B2B Lead Nurturing Tips for Sales-Ready Leads

If only there were a way to engage with prospects for better customer retention, loyalty and improved revenue...

There certainly is! It’s called B2B lead nurturing, and it can help you develop meaningful relationships with potential customers throughout the funnel. 

In this guide, we’re exploring:

• The lead nurturing definition.
• Why a marketing nurture is important.
• How to implement a strategy that nurtures leads.
• Tips for launching a successful nurture campaign. 

With added insight from Christelle Fraysse, former Chief Marketing Officer at Workbooks.com, now Senior Director of Marketing in EMEA at Dynatrace.

Let’s start 👇

What is the definition of lead nurturing

B2B Lead nurturing is the process of building and maintaining customer relationships through marketing and communication. The goal is to move ideal customers down the sales funnel until they’re ready to buy.

It’s very rare for prospective buyers to arrive on a company website with the express intention of purchasing a product or service.

Prospects often want to learn more about the company and compare them to the competition. They will have many questions and will constantly check to see if your product or service has what it takes to solve their pain points.

Here is what good B2B lead nurturing must do:

It must answer questions and position your product as the ultimate solution to your prospective customers’ challenges.

What are the benefits of a B2B lead nurture?

Usually, B2B companies look to improve the quality of the leads handed over to sales (taking non-nurtured leads to a “sales-ready” stage - which generally goes hand-in-hand with lead scoring - ranking your leads on a readiness scale until they reach a certain threshold).

B2B lead nurturing is essential for creating connections, solving customer challenges and providing support and value in a personalised way.

To start lead nurturing, you need to dig into your buyer journeys. Ask yourself the following key questions:

• How did they find your products/service?
• Where do they look online for information?
• How do they evaluate which products are suitable for their business?
• What steps do they take through their discovery journey?
• What content are they engaging with?

The more you know, the better your nurturing programme will be!

One of the ways to get this information is to speak to those loyal customers who have just gone through your sales cycle.

Do this by setting up online surveys or virtual meetings. Review the journey with them: what they liked, didn’t like, and what added value to the process.

How to create successful email nurture campaigns?

A successful nurture campaign is about three things:

• Timeliness.
• Relevance.
• Personalisation.

To manage these three elements, you need to leverage the following:

Demographic data

In B2B, consider these factors: 

• What the prospect’s role is, their seniority and decision-making status.
• The type of company, the person, works at. Look for any specific trends or drivers in that industry that match your offering.
• Company size - are they enterprise or SMB?

Behavioural data

The questions you need to ask are:

• What did the prospect do to enter the lead nurturing program?
• Did they purchase anything in the past? If so, what and when?
• How have they engaged with you before?
• What are their preferences?

Personalisation

All demographic and behavioural data could be a source of personalisation, ensuring that your lead nuturing campaign is relevant and timely to each potential customer.

Without the right B2B technology and infrastructure to support execution, personalisation can quickly become very complex.

For example, if you personalise our B2B marketing based on demographics, behavioural data and the lead score, multiple paths of nurture are possible:

• If the prospect is a marketer in a manufacturing business, then the nurture path is A.
• If the prospect is a salesperson in the same manufacturing business, then the nurture path is B.

You can see how it can very quickly become complex! 

Christelle’s advice:

“Don’t do this with Excel! It will soon become a logistical nightmare. Ensure you have the technology to support you in execution, such as a CRM with a proper email nurture tool.

Consider leveraging dynamic content within your emails to simplify your workflow design. Once you have built your workflows in the tool (incorporating different channels), the nurture will run automatically, saving you time.”

Data capture

Think about the details of your lead nurturing strategy. A vital component is B2B data capture: finding out more about your prospect to make your B2B lead nurture even more targeted.

Christelle says: 

“If you already have their data in your CRM (from, say, a form fill), then there’s no need to request this again during your nurture campaign."

"This is the perfect opportunity to offer ungated or “free” content different from what you’ve used at the top of the B2B marketing funnel. Offer your prospects something exclusive, making it easy and frictionless for your prospects to engage with you.”

Timings

How often should you send nurture emails? 

The length of time to leave between each lead nurturing campaign will vary. It could be anything from every day, every five days, or every two weeks.

Channels

What channel(s) should you use when implementing your lead nurturing strategies, and how should you combine them?

It’s all about where your ideal buyers spend their time. Your strategy could include blogs, videos and social media promotions. You’ll know which lead source channels to use after researching your customer journey and buyers’ preferences.

