Once you’ve identified and attracted promising leads to your social media or website, of course the work doesn’t end there. Most leads you have right now, just aren’t ready to buy, they need to get to know you, your company and the products and services you offer.
What you can do, however, is to keep those leads interested and engaged with your company to the point that, when they are ready to buy, their choice is a no-brainer. So, in order to turn leads into actual customers, it’s important to keep their attention and to keep them interested through careful investments in specific and personalized content creation and marketing technology to deliver that content.
Leads that are nurtured produce 50% more sales, create 20% more sales opportunities, improve click-through rates and make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
Automatic lead nurturing
Automatic lead nurturing is a useful tool that allows you to send personalized content that is relevant to the lead because their own actions are the trigger for your messages. Once an automatic nurturing system is set up, it can be linked to all your existing marketing content.
Lead nurturing best practices means that you send the appropriate content at the right time to the leads that require it. Using technology means that you are freeing up your time to work on your hottest leads in person. With the most repetitive and common marketing tasks automated, you can spend your and your team’s time working on more ambitious projects.
With automated online lead nurturing, your content can be timed perfectly to follow specific actions from your lead. For example, if your lead reads your blog then you can send them a webinar or a timed email, when they can provide the most value for your lead.
Content can be created to fit different types of leads, from new leads to warm leads to cooler leads to actual customers, giving them the content that will be the most meaningful to them.
For instance, new leads would be sent helpful blog posts, invitations to events and webinars and visuals like infographics, while cooler leads would be sent personalized emails with special offers, buyer’s guides and sales proposals, and customers can be sent training information, product updates and renewal notices.
Companies such as Pardot have built lead development programs that easily let you create any number of different campaigns for specific leads, with differing levels of complexity, from leads generated during events and trade shows, campaigns directed towards clients of your competitors, campaigns to re-awaken inactive leads, campaigns for existing customers to renew, and campaigns for upselling.
So for all of your leads that need time before they are ready to buy, it is crucial to keep on top of them with relevant content, building your relationship naturally, and by providing real value. Automated lead nurturing allows you to do this with all your leads, not just the hottest ones, freeing your time up for bigger and better projects to boost your business.
