Nurturing is an English word that means “nurturing” or “nurturing,” and is a word often used in business situations to mean “nurturing customers.” This time, we will introduce the benefits of nurturing, how to carry out nurturing, and specific techniques.
What is nurturing?
Nurturing is an English word that means “nurturing” or “nurturing.” In business, it is commonly used to mean “customer development.”
Nurturing has different patterns depending on what kind of customers it targets. The main types of nurturing include those targeting new customers, existing customers, and those targeting loyal customers.
So, let’s take a look at the nurturing pattern and the difference between lead generation and lead qualification, which are sometimes confused with nurturing.
Nurturing new and existing customers
Nurturing new customers means turning new customers into repeat customers who buy from you again and again.
In marketing, it is important to acquire new customers, but it is also important to secure (keep) customers. It is believed that it takes less effort to retain customers who have already purchased and develop them into repeat customers than to acquire new customers.
In addition, nurturing existing customers is the process of developing existing customers into good customers. Some existing customers may spend time without building a bond with your company, such as by infrequently making purchases or not using your products or services much after making a purchase.
By continuing to engage with customers after acquiring them, you can strengthen the bond with your company. This will increase your chances of becoming a loyal customer.
Nurturing good customers
Preferred customers are those who repeatedly purchase your company’s products and services, renew their contracts, and contribute to your sales. If your LTV (lifetime value) is high, you can say that you are a good customer.
It is likely that you already have a good relationship with your best customers, but by nurturing them, you can build a good relationship over the long term.
If you nurture your best customers, there is a possibility that they will conduct promotional activities with other parties. You may recommend a product or service to an acquaintance or friend, saying, “I’ve been using it for a long time, and it’s good,” or an acquaintance or friend of a good customer may say, “I like that,” and ask a good customer about a product or service. .
Additionally, nurturing your best customers can prevent them from switching to other companies. Some of your best customers may feel stuck in a rut with your products or services, and may feel that they would be better off using another product.
As part of nurturing, you can regularly introduce new products, explain their effects and new ways to use them, and hold workshops and information sessions. Nurturing can help you retain your best customers.
Difference between lead nurturing and lead generation
A lead is a prospective customer. Acquiring potential customers is called “lead generation,” and nurturing potential customers acquired through lead generation is called “lead nurturing.”
The goal of lead nurturing is to turn prospects into more qualified leads. However, lead nurturing does not end once you develop a highly qualified prospect. The next goal is to develop them into customers, and then to make them even better customers, so it is necessary to carry out continuous nurturing.
Lead generation and continuous lead nurturing are essential in marketing activities. Discovering and nurturing the right potential customers affects not only your products and services, but also the growth and future of your company.
Difference between lead nurturing and lead qualification
Lead qualification is the process of selecting and narrowing down potential customers who have a high probability of purchasing (=high probability). Rather than conducting uniform nurturing for prospective customers, it is more efficient to nurture repeat customers and good customers by conducting nurturing tailored to the potential of each prospective customer.
The company approaches potential customers in the following order:
1. Lead generation
2. Lead nurturing
3. Lead Qualification
Both stages are important elements for future customer development. In particular, lead qualification, which accurately assesses a prospective customer’s distance to purchase, holds the key to the success of lead nurturing, so it must be carried out carefully and carefully.
Lead qualification focuses on a prospect’s actions to determine their likelihood of making a purchase.
For example, you can achieve more accurate lead qualification by focusing on the following points:
Three reasons why nurturing is required
Nurturing is an important element in marketing. The reasons for this include:
1. Diversification of customer values and choices
2. Necessity of medium- to long-term marketing measures
3. Changes in the era where customers collect information themselves
Let’s take a look at each reason.
1. Diversification of customer values and choices
In today’s society, where customers’ values and choices are diversifying, there is a need for approaches tailored to each individual customer.
Nurturing involves implementing training activities that reflect the customer’s purchase history, purchase frequency, actions taken by the company, and actions taken by the company, making it possible to approach each customer more appropriately.
Another reason why nurturing is necessary is that it becomes easier to build relationships of trust with customers when they recognize that this approach is right for them.
2.Need for medium- to long-term marketing measures
It takes a certain amount of time for customers to decide whether to purchase or implement a product or service. There are many customers who take the time to carefully examine products and services, take advantage of samples and trial campaigns, and proceed cautiously to purchase.
