doubt that lead nurturing will take time and effort. And if you haven’t incorporated this into your marketing strategy, there’s no better time than today. Here’s how you can get started—

1. Define what a lead is for your company

It’s important to distinguish that the definition of leads for different companies can vary, so you have to define clearly what they are for you so you know when to begin the lead nurturing process.

Typically, a lead is defined as someone who has responded to any of your marketing efforts. It can be a click from a paid advertisement, or a reply or sign-up via direct mail. This then can signify as a sign that this particular lead is ready to enter the sales process and is, therefore,  ready to be pitched.

Keep in mind however that this isn’t necessarily the case for all companies. Some may want to define a lead as someone who expressed clear interest in doing business via a more concrete step like signing up and providing their contact details. Others could define it as customers who have spent a particular amount of time on their site, or who have abandoned their carts.

2. Detail the lead management process

A big part of the lead nurturing process involves getting to know how the leads are managed as they move through the conversion funnel. This starts by sitting down with the necessary team members in charge of your marketing and sales teams so you can discuss and talk about how you can best handle the leads. This should include a conversation about how you can attract their attention, how you can engage them, how you can follow up if they show interest, and what criteria must be met so that they ultimately enter the lead nurturing stage.

3. Gather comprehensive data on your leads

To properly create and implement a lead nurturing program, you need to get to know your potential leads. This involves learning about your buyers and audience and familiarizing yourself with their mindset. Why? Because you want to know how you can best serve their needs through every stage of the conversion process.

This can be done by interviewing customers and prospects, talking to your sales teams and customer service teams, reviewing keywords used by your audience to learn what they search for, and monitoring their activities on social media.

Armed with this information, you can now tailor your lead nurturing techniques to their specific behaviors, needs and concerns, making your effort more relevant.

4. Create a lead nurturing content program

The critical thing to remember here is to keep it simple. At the initial stage of execution of your lead nurturing program, you don’t want to get bogged down by complications that you fail to execute.

Bear in mind that there are numerous platforms that you can utilize for your lead nurturing program. This can include your website, your blog, your advertising efforts, or email, to name a few. The key thing is to identify a clear message that you want to communicate and set up a content timeline so that you can pace the best way to get your message across.

Most marketers tend to favor email as a way to deliver the message of their lead nurturing programs. Email has been shown to be very effective because of its ability to quickly connect and reach leads. In addition, it statistically delivers the highest ROI of any marketing tactic used today.

5. Track and measure your efforts to effectively analyze results

All your efforts have to be measurable and to do that you have to be able to track your campaigns. Look into how you can measure the leads that come in, how many move on to the sales part of your conversion funnel, and how many have been filtered to go through your lead nurturing program.

Objectively evaluating the results of your efforts help you determine if this is a process that’s worth continuing. If your results show that leads are actually converting, you can now focus on fine-tuning the specific elements of your lead generation and nurturing process to ensure that you maintain the results.

Final note—

An effective lead nurturing program takes time to implement and even more time to measure. So it will need focus and dedication from the people involved. But trust us, if you manage to implement it correctly, all your effort will be worth it.

If you want to learn how you can generate more leads and nurture them, get in touch with us today.

And if you have any questions or clarifications regarding this topic, feel free to leave a comment below.