“What is lead nurturing” is one of the top 10 most frequently asked questions asked by our email marketing clients. Lead nurturing is also the main process required to turn an email subscriber into a customer, so it’s critical that you know what it is.

So in this post I want to answer this question plus describe the benefits, and how to get started with lead nurturing in less than 500 words.

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead Nurturing is not a new concept.  There’s actually tons of content all over the web explaining what is lead nurturing.  This is what actually makes the idea of lead nurturing confusing.

With so much content out there and so many different vendors selling software to support lead nurturing, the average business owner can quickly become confused.

I’ve found that this confusion often leads to analysis paralysis, and leaves many DIY email marketers deciding that doing nothing is their best option.  This is not the best option.

Simply stated, lead nurturing in the process of turning a follower into a fan, a fan into a subscriber, and a subscriber into a customer.

As you probably already know, every follower, fan and subscriber is not ready to buy.  Most of them barely know you.  So if you try to hard sell one of these prospects before they’re actually a sales ready lead, there is a good chance they will get turned off and you will lose them forever.

Never go for the close right after the first hello (click to tweet this).  Instead begin a courting process with lead nurturing to:

1. Get to know you followers and identify who’s a fan.

2. Plan out your communication’s with your fans and give them the opportunity to opt-in as a subscriber.

3. Segment your subscribers based on their interest and needs

4. Personalize your communications with your subscribers to build trust with them

5. Identify subscribers who are sales ready.

The Benefits of Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing has a number of benefits, but the main one is that it helps you generate new business that you would have otherwise lost.

While reading Marketo’s ebook titled the Definitive guide to Lead Nurturing I found two profound stats:

Stat 1:

According to Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, up to 95 percent of qualified prospects on your Web site are there to research and are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep, but as many as 70 percent of them will eventually buy a product from you — or your competitors.

Stat 2:

According to DemandGen Report, on average, nurtured leads produce a 20 percent increase in sales opportunities versus nonnurtured leads

Getting Started with Lead Nurturing

To get started with lead nurturing first stop thinking of social media as a sales channel, only losers sell on social media. Read this post to understand why this is so, and learn how to instead use content marketing as your platform to start nurturing your leads.