Therefore, large-scale promotions such as TV commercials and newspaper advertisements may have an impact on customers, but may not be the deciding factor in purchasing.
Nurturing is a medium- to long-term marketing strategy that takes time to develop customers. It is necessary to be close to the customer’s decision-making process and develop them into good customers.
3. Changes in the era where customers collect information themselves
The spread of the Internet and faster communication speeds have made it easier for customers to obtain information about products and services than before. When choosing a product or service, people have started to make full use of the Internet to gather information, compare it, and choose the one that suits them best.
As a result, the purchase process has become longer than before. Therefore, companies are now required to provide more useful information to their customers. By implementing nurturing, customers will be able to choose products and services more voluntarily.
Three benefits of nurturing
Nurturing has three benefits:
1. Sales activities become more efficient
2. Follow-up know-how can be systemized
3. Effectively utilize hidden customer information
We will explain the benefits of each.
1. Sales activities become more efficient
In nurturing, customers are categorized by specific criteria (number of purchases, frequency, age, etc.) and appropriate approach methods are implemented all at once using MA tools. This enables efficient sales activities that are optimized for each customer.
When carrying out lead nurturing, it is common for the marketing department to take an appropriate approach depending on the prospective customer’s distance to purchase, and then hand over the approach to sales personnel once the accuracy is sufficiently high.
Since salespeople only sell to leads that have been sufficiently nurtured as potential customers, sales activities with a high success rate can be achieved.
2. Follow-up know-how can be systemized
By accumulating long-term customer follow-up know-how, you will be able to systemize your operations.
By building your business as a system, even new employees with little marketing or sales experience will be able to efficiently respond to customers backed by data.
If systemization is successful, the time it takes to develop internal human resources can be shortened and corporate activities can be made more efficient.
3. You can effectively utilize hidden customer information
In nurturing, customer and prospective customer information is centrally managed and utilized using CRM tools (customer information management tools).
CRM tools allow you to manage a lot of customer information at once, without relying on salespeople’s personal memories and records. If you approach a lost or dormant deal at the right time, there is a possibility that the deal will be closed.
If you pay attention to the fact that you already have some information about lost or dormant customers, you can say that they are more efficient sales targets than new customers.
4 steps to carry out nurturing
Nurturing will be carried out in the following four steps.
1. Get potential customers
2. Organize your customers
3. Create content
4. Implement measures
We will explain each step.
1. Get potential customers
The first step is to acquire potential customers. Perform lead generation and acquire high-quality prospects.
You can also centrally manage information about your existing potential customers. For example, you can organize all the business cards you receive and information about potential customers who request information. At this time, it is important to check phone numbers, email addresses, names, addresses, etc. to ensure there are no duplicates in the list.
No matter how appropriate your approach is, if you repeat the same approach over and over again, it will give potential customers the impression that you are approaching them mechanically, making it difficult to build a friendly relationship.
2. Organize customer information
Organize information on not only potential customers, but also customers with whom you already have business transactions. Make sure to centrally manage each department or person in charge so that you can check for any omissions or duplications in the list.
Once managed centrally, you can categorize your customers based on the relationships you have built with them and the information you have obtained.
We also analyze potential customers’ distance to purchase.
3. Create content
For example, if the relationship consists of merely exchanging business cards or browsing a website, it cannot be said that the distance to purchase is close.
You will need nurturing content, such as inviting people to free seminars or providing more detailed content on owned media.
We create appropriate content for each group of customers and prospective customers, categorized by customer relationship, customer attributes, distance to purchase, etc.
When creating content, consider effects such as whether the information is what customers/prospective customers are looking for, whether viewing the content will stimulate their desire to purchase or use it, and whether it will strengthen their sense of trust in the company. That is important.
4. Implement measures
Provide the created content to each group of customers and prospective customers. Choose an appropriate approach to provide content such as article content, email newsletters, and DMs to each group.
It’s not just a one-time approach. Continuously create content and increase touch points with customers and prospects. If your approach results in responses such as views, opens, and replies, you may need to change the group accordingly.
For example, when a prospect’s distance to purchase becomes shorter, they can be moved to a group of high-quality prospects and passed on to a sales representative.
Download our free, step-by-step guide on how to get started with marketing. Please refer to the following.
Four points for successful nurturing
For successful nurturing, pay attention to the following points:
1. Set nurturing goals
2. Collaborate between departments
3. Follow up with each customer
4. Incorporate case studies and reviews into your content
I will explain each point.
