Lead generation is the marketing process of attracting and engaging potential customers for a service or product, mainly to create a sales journey. In contrast, lead nurturing focuses on developing leads that have already been captured into paying customers. Lead generation can be seen as a single event, while lead nurturing is a continuous journey. According to Invespcro, businesses that only engage in lead generation lose 80% of their leads, whereas those with a lead nurturing plan spend 33% less and achieve 50% more sales. Clearly, lead nurturing could be your key marketing strategy in 2017 as it helps turn your inbound traffic into actual sales.

Basically, lead nurturing is supposed to guide potential customers through the sales process while developing strong relationships at the same time. It would also interest you to note that lead nurturing results in 47% larger purchases per nurtured customers compared to non-nurtured customers.

The importance of lead nurturing

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Why is this strategy so effective?

The very fact that lead nurturing is meant to improve customer relationship and build company trust as well as product appeal means that customers are going to be more confident to pull out their wallets. It is an assurance to them that they are about to make the right choices. It is human nature to seek assurance wherever we are confronted with decisions.

But every lead need necessarily be nurtured

The downside of lead generation is that it results in greater workload. You are going to spend resources and money to nurture each of your lead; therefore, it is important that you sieve your leads right at the beginning of the process. For your lead nurturing process to be effective, you need to pinpoint who are going to be your hot prospects. Based on your leads behavioral and demographic data, you can use lead scoring tools and other parameters to separate hot leads from the cold ones. This will save you a lot of time and money.

The goal of developing lead nurturing strategy is to maximize your marketing efforts so that there is a positive impact throughout your marketing process. It is to ensure that you don’t lose any of the leads who can become a paying customer to the competition simply because you failed to offer the guidance, create awareness, supply information, provide inspiration or generate more interest on your products and services to your qualified leads. The cost of generating leads. If marketing were a transport system, the lead generation is getting customers into the bus while lead nurturing is transporting those customers to the right destinations.