Most marketers today are focused on generating new leads. It’s how they are evaluated and, in many cases, held accountable to the revenue goals of the organization. However, instead of concentrating on the top of the marketing funnel, marketers today should be focusing on the customer lifecycle and how engaged customers are with their brand.
More important than generating new leads is nurturing the leads you already have. On average, nurtured leads result in a 20% increase in sales opportunities. Purchases made by nurtured leads are also 47% larger than purchases made by non-nurtured leads. Nurturing leads you already have is more profitable than acquiring new ones.
How you nurture those leads depends on where your customer (or prospect) is in your customer lifecycle. You are going to nurture and communicate with a lead that has barely interacted with your brand differently than one who has already been engaged with a member of your sales team. Your approach and content will differ greatly depending on their stage in the customer lifecycle.
What’s important to understand is the customer journey does not end when you “win” a new customer. Far from it. In fact, the point at which a prospect becomes a customer is just the beginning of the their journey with your brand. Marketing, along with client success and other client-facing teams, should continue to nurture customers after acquisition to further build on the relationship and increase engagement with your brand.
Right On Interactive helps organizations cultivate existing engagement into strong relationships and sales-ready opportunities. For more information on lead nurturing and the customer journey, check out Forming Lasting Customer Relationships and Marketing Content Strategy: The Lifecycle Journey.