1. Set nurturing goals
There are two main types of nurturing: those aimed at strengthening ties with customers, and those aimed at fostering purchasing intent. It is important to be clear about how you approach this goal.
Nurturing, which aims to strengthen ties with customers, places emphasis on communication with customers and implements approaches to gain customer trust. Earning trust cannot be achieved overnight, so a continuous approach is required.
On the other hand, nurturing, which aims to cultivate customers’ desire to purchase, emphasizes the merits, uniqueness, and differences of products and services from competitors’ products and services.
Even if you can appeal widely, if the information you provide is unreliable, you cannot expect the training to be effective.
In order to show that you are a reliable source of information and information, be sure to include evidence in the information you provide and continuously share customer feedback.
2. Collaborate between departments
Nurturing needs to be carried out in an organized manner, not only by the marketing department, but also by coordinating with the sales department and other departments. By collaborating between departments, you can make the right approach to the prospects and customers you have cultivated at the right time.
In order to promote collaboration between departments, it is important that nurturing content is understood by all relevant departments, and that information on prospective customers and customers is properly accessible to everyone.
3. Follow up with each customer
Nurturing is a method of centrally managing customer information, appropriately grouping prospective customers and customers, and approaching them.
Implementing a collective approach not only increases marketing efficiency, but also makes it easier to move on to the next approach.
However, if you approach them all at once, you may not be able to get closer to your customers. Build good relationships by conducting appropriate follow-up for each customer.
4. Incorporate case studies and reviews into your content
Incorporating testimonials from customers who have actually purchased or used a product or service (so-called “customer testimonials”), testimonials, and implementation examples in your content will make it easier for readers to imagine purchasing or implementing the product.
For example, if your content only explains the benefits of your product or service, potential customers or customers will think that it’s only natural to praise your product or service because it’s your own. Therefore, add examples and reviews from customers who have actually used your products and services to your content. This will give your content objectivity, making it easier to gain the trust of potential customers and customers.
It is important to improve your nurturing skills in order to motivate prospective customers and customers to purchase, use, and introduce your products, and encourage them to take action. Please watch the video below to learn about nurturing skills in each area.
Five effective measures for nurturing
There are five effective nurturing measures:
1. SNS transmission
2. Mail magazine, step mail, direct mail
3. Tracking web behavior
4. White paper
5. Seminars/Webinars
We will also introduce the features, benefits, and points to keep in mind for each.
1. SNS transmission
Another method is to provide information and nurture using SNS such as Instagram and Twitter.
Viewers of SNS posts can easily click “like”, add comments, and react to posts, which brings them closer psychologically to the sender.
Additionally, posts on SNS can be easily shared, and “likes” from others can be easily visualized, making it easy for information to reach not only existing customers but also new customers.
On SNS, try to post short sentences, photos, videos, etc. that will capture the attention of your customers, and send them regularly.
2. Mail magazine, step mail, direct mail
Nurturing can also be considered as sending out e-mail newsletters on a regular basis to deliver detailed information on new products and services and how to use existing products and services to potential customers and customers. If you provide not only information about the products and services your company provides, but also trend information and information about related genres, you will be able to further attract customers’ interest.
It is common to send email newsletters on a regular basis, but if you send them too frequently, there is a risk that you will be unsubscribed. Check customer trends frequently and send messages at an appropriate frequency.
You can also choose to send messages irregularly. If you link it to a large-scale promotion before a new product or service is released, you can increase customer expectations.
Sending emails set in a scenario to customers who have taken action is called a “step email.” By choosing step mail, you will be able to send information that is more tailored to prospective customers and customers, making it easier to strengthen your connections.
In addition to email, paper direct mail such as postcards and envelopes are also effective methods for nurturing. Especially in BtoC marketing targeting general consumers, nurturing methods using paper media such as postcards, catalogs, and flyers are still considered to be in high demand.
It depends on your target audience, but if you’re trying to appeal to people who don’t seem to collect information on the internet, you might want to consider using paper direct mail as a nurturing method.
3. Web behavior tracking
Web behavior tracking refers to tracking customer behavior on the Internet and understanding customer needs.
Analyze the behavior of users who access your company’s homepage, owned media, e-commerce site, etc., including inflow routes, landing pages, leaked pages, converted pages, and viewing time to approach potential customers and customers and develop products. I will make use of it.
