Mapping Email Content to the 5 Stages of the B2B Customer Buying Cycle: The SLMA

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Mapping Email Content to the 5 Stages of the B2B Customer Buying Cycle

Paula Chiocchi | Articles > From the section: E-Marketing

June, 2015 |

by Paula Chiocchi, President and Founder, Outward Media, Inc.

It’s widely known that email represents an excellent way to generate sales leads that may ultimately turn into customers – and revenue. That’s why most B2B marketers maintain an email database of prospects who have awareness of their organization, but have yet to be converted into customers. Maybe these prospects have downloaded an asset, such as a white paper or an e-book, and your sales team has contacted them but were perhaps told that the prospect was not yet ready to pull the purchase trigger. So what’s the next step?

Once a prospect is in your database, it’s incumbent upon marketers to nurture the lead through the buying cycle to turn them into a warm lead for your sales team. The key is to understand where your prospects are in their buying journey and provide them with content that aligns accordingly. Indeed, research shows that nurturing leads -- keeping them engaged with your content on an ongoing basis and gradually introducing them to more advanced stages of the sales cycle -- can yield better response results and benefit your bottom line.

How does lead nurturing move the sales needle? Consider that, on average, organizations that nurture their leads experience a 45% lift in lead generation ROI over those organizations that do not. Also, lead nurturing is said to generate nearly three times more clicks than standard email blasts. And lastly, an estimated 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. The reason? Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of poor lead performance.

It should be clear by now that it’s critical to know how to cultivate your leads in order to increase your chances of turning prospects into customers. To get started, take a close look at these five stages of the customer buying cycle, and then take the time to map out a strategy for targeting your content for each one:

Pre-Funnel: Awareness: Your prospect has a problem. She searches for a solution, but isn’t quite sure what she’s looking for yet. Your company comes up in her search results thanks to your relevant content. Alternatively, you might have an initial purchased list of professionals within a general profession who might share similar, common challenges. Ideal email content for this stage would be general topical emails that include blog posts, articles, social media and other noncommittal and helpful offers.
Top of the Funnel: Interest: Leads might respond to your initial, general email messages or come to your website via search with a specific purpose, such as an asset landing page. In most cases, they are looking for a potential solution to their problem. Email content in this phase might emphasize e-books, white papers, introductory webinars and other offers that help to educate the prospect on your solutions and company.
Middle of the Funnel: Consideration: Now that your lead knows what she wants, she begins to consider which company best suits her needs. In this stage, you can encourage your lead to select your offerings through emails featuring case studies, video product demos, announcements of awards, media coverage or other recognition, and any other content that helps to set your company apart from your competition.
Bottom of the Funnel: Purchase: After perusing your materials, your lead has decided you’re the best fit for their organization. However, she now needs to know why she should buy from you NOW. You can answer this question in this segment of the buying cycle with emails focused on customer testimonials, more advanced webinars, analyst reports and other content that ensures the lead that she is making the right decision by purchasing your product or service. To further entice action at this stage, special time-limited offers, discounts or other promotions can be included in email communications.
After the Funnel: Delight: Great news -- your lead converted into a paying customer! But wait; this is not the time for marketers to move on. In fact, it’s only the beginning of a new sales cycle. Now the goal is to keep your customer engaged with great customer service, and to encourage positive reviews or testimonials – as well as social media shares – so when it’s time to renew or purchase additional products, she will recognize that your company is a brand she trusts. Emails in this stage can offer to upsell or upgrade your customers, or send additional discounts. You can also send her the accolades your company has gained since her last purchase, as well as your company newsletter with expert use tips and tricks, and remind her of your company’s overall excellence and superiority.

Effective implementation of lead nurturing is proven to work, and it's a far superior way to move your leads through the sales funnel compared to general email blasts. That’s because nurturing is personalized, catered to a prospect’s point in the sales cycle, and it keeps your company and products top of mind as potential customers evaluate a purchase. Indeed, lead stage segmentation should be an essential component of your email marketing strategy because it ensures your leads receive pertinent information about your business – at precisely the right time they need it.

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About the Author: Paula Chiocchi, president and founder of Outward Media, Inc. (OMI), is a marketing industry veteran whose mission is to help businesses realize their full potential by effectively reaching their target audiences and converting more prospects into customers. Under her direction, in 2012 the company launched BizFACTZ, a cost-effective, self-service platform that gives clients fresh, accurate contact data to fuel marketing campaigns and drive sales and profits. An expert and innovator in multi-channel marketing data, Chiocchi began her career with Dun & Bradstreet.

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