Leads are important to all businesses. Without leads, there are no sales. A lead is simply a customer, or a potential customer. So, how does a brand find leads and ultimately get the sale? Through effective lead strategies for generation and nurturing!
There can be some confusion around the difference between lead generation and lead nurturing, but it’s vital to use effective lead strategies properly for each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Keep reading to get more knowledge on the key differences between lead generation and lead nurturing, as well as some effective lead strategies for each.
Lead Generation vs. Lead Nurturing
Both lead generation and lead nurturing play important, but distinctive roles throughout the sales process. To get the best return on investment (ROI) for marketing efforts, a brand should use effective lead strategies for both generation and nurturing to support goals throughout the sales funnel.
- Lead generation – Effective lead strategies for generation fill the top of yourfunnel with customers becoming aware of and then interested in your product. Targeted generation tactics can drive potential customers to your website, landing page or other owned media channels. Once there, you can capture customer information including name, email, phone, location and more.
- Lead nurturing – Once you have customer information, your brand can move to effective lead strategies for nurturing, which will help guide customers through the remaining stages of the sales funnel through to action (purchase).
Marketing for lead generation and nurturing
Marketing plays an important role in both lead generation and lead nurturing, connecting audiences with the right message at the right time. Marketers help brands from the beginning – identifying target audiences, developing a brand voice and image, creating several campaigns and content that will speak to the target as they work their way through the various stages of the sales funnel, as well as researching and spending budget in appropriate places to deliver targeted messaging.
Effective lead strategies for both
When working through lead generation and lead nurturing campaigns, brands should consider ways to implement effective lead strategies. One way is to employ ladders such as the maximizing ROI ladder, integrated approach ladder, aligning goals ladder and engagement ladder optimization to reach various KPIs.
- Maximizing ROI ladder
Lead generation: Focus on channels and targeted generation tactics that provide the best return on investment (ROI). This involves analyzing and optimizing the cost-effectiveness of various lead generation methods, such as paid advertising, content marketing and social media campaigns.
Lead nurturing: Allocate resources to nurture leads efficiently, ensuring that the efforts invested in lead nurturing result in a higher conversion rate. - Integrated approach ladder
Lead generation: Employ a strategy combining various channels and targeted generation tactics to reach potential leads. This could involve integrating digital and traditional marketing channels.
Lead nurturing: Create a seamless and integrated experience for leads as they move through the sales funnel. Connect marketing and sales efforts to ensure consistency in messaging and engagement.
- Aligning goals ladder
Lead generation: Ensure that the goals of the lead generation team align with the overall business objectives.
Lead nurturing: Align the goals of marketing and sales teams to facilitate a smoother handoff of leads. Common goals may include increasing conversion rates. - Engagement ladder optimization
Lead generation: Optimize engagement at various stages of the buyer’s journey, tailoring content and interactions to meet the specific needs and interests of leads at different points throughout the sales funnel.
Lead nurturing: Continuously optimize the engagement strategy to keep leads interested and moving through the sales funnel.
Synergy between generation and nurturing
There is undeniable synergy between lead generation and lead nurturing. You truly can’t have one without the other. If you take time, energy and budget to generate leads and drive customers to fill out a form and then don’t follow through getting back to them, that lead is lost (along with the sale). On the flip side, without targeted generation tactics and effective lead strategies in place, there will be no leads to nurture and the pipeline will be empty. With targeted generation tactics and effective lead strategies, customers will flow seamlessly through the sales funnel from Awareness all the way to Action.
Working together to deliver results
While different, there’s no doubt that lead generation and lead nurturing techniques work together across a comprehensive marketing plan, guiding customers through the sales funnel. Targeted generation tactics will drive customers to provide their information, and effective lead strategies will support the synergy between lead generation and lead nurturing. To make the most of your marketing efforts, it’s important to implement methods in both areas to support sales and help customers find value in your brand.
The experts at Beyond Fifteen are here to help you with proven lead generation and lead nurturing techniques that guide customers through the sales funnel to conversion. Connect with us to learn more!