For example, if a page that introduces a product or service gets a lot of access, but there are also a lot of outflow users, it is likely that there is no link between product and service introduction and sales, or that it is difficult to understand.
By changing the page structure and design, you may be able to strengthen your ties with customers and develop potential customers into customers.
It is important to regularly track web behavior and analyze user behavior. Determine appropriate measures from the tracking analysis results and implement more effective nurturing.
4.White paper
A white paper is a document that provides useful information to prospective customers and customers, and is usually made available for download by having them send an email requesting information or by creating an email form.
White papers not only provide useful information to customers, but also generally serve to promote the product. By receiving highly specialized and meaningful information from a white paper and gaining knowledge about the product, customers may naturally solidify their purchase intent.
5.Seminar/Webinar
Holding seminars and webinars is also effective as a nurturing measure. By holding events on topics related to your products and services, you can promote your own products and services while providing your customers with useful and highly specialized information.
For example, if you are a real estate company that sells condominiums for investment, you can choose topics that are likely to interest customers, such as “the future prospects of real estate investment” and “how to choose investment properties,” and invite experts as lecturers to hold seminars. Or you could host a webinar. Holding events for free will make it easier for customers to participate and promote nurturing.
However, in order to hold a seminar, it is necessary to secure a venue. Additionally, since only potential customers and customers who are close to the venue are targeted, it becomes an inefficient strategy for niche topics.
When targeting more prospects and customers, consider online webinars. Although there is a cost to distribute it, it is a less burdensome method in total because it reduces the cost of securing a venue and deploying staff for seminars.
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3. CTB analysis
We will introduce the characteristics and strengths of each analysis method.
1.RFM analysis
RFM analysis is a method of grouping customers by focusing on the following three items.
Recency (last purchase date)
- Frequency (purchase frequency)
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Monetary (purchase amount)
RFM analysis uses purchase history as the basis for grouping, so it can be said to be an effective method for existing customers. We comprehensively judge the most recent purchase date, purchase frequency, and purchase amount, and divide the items into groups based on their degree of contribution to sales.
For example, you may be able to increase customer satisfaction by offering benefits to groups that make high contributions. Also, by disclosing information about benefits offered to high-contribution groups, you may be able to motivate customers in medium to low contribution groups to make purchases.
Grouping is not the only goal in RFM analysis. By focusing on the purchasing element, it is also an analysis for devising an appropriate approach. Let’s identify the points that stimulate customers’ desire to purchase and find a highly accurate approach.
2. Decyl analysis
Like RFM analysis, decile analysis is also a method of grouping customers by focusing on their contribution to sales. Decile analysis ranks customers and assigns them to 10 groups.
After dividing into groups, we analyze the top groups that contribute significantly to sales. For example, if only the top three groups are driving sales, implement an approach that focuses on just those three groups. By doing so, you will be able to carry out more efficient sales activities.
Decile analysis is also an analysis method that targets existing customers, as it requires that they have already purchased the product. For prospective customers who have not yet made a purchase, use the following CTB analysis to group them.
3.CTB analysis
CTB analysis is a method of grouping prospective customers and customers based on the following three indicators.
Category
- Taste
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Brand
Find out what prospective customers and customers find attractive about your company’s products and services. For example, consider a company that sells casual wear by mail order. For each potential customer/customer, we analyze whether they are attracted to the “casual wear” or “mail order” categories, or whether they are attracted to “casual” tastes and brand names.
After the analysis, we divide them into a group that is attracted to the category, a group that is attracted to taste, and a group that is attracted to the brand. In this case, there are two possible categories (casual wear and mail order), so it would be more natural to separate them into separate groups.
Once you know what your interests are, it will be easier to decide how to approach your marketing. If you have a group of customers who are attracted to casual tastes, you may be able to provide them with information on how to wear everyday clothes and information on casual restaurants and cafes. We may also be able to suggest accessories such as shoes and bags that go well with casual wear.
Two tools to improve nurturing efficiency
Nurturing is an act that increases the efficiency of marketing and sales. However, if you provide nurturing tailored to various factors such as characteristics, interests, and sales contribution of potential customers and customers, the number of groups will increase, and the time and effort required for nurturing will increase.
Therefore, in order to accurately approach prospective customers and customers, it is recommended to introduce tools that allow you to carry out nurturing efficiently. Tools that can be used for nurturing include:
1. CRM tools
2. MA Tools