The B2B sales cycle is often long, especially when it comes to high-value products or services. These big-ticket deals don’t close overnight.
That’s why lead nurturing is essential. If you’re not consistently staying on your prospects’ radar, they may forget about your brand entirely.
This article will share some b2b nurture campaign examples for you to consider, as well as a bit more information on how to do it.
(Need some lead nurturing advice from a sales expert? Book a free 15 minute strategy session with the CEO of SalesBread, Jack Reamer.)
What is lead nurturing?
Without a lead-nurturing marketing strategy, you are going to struggle to convert your leads into sales.
Lead nurturing is basically engaging and building relationships with potential prospects at different stages of the sales funnel to get them to convert and buy.
Nurturing campaigns make sure that this happens. The most successful lead nurturing campaigns rely on great communication and marketing efforts.
Why do you have to nurture leads?
Zoho Campaigns explains why lead nurturing is important…
It says: “Your website may be a wonderful platform that provides downloadable eBooks, but it does not mean that every person downloading eBooks will become a prospect or customer.”
A report from Gleanster Research says that around half of the leads interested in buying do not commit immediately. Lead nurturing is all about understanding the needs and behaviors of potential buyers, providing them with solutions to streamline their needs, and finally, making them customers.”
At SalesBread, we once had a potential client who wasn’t yet ready to sign up with us for our LinkedIn lead generation service.
We kept in touch by sending regular monthly emails, and a year later, he saw our email and reached out to us. He was ready to hire. This process took a year, but because he saw something from us every month, he didn’t forget about our services.
Stats on lead nurturing
When it comes to B2B marketing, lead nurturing is of utmost importance.
Here are some stats to show why:
- 80% of new leads never convert to sales.
- 96% of visitors who view your website are not ready to buy.
- Lead nurturing emails that are personalized get 4 -10 times more the reply rate than stand-alone emails.
- Companies that are good at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads.
- Email marketing and content marketing are the two most effective lead nurturing tactics.
- 49% of B2B marketers say that articles are the most effective content type for moving leads through the sales funnel.
Here are some more stats from HubSpot on lead nurturing.
- Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. (Source: InsideSales.com)
- 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. (Source: Marketing Sherpa)
- A whopping 68% of B2B organizations have not identified their funnel. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
- 57% of B2B organizations identify ‘converting qualified leads into paying customers’ as a top funnel priority. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
BUT…
- 65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
AND…
- 79% of B2B marketers have not established lead scoring. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
As you can see, if you don’t have a solid lead nurturing strategy in place, you are going to miss out on sales.
It’s not just about lead generation, but rather consistent engagement that will move the prospect to buy.
What should your lead nurture process be?
1. Always define your target market
At SalesBread, we always make sure to build an ideal list of targets. We do this by looking at patterns of previous prospects who have purchased the service or product within the past 6 months.
By looking at common attributes of buyers, you will be able to build the right list of prospects, therefore ensuring sales.
Some basic attributes are:
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Company Size
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Industry
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Location
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Employee Title
Once you find the pattern, build a list of those who need what you’re selling.
2. Segment your list and incorporate lead scoring
You can then categorize your buyer personas.
At SalesBread we usually segment our list into 2 categories.
It could be by “employee title” or even “industry”.
If you are new to lead generation, especially in the world of LinkedIn outreach or cold email, try not to make your list greater than 500 prospects per segment.
By segmenting your prospects, you have a chance to increase engagement and the relevance of your lead nurturing campaigns.
Lead scoring allows you to reach out to your HOT leads first and keep the medium prospects on your list warm. Don’t go after every lead, but rather focus on leads that will be more likely to convert. With warmer leads, ensure that you add them to lead nurture email campaigns.
3. Create personalized content
When it comes to nurture programs, you have to include personalized content.
If you send out thousands of spam emails or generic messages, you will most likely have tons of people unsubscribe from your mailing list.
You have to create personalized content for your prospects.
For example, with our LinkedIn and cold email campaigns, we always mention something personal about the prospect.
Something that we can compliment them on; Perhaps they were featured on a podcast or wrote an interesting article? If they have, then be sure to include that in your messages.
You can also send out drip email campaigns that start off with a welcome email, and then emails that move the prospect down the sales funnel, encouraging them to buy.
Remember to always mention how you can solve the prospect’s pain points, and never be a sleazy salesperson who bombards the prospect with “buy now material.”
On a side note: Should you use marketing automation?
We only recommend automation if you have a high reply rate. If your reply rate is low, rather send real-time, human-written emails, as this will encourage engagement. People can tell when a robot has automated a message, or whether or not it’s just spam.
Therefore, before using automation tools, get your reply rates up.
4. Make use of A/B testing
Testing your campaigns and optimizing them it’s also an important aspect of lead nurturing.
By doing this, you can see what works and what doesn’t, and can change your strategy accordingly.
Testing allows you to see which time of day is the best to send out emails or LinkedIn messages, or even which messages are working and which aren’t.
If you include each of the above steps when finding new customers, you can be sure that they will slowly but surely move down the sales funnel and complete the buying process.
What are the best B2B lead nurturing channels?
Content marketing for effective b2b lead nurturing
When it comes to content marketing, you can share things such as:
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Blog articles,
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Webinars
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E-books
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Whitepapers
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Engagement emails to capture your buyer’s attention.
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Marketers can also make use of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Email marketing strategy
As mentioned above, drip campaigns can be a great way to lead prospects through the sales cycle. Monthly email newsletters or event-based emails can also help to nurture your leads.
