• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 1, 2019

Wouldn’t it be great to jump right from lead generation to conversion? But there’s a little thing in the middle — nurturing. 

You may drive in a lead through email, TV or Google Ads. But the average conversion rate on Google paid ads is 3%, meaning that “97% of the people who see your ad aren’t converting,” writes Peter Koeppel, CEO of Koeppel Direct, in an article on the subject. 

The solution is to create relevant advertising materials for each state, Koeppel continues. He adds that 67% of marketers see increases in sales opportunities of 10% or more when employing lead nurturing, and that 15% reporting hikes of more than 30%.

Indeed, the best in class for lead marketing enjoy 50% more sales leads being generated, at a cost of 33% less per lead, he says. Overall, brands achieve 73% higher conversion rates “with content relevant to their stage of the buying process.”

So how do you steer people through the buying process? By providing “stage-appropriate content to provide prospects with necessary information to progress through the buyer’s journey,” Koeppel writes.

There are several stages to this:

• Awareness -- Noticing the need.
• Consideration -- Researching possible solutions.
• Decision -- Selecting the tool for fulfilling the need.

Each piece of content should correspond to one of those stages, the idea being to move the prospect to the next stage.

Email is a perfect way to deliver content at each juncture. But remember: personalized messages produce 6% higher revenue than those that are not personalized, Koeppel says. 

This requires segmentation: “Identify your core prospect at each stage of the buyer’s journey and apply segmentation to prospect lists base on buyer’s persona and behaviors,” Koeppel writes. 

Then there’s scheduling. Send triggered messages based on user behavior, but be careful to send only those that the prospect will value.

Koeppel also advises brands to experiment and test. He cites research showing that “.43% of marketers perform limited to no structured optimization tests within their email marketing and marketing automation.”