With so many misconceptions surrounding lead nurturing, it is all too easy to end up wasting time and resources on strategies that do not do any good at all. While lead generation does not have to be overly complicated, it can still cause some confusion when companies are not completely sure how to proceed with campaigns. To help you get a better idea of how to get more from your strategies, here are a few of the biggest lead nurturing misconceptions to look out for when moving forward with your campaigns.
Stay Clear of These Lead Nurturing Misconceptions
The biggest risk of lead nurturing misconceptions is that they can end up undoing all the good that nurturing brings by making you focus on the wrong goals or metrics. They can also lead to lead generation mistakes, which do even more harm to your results. To ensure that you get the best results, be sure to look out for any of these misconceptions.
1. Lead campaigns can be set and forgotten
If you prefer to set and forget, be warned that you may not see much in the way of results. As the name implies, nurturing is a process. You cannot set up a landing page or mailer series and then sit back and wait for conversion. Throughout the lead funnel, there are many steps that you can take to help to convert warm leads and even lukewarm leads into customers. The problem with setting and forgetting is that you could end up overlooking signs that lead may be ready to move forward or even that they may not be a good fit, after all. When you stay on top of your lead generation campaigns and proactively nurture leads, you will have far better success.
2. Nurturing stops after leads are handed to sales
The process does not end once leads are handed over to the sales team, either. A closely aligned marketing and sales effort is your best shot at taking leads home to the finish line. When leads are handed over without any strategy in place, there is a bigger chance of leads suddenly going cold or backtracking, especially if the transition is not handled smoothly with the help of a CRM and other strategies. Working with sales teams will help you continue to nurture, even after sales. This, in turn, helps to increase the chance of leads turning into lifetime customers rather than one-off sales.
3. New leads are all you need to succeed
Don’t assume that it is only the new leads that you need to think about. Customer acquisition is often treated as the holy grail of digital marketing. In reality, it costs far more in time, money and effort to create new customers. Retaining customers is far more effective on many levels. When you are only focused on new leads, you end up overlooking the value of strategies such as remarketing, cross-selling and upselling. Make sure that you look at the bigger picture and include a number of strategies that target new and existing leads.
Stay clear of these misconceptions and you will be able to get your lead nurturing efforts off the ground in a way that follows best practices.