10 tips for an effective lead nurturing process

B2B lead nurturing isn’t all about writing and sending emails. It’s a carefully crafted strategy that guides prospects through each step of the sales process.

The goal is to move or nurture sales leads all the way through the sales funnel to conversion. Think of it as a well-choreographed dance; each move designed to drive action and keep momentum going.

Here are our top tips for creating an effective lead nurturing process:

1. Make it relevant

Any lead nurturing email sequence you run must be relevant to the target audience. Sending blanket emails is never a good idea! 

Personalised outreach is important, but you can go beyond that. A good thing to do is anchor your B2B lead nurture around the prospect’s pain points. It should be answering questions or solving pain points.

Remember that pain points can differ depending on the industry or even the lead’s role. The pain points for a salesperson will be different from those of a marketer.

For example, CEOs have a very particular set of pain points that differ greatly from others.

2. Deliver value

With an email nurture campaign sometimes, B2B sales reps can be too quick to sell straight away.

A much better approach is to engage your leads at the start with relevant, valuable content. Offer them something that will help them or answer their questions.

Education is pivotal to good B2B lead nurturing. Different types of content work better at certain junctures in the nurture sequence. It depends on what your goal is.

3. Anticipate behaviours

So much of B2B lead nurturing is about predicting how people will behave.

Which actions are people going to take?

A good lead nurturing email cadence should have branches for people to go down.

But, there must always be a ‘golden path’ you want your leads to follow. Every branch must guide them back to that path.

Don’t be afraid of giving your leads options. You can learn a great deal from the options that people choose. Then, you can use those insights to optimise your lead nurturing emails.

Don’t set your sequences in stone; you should always look to improve them. Track them regularly and keep going back and making changes based on how your potential leads behave.

4. Don’t rush

Be sure to give your leads time.

Don’t rush your lead nurturing funnel.

The idea is to keep your company in a hot lead’s mind without bombarding them with marketing emails. If they get too many messages early on, they will likely unsubscribe.

5. Tailor your sending times

Like pain points, the times you send the emails in your sequence can differ depending on the industry.

There’s no exact science to this, but, in general, we’ve found the best time to send B2B emails is:

• Salespeople respond at early morning, such as 9 and 11 am (Salesforce, 2025).
• Marketers tend to respond best in the afternoon (RDMarketing, 2025).

6. Be varied

Excellent nurture email marketing should have something for everyone!

Include as many different types of content as you can. Blogs, videos, webinars, animations - variety is the spice of lead nurture life!

Not everyone will open your email - but if you include as much variety as possible, you’ll maximise your chances.

7. A/B test everything

Experiment with everything in your B2B lead nurturing sequences. Try out different banners, copy, and CTAs. Do buttons work best, or do text links? These are questions that only A/B testing can answer.

8. Expand your touchpoints

An effective nurturing email campaign should expand your leads’ touchpoints with your company. You want them to be interacting with your brand everywhere!

Don’t be afraid to have other channels as your CTA. You could include links to your social media pages or a subscribe button to your YouTube channel. If you’re hosting webinars or podcasts, you can link out to them, too.

9. Scale over time

Sometimes you’ll find that leads aren’t engaging with your nurture but won’t unsubscribe. If that’s happening by the third or fourth week of the sequence, you need to scale it up!

10. Have a common thread

Having a common thread throughout your email nurture campaign is good. A motif like this ties your sequence together and gives your targeted leads a seamless first experience with your brand.

Need help creating cadences that convert? This video will get you on the right track 👇

Nurture emails key takeway

B2B lead nurturing is all about guiding prospects through the funnel by delivering timely, relevant, and personalised content that addresses their specific challenges.

A successful strategy starts with understanding the buyer journey and collecting the right data, both demographic and behavioural.

To nurture leads effectively:

• Use a CRM and email automation tools to manage complexity.
• Personalise content based on roles, industries, and engagement signals.
• Choose the right cadence and channels based on audience behaviour.
• Mix content formats (blogs, webinars, case studies) to increase touchpoints.
• Test everything: from subject lines to send times, and optimise regularly.
• Align sales and marketing on what defines a “sales-ready” lead.
• Review and update nurture sequences quarterly to keep them effective.

Christelle Fraysse’s advice?

Don’t overcomplicate it manually: Use tech, test often, and stay focused on adding value. Better nurturing = better leads = better pipeline.

FAQs

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