Wednesday, March 30, 2016

6 Examples of Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Sometimes our impression of marketing tactics is more monolithic than the reality. Setting up a lead nurturing campaign in your marketing automation platform is usually about contacting prospects early in their journey and building a relationship with them as they come closer to purchase.



The expectation is that we learn more about our prospects through their actions, which lets marketers provide content that is more in line with their interests and expectations. Nurture means to care for, and a good nurture campaign can show that you care about prospects.



Nurture campaigns can actually serve different audiences with different goals, provided you set them up to maintain contact with the right profiles. The six examples below follow along as prospects become more connected to your company and the buying process, and ultimately become customers.



1. Welcome Campaign

It is a good practice to welcome new subscribers with a simple campaign. You can introduce the brand and let them know the benefits of subscribing to your list. You can also let them know what they can expect as next steps. Think of this as the top of your nurture funnel. Prospects have signed up for a list, or responded to an offer, and now it is up to you to learn more about them so they can opt-in to something else. That could be another offer or a more specific list. Again, this nurture is about learning more about them.



2. Education Campaign

This is a pretty standard nurture campaign and what most of us think about when we think about nurtures. The goal is to get the prospect ready to talk to sales. You need to engage prospects to learn more about them, while at the same time educate them about your products or services. Your value proposition can start to play a role here. Sharing relevant, educational content is the heart of this campaign. You can build this relationship by providing value.



3. Why Us Campaign

As you learn more about your prospects and their needs, you want to start making the case for how your solution can support those needs. Competitive differentiation points are a big part of this kind of nurture campaign. You want to reiterate your value proposition to make sure they understand “why us.” Case studies and testimonials are the perfect content to make these points for you.



4. Accelerate Campaign

As prospects continue to move through the buyer's process/journey/path, you reach a point where the process slows down. You can create a nurture campaign that removes roadblocks and can speed the purchase decision. These are the kinds of campaigns that need to be set up in conjunction with sales, as you want to make sure efforts are coordinated. Decision tools like ROI calculators are the kinds of things you want to send in this campaign.



You should have lots of information in a prospect's profile by this point, so you should have good sense of the resources that can help move this along. Maybe they keep going to the pricing page, or the support page. You want to help prospects get comfortable with their decision.



5 .New Customer Onboarding Campaign

An often-overlooked use of nurture campaigns is the ability to manage your customer onboarding. Welcome your new customers and thank them for their decision. No matter the type of product or service you offer, there is an identified path to success in onboarding. Provide these steps in a series of email. You can also provide answers to commonly asked questions and support options.



6. Customer Loyalty or Retention Campaign

Once you have a customer, you want to keep them happy. Set up an ongoing nurture campaign to support their retention. While you do want to continue to reiterate the benefits of their purchase, but you also still want to provide tips and tricks so they can continue to get the most out of your products or services. By running this campaign through your marketing automation platform, you have the ability to capture more activity data than you would otherwise. This could help alert you to a lack of activity that indicates they are an at risk customer.



These basic campaigns can help you think about how nurturing can be expanded beyond the simple “move them to sales” campaign. For lots more details, download our Lead Nurturing Guide.





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