When you start your journey for a new product – like running shoes or a laptop – you don’t buy the first product you see, right?
No, you probably start by seeing what new styles or features are available, researching prices and technology, watching videos, and reading reviews.
You follow a certain strategy to see if a product deserves your trust.
B2B buyers are the same way. The journey might look a lot different and there are more people involved, but you still have to earn their trust using different strategies.
Like B2C, you’re living in a buyer’s market. Your B2Bs have more choices and resources than ever – the journey is in their control.
That’s why it’s important to empower leads rather than push them around. Lead nurturing tactics should focus on slowly earning trust through valuable content, personalization, and human conversations.
5 Lead Nurturing Tactics to Build Authority and Trust
When you meet a new friend or go on a first date, you typically look for red flags and green lights that signal someone’s a trustworthy person or not. Your leads run through a similar checklist.
Sure, everyone’s needs might look a little different, but you should make it as easy as possible for leads to find what they need and learn about your brand.
1. Create Content for Every Firmographic at Every Stage
Most B2Bs have adapted to changing expectations but 41% still don’t have a documented content marketing strategy.
You need consistent and valuable content if you want to empower your leads. It’s a personal choice for each brand to dictate their goals. However, some smart content goals include:
- PR materials to explain your company mission, values, and culture
- Informative blogs and eBooks to educate on your industry pain points and tips
- Thought leadership pieces to highlight the nuance you bring
- Use cases and case studies to show the value of your product or services
- Tutorials to help customers make the best use of your product
Notice anything? Each point on the list applies to a specific firmographic at a distinct stage of the sales process.
Keep in mind that content designed for one stage helps to empower buyers at every stage.
For example, a page filled with useful tutorial content like explainer videos, infographics, troubleshooting, and maintenance is usually designed to prevent customer churn. However, a lead might also notice the tutorials and note their value while deciding between your brand and a competitor.
2. Swap Lead Magnet Forms for Self-Nurturing Landing Pages
Lead magnet forms are dead. There’s just no way around it.
Think with Google estimates that 70% of all B2B searches happen on mobile devices. Forms are the opposite of mobile-friendly.
Look at it this way. Say you’re in the market for a new laptop, so you’re researching specifications from your phone, lounging on the couch. You click a link, but the website throws a form at you and says you have to fill it out if you want to access the blog.
Nine times out of 10, you’ll just hit the back button and try a new link. You don’t want some random site to have your email address.
Buyers agree and they carry the same attitude with them when they go to work.
Self-nurturing landing pages give leads a sample of your content. When they get to the bottom, they can either give you their email address or browse another blog recommended by the algorithms.
The AI satisfies the demand for bingeing relevant content and guides them down the sales funnel without confronting visitors with an intrusive form.
3. Use AI-Driven Content Hubs to Organize by Pain Point or Issue
B2Bs spend more time researching alone than contacting sales teams. However, 73% say they’re still pressed for time while they research and wish you would make your content easier to find.
An AI-driven content hub lets you organize your assets by pain point or vertical – which 68% and 58% say they’d love, respectively.
Buyers consume an estimated 13 pieces of content from a single vendor during the journey. You can either make it easy for buyers to find what they need or let them build trust in your competitor’s content. AI provides the former.
4. Create Personalized Email Journeys with Lead Nurturing Tools
Email is often one of the first marketing strategies businesses automate because it’s easy to implement and track.
Any modern email service provider should give you all the lead nurturing tools you need to personalize every subscriber’s journey.
Go back to the drawing board where you came up with buyer personas for firmographics, verticals, and stage of the sales funnel. Use these segments to create email campaign segments.
You’ll design a unique set of buyer journey emails to introduce leads gradually yet assertively to your brand. Stick with a single topic for each campaign. Using triggered emails and metrics, you can track the most active subscribers and place them into different categories based on engagement.
For example, you might start with a general email series for nonprofits but later segment the content by job role once a subscriber clicks a link in the first campaign.
5. Launch Genuine Conversations with Social Selling on Relevant Lead Nurturing Channels
Did you know some industries – specifically those in tech and software – see 50% of their revenue coming from social selling tactics?
People crave human interaction, especially now with everyone spending so much time indoors and away from events.
Use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other lead nurturing channels to build genuine conversations with your audience. LinkedIn offers a CRM feature you can incorporate in the Sales Navigator to track your social selling progress.
For a deeper dive, figure out where your leads hang out on Reddit and participate in conversations there (without outright promoting your brand).
Add AI-Driven Personalization to Your Site Now
Like any new relationship, you must strive to build trust with your leads. Lead nurturing tactics should use content, conversations, and data to work with the power of AI. Artificial intelligence is the only way to nurture leads at any stage of the sales funnel – whether you’ve collected their email or not.
Learn how adding an AI engine can increase lead conversions by 51% and lead quality by 59%!
