Inbound marketing does not stop once a lead is generated. An effective inbound marketing strategy should be implemented to follow and nurture each lead throughout the sales cycle. According to Gleanster Research, only 50% of qualified leads are ready to buy immediately.

Marketing strategies geared towards nurturing leads help take someone who is not ready to buy and nurtures that lead with tailored content based on their interests and position in the buying cycle. The process of nurturing should be timely, targeted, and personalized. There are several different methods of nurturing leads, but email is by far the most commonly used. According to a study done by HubSpot, nurturing leads through targeted emails generates an 8% click-through rate while untargeted email blasts yield a 3% click-through rate.

Successful lead nurturing is based on your lead intelligence. In order to craft a personalized and targeted nurturing campaign, you need to know who your lead is. Below is a list of must-haves needed for effective lead nurturing.

Name – Getting a leads name sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s the use of that leads name that is often forgotten about. It is important that you address each lead with their name in every lead nurturing email sent out. Addressing your leads by their name is a quick and easy first step to creating a more personalized experience.

Demographics – Gathering and analyzing the demographics of each lead, such as age, gender, and location, can provide insight into a leads needs and wants helping to better qualify each lead from the start. No need in spending as much time on a 13 year old inquiring about a product geared towards an older demographic.

Industry – Industry information is extremely helpful in determining the best nurture path for companies selling directly to other businesses. Particular products and services you offer may not be useful for certain industries. A lead nurturing campaign should be tailored by industry to provide vertical content and information related to only the industry in which they work.

Company Size – The needs of a company are often affected by the size of that company. A small business and an enterprise-sized company should not be grouped together and should be nurtured differently.

Job Title – A leads job title can tell you a lot about that lead and their role in the decision-making process. Would you market to the CEO of a company in the same way you would as a junior manager of the company?

Pages Viewed – What pages of your website has the lead visited? This information will help you to determine where in the buying cycle your lead is. You may be able to determine how close a lead is to buying and what their main objective is based on what content pages were viewed on your website

Social Media – Do your research and gather as much information about your lead as possible. Is the lead involved in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn? Who are they interacting with? Based on their questions and discussions, what are their needs? A leads involvement on social networking sites can help you to determine how tech savvy they are.

Conversion – What type of lead capture form was completed and how many? What information was provided and when was the form completed? A lead should be nurtured with more content on a specific topic based on their inquiry. A lead who took the time to submit more than one form may be a more serious prospect.

Communication History – How many times have you emailed the lead already? Is the lead involved in more than one lead nurturing campaign? How engaged has your lead been? How has the client reacted to the emails previously sent? It is important to monitor this information and not bombard your lead with multiple emails. Most of the information, mentioned above, can be easily obtained by lead capture forms on your website paired with Google Analytics and other similar insight tools. Understanding your leads will help you to personalize and segment all communication and develop a successful inbound marketing strategy.

220 Marketing specializes in Online Marketing and Management for industries such as Insurance Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, and Mortgage Marketing.