Email newsletters are a great way to keep in the minds of your readers. For example, if you’re trying to sell courses, helpful weekly or monthly emails will help remind prospects of your services.
For example, Psychiatry Redefined often shares helpful webinars, some free, some not… With their readers.
They list many different courses, so that if something piques your interest, you could easily sign up.
At SalesBread, we also share a weekly newsletter, where we discuss LinkedIn outreach strategies, share cold email example teardowns, videos, and even LinkedIn lead generation courses.
Retargeting campaigns
If you have a list of prospects, and some don’t reply to your campaign or they ask you to contact them at a later stage, you could then add them to a retargeted campaign later on.
This could be a month or 2 down the line, or even six months down the line, depending on their wishes.
Social media retargeting campaigns
LinkedIn is an ideal platform for nurturing B2B companies. This is where like-minded businesses go to connect and talk about all things business-related. You could even use things such as LinkedIn ads to retarget prospects.
Google ads might be a little pricey, or PPC campaigns, but it’s also a great way to get people interested in your product again.
Perhaps they are busy Googling something, and then your ad pops up, reminding them to purchase.
Lead Nurture Email Campaign Examples
SalesBreads email sign-up for website visitors
When a visitor lands on our webpage, we have a pop-up that asks if they would like to subscribe to our emails. This has been quite successful, our metrics reveal that we have daily signups. These leads are then added to nurture campaigns.
PRO TIP: Have a great landing page for your website. It’s important to ask the visitor to sign up for a newsletter, or you could even offer something free (Such as email templates…)
When you do this, the prospect needs to enter their email address. Because of the provided info, you can then continue to nurture them as a lead via email.
Email drip campaigns
How do drip campaigns work? Well, here’s an example: Imagine you walk into a bookstore, and someone behind the counter says, “Hey, if you’re interested, we can send you a few emails with our favorite books, author interviews, and maybe a discount or two.” You say yes. Great! That’s the beginning of a drip campaign.
A drip campaign is just a series of emails that get sent out automatically over time, usually triggered by something the person did, like signing up for a newsletter, downloading a freebie, or buying a product. It’s called a “drip” because the emails trickle out, rather than flooding someone’s inbox all at once.
Each email has a purpose: To educate, build trust, share value, or move someone closer to taking an action, like buying, signing up for a product demo, or engaging more.
LinkedIn Lead Nurturing
LinkedIn is a great platform for lead generation. It is also an easy way to develop lead nurturing.
How?
Well, once a prospect replies to our connection request invite, we will always send a follow up.
If you are a regular reader of our blogs, you will know that SalesBread uses personalization in each and every message that we send out.
By personalizing LinkedIn messages, you can easily create warm leads, lead nurturing, and engagement.
Use Case Studies That Inspire action and nurture future customers
How Successful Lead Nurture Campaigns Use Case Studies to Build Trust
Case studies are more than just success stories, they’re real-world proof that your product or services deliver results.
Sharing detailed stories from loyal customers helps your target audience visualize the value of your solution.
For example, you could share an educational email that shows a brief customer success story. This can be the first step in sparking interest from potential customers.
This kind of email content shows your future customers that others in their shoes have found success with your product.
Email Flow Example: Adding Case Studies into Your Engagement Email Strategy
Carefully placing case studies into your email flow isn’t just a good idea; it’s one of the most effective practices for building credibility.
You could send a free trial email with a “See how [customer name] increased revenue in 30 days” subject line. This is a type of email that encourages engagement from different leads, whether they’re just exploring or ready to talk to sales teams.
Marketing Automations That Help You Plan and Scale Nurture Campaigns
Using Automations to Personalize for Potential Customers
A good plan for nurturing leads always includes smart marketing automation.
Why?
Because they let your marketing team tailor messaging for different leads, delivering the right message at the right time.
With email personalization and behavior triggered actions, you can automatically send an educational email when someone downloads a guide, or a product demo offer when they view a pricing page.
Automation and Sales Alignment: Moving Toward Conversion
Automated nurture flows don’t replace your sales teams, they actually help empower them.
When you send personalized content to intent leads, automations allow your head of marketing to ensure each lead gets exactly what they need in their buying journey.
This results in better handoffs and a higher chance of converting future customers into loyal customers.
Some examples from other companies
Netflix re-subscription campaign
Some people might cancel a subscription to your product or service for whatever reason. But adding them to a re-subscription campaign is a great way to create engagement, as well as make it easy for them to just resubscribe with a click of a button.
Drifts Welcome Email
The nice thing about the above B2B email is that it’s short and to the point. It also directs the reader to different blogs on their website that are helpful.
Plus, there is a clear CTA at the bottom.
How can I measure the success of my B2B nurture campaign?
You can measure the success of your B2B nurture campaign by tracking metrics such as:
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Number of prospects on your list
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Email open rates
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Reply rate
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Positive reply rate
Need some help?
If you have your nurture campaigns up and running, but aren’t quite getting the results you would like we would love to help.
Our outreach campaigns include lead nurturing.
How, you might ask?
Well, by following up on our cold email and LinkedIn outreach.
But also by using personalization and building the perfect list for you, so that you target the right people.
Therefore, moving them along the sales pipeline, through a positive buyer’s journey.
PS: If you’re not yet ready to partner up with us, no problem, we also offer free 15-minute strategy sessions.
