It's that time of year, marketing activities are reaping opportunities. For leads(accounts?) that are not ready to purchase or will not have the budget available until a later date, marketing and sales need a nurture and follow up process. 

Marketing to these accounts is equally as important as identifying new opportunities. The difficult challenges of awareness and qualification have been overcome. Turning these existing leads into opportunities is a relatively low hanging fruit and important for showing the best possible ROI from marketing campaigns.

When dealing with large companies in enterprise B2B there is often a limited number of organisations of the size and scope for a good lead. Nurturing these leads becomes particularly important as they cannot easily be replaced.

Here are 5 ways B2B companies can master the art of lead nurture

1. Make sure it's relevant and applicable to THEM 

 Relevance and timeliness are rated as highly important by 63% of both decision-makers and C-level executives. 

Nurture should be customer-centric. Understand the companies challenges and base your follow up on this. Your nurture also needs to be timely, link your follow up with developments and relevant news. 

2. Be a leader, provide useful insights on industry trends 

78% of decision-makers find industry insights valuable.

 Provide insights on specific trends and challenges within the target customers industry, include an analysis of the causes and drivers of current events. Specific relevant nurture shows you understand the prospect's problems, industry insights show you have the expertise to solve them.

3. Keep it short & easy to understand 

71% of budget holders prefer short, easily consumable content

It's tempting to commit to all-encompassing guides, whitepapers and other hero content. These are very useful in their own way but for nurturing leads, where the prospect's motivation is low, short and to the point insights perform better.

4. Have it delivered by a trusted source 

84 percent of decision makers find a trusted source very important when consuming content

Businesses buy from brands, but it is the people within those brands that purchasers trust. Nurture from a trusted person is far more likely to hit home than from a corporate brand. I would include here the medium the nurture is conducted through. 

Email may be the obvious go-to for nurture, but if prospects trust social networks more - that is the place to reach them.

5. Keep it fresh - keep it current

Focusing on what's happening now gives you more meaningful touchpoints and establishes your brand as a leader. Providing a unique opinion on current developments creates a more memorable and therefore a more effective nurture strategy.

Data & research from Edelman.com - The Impact of Thought Leadership on B2B Demand Generation