5 Types Of Lead Nurture Campaigns In Oracle Eloqua

It’s an exciting time to be part of this world. Buyers are becoming more sophisticated, active, and more engaged than ever before. At the same time, the progress of technology enables us to know, captivate and nurture our customers better and better.

In today’s digital world, however, nothing replaces the human touch.

As smartphones and laptops take over daily interactions, the desire to speak to a human in real life or over the phone is becoming a novelty. As for automation and artificial intelligence, those are becoming increasingly important to the world of marketing, as they can significantly change how marketers work, both in terms of customer engagement and productivity.

Whether it is marketing or sales, the roles involved with generating revenue streams are starting to resemble a hybrid mix of data science and creativity.

As humans, we are constantly creating and have become rather good at it. That is why much research has shown that AI allows us to pay attention to data interpretation and focus on design strategies.

The relationship between humans and AI is one of enhancement, not a replacement.

Single View of the Customer

In the new era of marketing and sales powered by technology and AI, one path emerges triumphant: decision-making with people in mind. When all teams in an organization are open to data sharing and transparent collaboration, companies complete their journey to solid ABM (Account-Based Marketing).

In this perspective, research has shown that 82% of buyers expect the same treatment in business purchases as they experience in personal life. Consolidating and aggregating customer data from all channels will provide marketing with a 360 view of the customer, supplying insight and knowledge to build deeper customer profiles.

Across a wide range of businesses, customers generate increasing profits each year they stay with a company. According to research done by Frederick Reichheld, in financial services, a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit.

Nurturing automated and customer-tailored journeys is much more efficient (less expensive) and intrusive (for the customer) than old “phone-based” cold calling tactics in terms of customer acquisition. Keeping an eye on the result, a report from Forrester shows that lead nurturing results in over 50% increase in sales, at a reduced cost of 33%; thus, driving retention and loyalty will have a long tale effect on ROI.

Types of Lead Nurture Campaigns

1. Welcome Nurture Campaigns

Welcome campaigns can promote educational content that introduces products and provides more information. The goal of this kind of campaign is to keep contacts engaged.

By turning welcome emails into a nurture campaign, you can introduce new prospects to your company at a comfortable pace instead of flooding them with information right off the bat.

To start the conversation in a perspective manner, the customers quickly need to find product benefits and find out what they should expect from you in the future.

A representative example of a welcome email can make a powerful impact through bright colors, while in terms of content, its recipient can quickly see the main reasons why they should buy and use different offerings. In the end, the email may offer the possibility to contact a sales representative through a form. At the bottom, social media icons should be featured, as these are particularly important in building the social media community.

If visualized sections and bold color schemes aren’t fitted to your brand, however, a welcome email can also be more straightforward and efficient. It can be personalized by automatically adding the contact’s first name from the Eloqua database and may contain a link to a page that offers more information, complementary to the text message intended to be sent.

2. Post-Welcome Nurture Campaigns

In the Awareness phase, contacts need to truly know the products and the company. This type of campaign needs to keep the brand on top of prospects’ minds.

In this phase, the prospect needs more time to understand products, and you need to offer them sufficient options from the portfolio. Your aim for this campaign type should be to focus on less informative messages but rather more intense in communicating products’ and services’ value.

This campaign type should promote resources, such as webinars, infographics, white papers, videos, or blog posts. Let’s glance at two examples of assets to be used in such a post-welcome campaign.

For starters, let’s assume you’d like to send an email promoting a valuable piece of content. You may want to include a catchy image, a straightforward title… and a question! The remainder of the email would then clearly state how your content answers this question. Similarly, a Landing Page specifically built to gather further information about potential customers can serve the same purpose as long as it offers valuable information.

3. Competitive Nurture Campaigns

While in earlier campaigns, you gave all the information about the prospect of choosing company products, in the competitive campaign type, you need to provide contacts with the disadvantages of not using your companies’ products.

If your opportunity is still indecisive between your products and another competitor’s offer, you need to prove why your products and/or services are the best choice.

A good scenario in this campaign is introducing a survey on a landing page and asking your prospects to answer the essential features they are looking for. After the survey, make sure to put them in touch with a Telemarketing person.

Let’s look at an example.

Assume you are sending a follow-up email from an online seminar, and you would like to offer attendees the possibility to provide feedback. Here, a contact receives a brief email and clicks the CTA to share their opinion about the quality of the webinar information. To take that survey, contacts are redirected to a landing page and are glad to have a voice and pass this information to the company.

4. Reassurance Nurture Campaigns

Most of the time, prospects will need reassurance that they are making the best decision in purchasing products. Thus, this campaign needs to promote press releases, industry reports, or any top 4 high traffic content pieces.

Those kinds of prospects receiving this kind of campaign are remarkably close to buying from companies, but they have simply not decided yet. Price may not be an issue for these subscribers, and they need reassurance that they are purchasing the right product. Now would be the time to send them a bold email with a very clear CTA.

5. Loyalty/Retention Nurture Campaigns

Once the prospect becomes a client, you need to make sure you don’t lose contact with them. You need to consider a campaign that supports their retention. In more detail, you need to continue offering tips and tricks to get the best of the products/services.

Running this type of campaign will also allow you to capture more activity data. This could help alert you of any potential lack of activity that indicates at-risk customers.

Examples of such types of campaigns may include brief emails promoting specific products by offering discounts and, in the same manner, showcasing product advantages.

Final thoughts

Ultimately, lead nurture campaigns are vital to successful inbound marketing strategies. They are initiatives that turn potential leads into conversions through education, awareness, and relationship-building.

Nurture campaigns are all about investing in audiences.

To secure loyal audiences, you need to establish beneficial relationships for both brands and customers. We hope our insights on various types of nurture campaigns can offer a framework for your future marketing automation endeavors.

This article is the first part of a series of informative insights exploring lead nurture campaign configuration in Eloqua. Stay tuned for more similar material here, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about custom Eloqua configuration solutions.

Besides, if you are interested in exploring more of the technical side of things, this article on Email Nurture Configuration in Oracle Eloqua might be right up your alley.