Lead nurturing is a delicate and complex process.
On the surface, it seems simple: a prospect converts into a lead, you nurture with relevant content to guide them toward a purchase, you continue nurturing to prevent churn, and so on.
In reality, it’s nearly impossible to nail down a finite buyer’s journey.
Look at this example from Gartner:
One buyer on a team might download a whitepaper. Another will have a discussion with your brand on LinkedIn. Meanwhile, someone at the C-level on the team might be replaced and the budget will be reworked.
With up to 10 team members participating in each buying process, how do you figure out who to target and when with the best lead nurturing strategies?
You can’t.
That’s why buyers are surprising sales teams when they jump forward and convert before sales even realize they exist. It’s a big problem, and AI is the missing link you need to nurture leads the right way in 2020.
Why You Need AI to Create the Best Lead Nurturing Strategies
AI works because it can run through massive data sets much more efficiently than humans can. Artificial intelligence can also notice subtle behavioral patterns humans would never notice.
Plus, it gets better at its job the longer you implement it so you’re always running the best lead nurturing strategies that just keep improving.
1. You’ll Only Collect High-Quality Leads
Of all the leads you collect and spend time (and money) nurturing, how many would you say end up converting? If you’re like most B2Bs, less than a third of leads passed off to your sales team is qualified.
Relying on artificial intelligence for on-site lead nurturing lets you remove forms from your landing pages. Leads can still provide an email address to stay in touch when they’re ready, but ONLY when they’re ready.
That’s why using AI to generate leads boosts lead quality by 59%.
2. You Won’t Have to Deal with Inaccurate Data
Artificial intelligence also solves the issue of bad data at its source. You can’t create the best lead nurturing strategies if your data is wrong – and statistics say it probably is.
An estimated 80% of organizations will ditch their personalization strategies within the next five years due to poor data. Bad intel is costly, and 62% of businesses are already using data that is up to 40% wrong to guide their strategies.
AI starts nurturing leads from the second they visit your website: no more waiting for email addresses to follow up. And when they sign up, AI makes sure their email address is valid and belongs to a human buyer while filling in all the gaps.
3. AI Meets the Demand to Help Leads Research
B2B buyers want to find all the content they need on your website. They don’t want to send an email or pick up a phone.
Meanwhile, 73% of buyers are busy and have less time to sort through content looking for what they need. They certainly don’t want to fill out a form when they finally arrive at a blog post that looks helpful.
During the sales process, a buyer will consume 13 pieces of content from your brand on average. Buyers say you can make their life easier by categorizing your content by pain point, issue, and/or vertical.
Artificial intelligence does that for you through an Adaptive Content Hub. Not only is your content organized with useful categories, but machine learning also studies your visitor’s behavior and helps them find exactly what they need – just like Amazon.
4. It Lets You Engage Leads Across Every Touchpoint
Once a visitor reads a few content assets on your website, you can learn a few things about them: their stage of the buying cycle, industry, pain points, where they work.
You can also use AI-offsite to create the best lead nurturing strategies with retargeting.
Facebook Pixel lets you target your website visitors based on their behavior across the internet. This comes in handy for tracking brand awareness, too. LinkedIn retargeting is another useful tool.
5. It Pushes Leads Through the Buyer’s Journey Before They Ever Contact You
AI and machine learning provide another useful feature: their algorithms are designed to recommend content that gently pushes them down the sales cycle.
Using behavioral data from each visitor’s session history, previous similar visitors, and intent data, AI can adapt which content assets it recommends anytime.
In other words, it doesn’t matter how convoluted the buyer’s journey gets because AI will always adjust its tactics as soon as it notices a micro-change in behavior.
6. AI is More Affordable Than Traditional Lead Nurturing Strategies
Traditional lead nurturing is outdated, inefficient, and expensive.
Individually, things like PPC, email marketing, and social media aren’t necessarily expensive. When you’re putting your effort into non-qualified leads though, that’s another story.
Hushly’s AI engine, for example, only charges a flat price per lead – and only genuine leads, not fake ones. You never have to pay to use the platform or add it to your site.
Your sales and marketing teams can free up hundreds of hours each year they spend on hunting down low-quality leads. Instead, they can focus on creating the best lead nurturing strategies for high-quality leads.
Finally, the numbers speak for themselves: advanced personalization delivers $20 ROI for every $1 spent.
7. You Can Create the Best Lead Nurturing Strategies for ABM
Eighty-nine percent of B2B companies are running ABM strategies now and most of them are less than five years old. A whopping 68% of them rely on automation.
Without AI and machine learning, it’s impossible for small and medium-sized businesses to target the right accounts at the right time. You simply can’t whip up the resources to figure out all the essential data because it changes so often.
Artificial intelligence uses a myriad of data from several sources, including your on-site behavior, to identify key firmographics and recommend the perfect content.
Meet the AI Behind the New Lead Nurturing Best Practices
Artificial intelligence is incredibly simple to implement. Once you start running the Hushly AI engine on your site, lead conversions immediately jump by 51% – guaranteed. That’s how easy it is to completely transform your digital experience and reap the benefits of personalization.
Revolutionize your tactics with the best lead nurturing strategies. See how the Hushly AI works and sign up now.
